12/Jan/81: DYNASTY: Oil v. 13/Jan/81: FLAMINGO ROAD: Illicit Weekend v. 15/Jan/81: KNOTS LANDING: Scapegoats v. 16/Jan/81: DALLAS: End of the Road (1)
From DYNASTY's first moments, we are presented with a world far more opulent than that of the Ewings - the huge mansion, the immaculate grounds, the manicured lawns, the chauffeur, the harp, the orchestra. Alex Ward's romantic gestures towards Pam in last week's episode of DALLAS now seem rather quaint. Filling Pam's office with flowers? Blake Carrington buys out an entire florists for fiancee Krystle. Hiring out a restaurant for an intimate dinner? Blake's private jet flies him and Krystle from Denver to San Francisco when she expresses a hankering for Chinese food.
And yet … if private jets and fancy houses were all there was to the show, it would be nothing. Instead, the celebration of luxury is undercut at every turn. Sure, Krystle regards her new surroundings with wonder, but it's a wonder tempered with fear. The Carringtons may live, or attempt to live, in a fairy tale world, but the show itself does not. The pilot episode addresses "taboo" topics the other soaps have barely acknowledged (if at all), much less spoken about in such irreverent terms: race ("At the upper management level [of Denver Carrington]," announces Fallon airily, "there are no blacks, no Jews, no Eskimos and no women"), gays ("Give a cheer for a queer," rallies Steven sarcastically, while Blake's line about "The Steven Carrington Institute for the Treatment and Study of Faggotry" makes JR's recent description of Lucy's ex-fiancee as "a pansy" seem positively demur), even female masturbation ("Women have sexual fantasies just like men," says Claudia, "except mine were always about you, Matthew"). Factor in references to Oscar Wilde, Ralph Nader, Oedipus Rex, Dorothy Parker, low sperm counts, "The Joy of Sex" and a genuinely witty debate about foreign oil policies, and you've got a sophisticated, intelligent show about sophisticated, intelligent people (or as sophisticated and intelligent as an '80s super soap can be). The closest DALLAS gets to a cultural reference this week is Bobby driving past a PRIVATE BENJAMIN poster on his way to work.
Aside from the Carringtons, there's the Blaisdel family who, in simplistic terms, provide the KNOTS factor. Like Gary and Val, Matthew and Claudia are the parents of a teenage daughter who are attempting to rebuild their life together after a period of estrangement. (Claudia has been in a psychiatric hospital for eighteen months, Matthew working in Saudi Arabia to pay for her treatment, and daughter Lindsay living with relatives.) Their family reunion, in a restaurant where Claudia has been working as a waitress, echoes that of Gary and co in "Reunion", (DALLAS Season 1) but is far more moving - due in large part to Katy Kurtzman's emotional, if mostly silent, performance as Lindsay.
The bedroom conversation that takes place between Matthew and Claudia on the day of Blake and Krystle's wedding is a "Scene from a Marriage" to rival any we've seen on KNOTS thus far. In a way, it's the conversation Gary and Val never had, where they address what happened to each of them during the time they spent apart, with specific reference to sex, and admit how disappointing that aspect of their marriage has been since getting back together. ("It's lousy, Matthew. It's got all the flash and fire of two snails mating." "Snails are hermaphroditic - they mate by themselves." "I'm beginning to understand why.")
Interestingly, the Blaisdel house looks a lot larger than any of those on the cul-de-sac. Maybe drilling for oil for Blake Carrington pays better than running your own car dealership, or maybe the fact that the Blaisdels' place is a real house (as opposed to a set) just means it photographs differently.
Matthew's old buddy Walter Lankershim is a still-operational, non-alcoholic Digger Barnes, an old school wildcatter who boasts of "finding oil with your nose". Matthew talks about how the last time he and Walter "went smelling for oil, it cost me thirty thousand dollars - plus I just barely missed spending six months in jail for stock fraud." We don't know how long ago that was, but maybe the precariousness of her husband's wildcatting contributed to Claudia's breakdown, just as it did that of Jock Ewing's first wife Amanda.
To be sure, at thrice the length of a regular episode, "Oil" is slow-going - more a gradual ooze than a series of eruptions. This was the first time I've tried to watch the whole thing in one go and I had to take a nap halfway through. Nonetheless, I love the melancholy pace. It seems to reflect the emotional state of the episode's outsiders -- Steven, Krystle, Matthew and Claudia, each of whom is isolated and lonely in a different way.
Left alone in the Carrington ballroom with Afferton, the wedding planner, Krystle seems dwarfed by her surroundings. Afferton does his best to humiliate her, sneering at her tentative suggestion that the Wedding March be played as she walks down the aisle. "Which one?" he asks. "The Mendelssohn or the Wagner?" Krystle looks clueless. "Neither is very au courant," he concludes. But then Steven emerges from the shadows to turn the tables on Mr A: "I think what Miss Jennings actually had in mind was something a little more obscure … Bach's Siciliano from his Flute Sonata in E-Flat Major. You do know it, don't you, Mr Afferton?" (You can bet your sweet assets no one at Southfork does.)
Over on KNOTS, Richard also uses classical music to discomfit. When Laura tries to broach the subject of his relationship with Abby, he drowns her out by playing Ravel's "Pavane for a Dead Princess" on his newfangled Walkman thingy.
Excitingly, the night after his lovely little turn as the affected Mr Afferton, Vernon Weddle shows up as a hotel concierge on FLAMINGO ROAD, brandishing a Southern accent thick as molasses. The hotel he works at is familiar too: it's the one JR took Kristin to for their "business" trip in "Return Engagements" (DALLAS Season 2) - the same episode where Gary and Val were spun off into KNOTS LANDING.
This time, the hotel is in Tallahassee, and "the illicit lovers" of the episode's title are Field Carlyle and Lane Ballou. To have FLAMINGO ROAD's Romeo and Juliet embark on an adulterous relationship turns the show's morality on its head. It's as if Bobby were married to the original Jenna Wade while having an affair with Pam on the side. Intriguingly, it also turns Constance, Field's rich bitch bride ("I want it all and I want it right now," she announces proudly), into the innocent party.
FLAMINGO ROAD and DALLAS both tease their audience this week by having a wife almost catch her husband in flagrante with another woman. Encouraged by Sheriff Titus, (anxious to nip Field's affair with Lane in the bud) an unsuspecting Constance flies up to Tallahassee to surprise her husband while wearing nothing more than a fur coat. As she knocks on his door of his hotel room, Field is in bed with Lane. At Southfork, Sue Ellen excuses herself from Lucy's wedding shower to fetch John Ross from upstairs … where JR is making out with John Ross's future mother-in-law, little Afton Cooper. In each case, the wife's discovery is deferred to a later episode.
There are two wedding showers in Soap Land this week: Lucy's and Krystle's. Given that Krystle's shower is also the very first time we see her, it's understandable that hers is the more significant occasion. We're introduced to Krystle through the eyes of her friends and work colleagues (including Sue Ellen's former obstetrician) who, when not swooning at a glimpse of the reptilian groom-to-be, cannot hide their sadness that Krystle's new life will inevitably remove her from their social orbit forever. At Lucy's shower, which takes place on the cardboard Southfork patio, everyone just giggles and makes jokes about stethoscopes. In fairness, it is her third engagement in as many years so it's hard for them to get too worked up about it.
And of course, both weddings have a rich/poor dynamic. Viewed in tandem, Krystle's and Mitch's competing descriptions of their impoverished backgrounds take on a Pythonesque quality: "I grew up in a place half this size," says Mitch, referring to his one room apartment. "I was raised in a town that's smaller than your dining room," Krystle tells Blake. Trust DYNASTY to go one bigger (or smaller).
DYNASTY's sexually provocative, spoiled princess, Fallon, effortlessly run rings round her prime time counterparts, Lucy and Constance. Her wisecracks are as incisive as they are relentless. (A personal favourite is the one she delivers to Krystle on the morning of her wedding when she has just been presented with a pre-marital property agreement: "Fact is, it reads a lot like the Bible - you brought nothing into this world and it is certain you can carry nothing out.")
My favourite scene in "Oil" is the one on the hillside where Matthew lies to Krystle about his feelings for her, an act of sacrifice both on her behalf and his family's. It's beautifully shot (Linda Evans never looked lovelier) and beautifully acted, with achingly poignant dialogue: "After you left, I told myself you were dead. Some days I wished you were" … "You've got hold of somethin' good, Krystle. Grab it around the middle and run with it" … "Truth isn't hard to say, just spit it out and kick dirt over it."
Something I never noticed before, part 1: There's an old-fashioned horse carriage parked in the Carrington garage. I can't imagine what practical use it might serve. Even though I hadn't registered it on previous viewings, I realise it's always given the scenes in the garage (Fallon "handling the servant problem", Blake's men beating up Walter) a kind of retro, UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS quality. For some reason, it also triggers a vague memory of the movie version of THE BETSY, or at least the ten minutes I saw of it when I was a kid. That memory's also there in the scene where Fallon finds Michael in her bath and holds his head under the water after he tries to blackmail her - it evokes a decadent, potboiler vibe that's somehow more Harold Robbins than Jackie Collins.
Something I never noticed before, part 2: As if to emphasise her defenceless state, Krystle walks up the aisle alone - no bridesmaids or maid of honour, no father figure to give her away.
Something I've never noticed before, part 3: At the end of the scene where Fallon beats Cecil at pool, there are no cutaways or camera inserts - we actually see Pamela Sue Martin pocket four balls with one shot. Impressive.
Something I thought I'd never noticed before: Blake referring to Walter as a little dick. Recourse to the subtitles reveals he actually calls him a lunatic.
While DYNASTY clearly wouldn't exist without DALLAS, what really sets it apart is its scale - not just in terms of wealth and opulence, but context: "Oil" takes place against an international (one might even say, a real world) backdrop: "I think you sold this country out, you and Colby and all the rest of you," Steven Carrington tells his father. "You didn't develop this country's resources when you had the chance to. No, you developed the Arabian fields instead because it was cheaper. You made billionaires out of the oil sheikhs."
It's hard to imagine dialogue like that on DALLAS, which is more concerned with its own history and mythology than what's going on in the world outside of it, much less on FLAMINGO ROAD which, save for the occasional contemporary reference, (such as Lute-Mae's incongruous attempt at aerobics in this week's ep) is so cut off from the modern world it could almost be set at the time the movie version was made - 1949.
Or could it? To my surprise, this week's episode of F'RD includes … placards! While not as extreme as the ones the Arab protestors are waving at the Denver Carrington jet as it leaves their country ("America Go Home!"), it turns out there's a strike at the Weldon mill. Already in financial difficulty, Claude Weldon is soon obliged to cede to the union's demands. "We all know that the secret of success in the South has been low labour costs," he sighs nostalgically. "Well, all that's changing now and where are we gonna go for profits? If we're gonna stay alive, we gotta modernise the plant … [New equipment] would cut labour costs in half." This statement neatly encapsulates a certain mindset of the early 80s, and interestingly, there's no counter-argument. Even Claude's wife Eudora - a weepier version of Miss Ellie - calls the workers' demands "exorbitant".
The union leader, named Jake Polanksi, (which has to be a reference to CHINATOWN: Roman Polanksi/Jake Gittes) appears only fleetingly and is played by DALLAS cartel member Wade Luce. (I tell ya, those cartel boys get everywhere - Andy Bradley, already recurring as a politician pal of Mark Graison's on F'LINGO RD, also finds time to slum it as one of Walter Lankershim's ragtag oil crew on this week's DYNASTY.)
As much as I love the way KNOTS LANDING will evolve over the years, "Scapegoats" is the one episode that makes me wonder what might have been: What if KNOTS had remained a show about four couples in a cul-de-sac? And what if Sid hadn't died? I would have been fascinated to see how Michael's hyperkenticness impacted the neighbourhood BRADY BUNCH in the long term. Sid and Karen's dynamic in this episode - each blaming the other for Michael's condition, each striking a raw nerve as they do so - is really interesting and rings so true to life. I love how, when passive Sid finally reacts to Michael's volatile behaviour during a beach volleyball game with the neighbours, assertive Karen suddenly thinks he's overreacting. It's classic parental yin and yang stuff, with the bewildered child caught in the middle. The bit where Michael runs off down the beach, Sid chasing after him, neither of them understanding what's happening - there's just something so moving, so primal about that. And the music's beautiful. Guess Claude Weldon must have settled the musicians' strike too. (Or maybe not - they're still using the generic score on DALLAS.)
As well as being the week DYNASTY arrived on TV and Afton arrived in DALLAS, (her first line: "You really got all that money?") this is also the week that Abby, to paraphrase Richard Avery, begins her climb up the ladder of success, not caring who she'll step on to reach the top. Yep, it's time for the Abster to put down the suntan lotion and start work as a part-time bookkeeper at Knots Landing Motors. For me, Abby's awakening begins when she's sitting in the back of Gary's car on the way to work, listening to Sid and Gary argue about their deal with Frank and Roy (who are sort of the KNOTS equivalent of DALLAS's Jeb Ames and Willie Joe Garr: the thinner, younger one mostly does the talking, the bigger, slower one mostly looks menacing). Later, Abby listens in to Gary's meeting with Frank and Roy and learns what deep doo-doo he's in - but she doesn't tell Gary straight out what she's heard. Instead, she drops hints and lets him come to her. Only then does she set out her stall: "I like what you're trying to do for Sid … I admire the way you go after what you want, and I love a little excitement."
Shoulder pads of the week: Fallon's one black one, one white one, as she bites the heads off the wedding cake bride and groom.
On DALLAS, Bobby has a week to raise $12,000,000 or incur the wrath of the cartel. On KNOTS, Gary has a week to raise $50,000 or incur the wrath of Frank and Roy. Enter JR: he's already hatched a plan with Jeremy Wendell to supply Bobby with the money he needs - but with a condition guaranteed to piss off Daddy and cost Bob the presidency of Ewing Oil. Meanwhile, Abby's already snuck a look at next week's cast list and it looks like JR's gonna be town for some big oil conference …
And the winner is … DYNASTY
followed by …
2. KNOTS LANDING
3. DALLAS
4. FLAMINGO ROAD