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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 18472" data-attributes="member: 22">07/Nov/85: KNOTS LANDING: Awakenings v. 08/Nov/85: DALLAS: Quandary v. 08/Nov/85: FALCON CREST: Sharps and FlatsTwo of Soap Land’s newest marriages are in trouble this week. On KNOTS LANDING, Joshua and Cathy’s relationship grows increasingly violent. First, Cathy pushes Joshua fully-clothed into the shower after smelling another woman’s perfume on him. Then later, Joshua, believing Cathy has upstaged him on his own TV show, lures her to an alley where he slams her against a wall. She manages to fight him off before he can inflict further damage on her. The tone is more comedic on DALLAS where Jamie, angry over Cliff’s continued obsession with beating the Ewings, moves in with her brother and repeatedly puts the phone down on him, just as Laura continues to do to Greg on KNOTS.The prospect of marriage is raised in all three soaps this week, each time met with a qualified response. When Peter Stavros proposes to Angela for the second time in two weeks, she is hesitant — until he makes it clear that she won’t get her hands on the rest of Falcon Crest until they are man and wife. “I want to be with you … and someday, lady, hopefully, to marry you,” a newly divorced Dusty tells Sue Ellen on DALLAS. “In AA, they teach me to take it one day at a time,” she replies. "There are no promises.” Meanwhile, the romantic lives of Ben Gibson in KNOTS and Mark Graison in DALLAS continue to run parallel. Each is in a relationship with a former Ewing wife still tangibly tied to her ex — Val by the twins she conceived with Gary, Pam by the partnership in Ewing Oil she inherited from Bobby. This week, both men verbalise the obstacles they’re facing. “We don’t do anything anymore. We don’t talk anymore. You don’t have time for me anymore,” Ben tells Val. "How are you going to put him in the past when you’re sitting in his chair every day?” Mark asks Pam. “You have chosen Bobby over me … I can’t compete with a ghost.” While Pam is unrepentant (“Maybe you shouldn’t have come back into my life,” she replies), Val is more conciliatory. “I think it’s time that we get married,” she suggests. This allows Ben to set some ground rules: “I want to be the babies’ father, Val … I want your promise that as far as you’re concerned, as far as everyone is concerned, I’m their real father.” It looks like Ben has the advantage over Mark here, but then the balance shifts in their respective episode’s final scenes. Just as Val is promising Ben that he will be the children's only father, we see the possibility finally dawn on Gary — who has stopped by the cul-de-sac with the decidedly DALLAS-style gift of mini-Stetsons for the twins — that he could be their father. Meanwhile, DALLAS concludes with a sexy make-up scene between Pam and Mark. She doesn’t apologise; she just barges into his bedroom, kicks off her shoes, climbs onto his bed and kisses him. This week’s FALCON CREST also finishes with a freeze-framed kiss, between Lance and Apollonia.In this week’s episodes, DALLAS’s Ray and FALCON CREST’s Angela each encounters a minority group that they would have just as soon avoided. Ray’s prejudices about Down’s Syndrome kids are overturned when he and Donna are introduced to a group of them playing soccer and their coach explains that “they really are a lot more like other children than unlike them.” Meanwhile, Angela happens upon Apollonia and a bunch of her musician friends at a pool party thrown by Lance at Falcon Crest. In spite of Lance’s insistence that “they’re talented and very successful … Someday I hope to be as good," she dismisses them all as aliens and layabouts. She is no more impressed by an abstract painting she later finds Peter hanging in their future marital bedroom. "Pablo gave it to me one summer when we were fishing in France,” he tells her.Real life kids with Down’s Syndrome bussed in for one scene just so that Ray Krebbs can have a personal insight; Susan Howard’s almost overpoweringly intense performance; violins playing sentimentally on the soundtrack — it’s easy to be cynical about the Krebbs’ current storyline on DALLAS. This time around, I've really tried to watch these scenes with an open mind, but they still leave me kind of cold. Perhaps it has less to do with the scenes themselves than the wider context in which they appear. This week’s DALLAS is also the episode that formally introduces the series' most gloriously absurd character thus far, Angelica Nero. The contrast between the earnest sincerity of the Krebbses' story and the inherent superficiality of Angelica slinking around in her Travilla gowns (“A lot of people are surprised at me being Chief Executive Officer of Marinos Shipping” — ya don’t say) is just too jarring. Watching both concurrently is a bit like eating alternate mouthfuls of roast chicken and apple pie.In the new-character-with-a-mysterious-agenda stakes, DALLAS’s Angelica (“For our plan to work, JR Ewing must come to us!”) just edges ahead of KNOTS LANDING's Peter Hollister whom we see lurking in doorways eavesdropping on Greg and Abby, then taking it upon himself to cover their tracks in order to prevent Gary finding what they’ve been up to at Empire Valley.While JR has dinner with Angelica Nero to discuss doing business with Marinos Shipping (aka "the biggest oil tanker company in the world”), FALCON CREST’s Chase breaks bread with Connie Giannini to discuss a joint venture with Antoine Du Mauriac (aka "the greatest champagne maker in the world”). In both scenes, the business details take second place to more soapy matters. While Angelica is distracted by Jack Ewing’s arrival in the restaurant ("Jack is definitely our man!” she subsequently informs her assistant over the phone), Maggie is silently fixated by Connie who sits across the table from her. Her preoccupation is conveyed very effectively by a high-pitched ringing on the soundtrack, which recalls — appropriately enough — the sound of a finger rubbing the rim of a wine glass. The scene leads directly to Maggie getting her memory back and thereby triumphing over DYNASTY’s Fallon in the Soap Land Battle of the Amnesiacs.This brings us to the 85/86 season's first round of Soap Land Song Wars, which pits KNOTS LANDING’s Cathy against FALCON CREST’s Apollonia. Cathy appears on Joshua’s TV show singing a cover of Corey Hart’s generic rock ballad, 'Never Surrender’. Its theme of empowerment isn't especially religious — an indication, perhaps, of Joshua’s waning importance in his own show (which we finally learn has the daytime soapy name of A Better Tomorrow). While Joshua angrily resents Cathy’s singing career, Lance Cumson is financing Apollonia’s — hence, the recording studio scene where she performs a pretty candyfloss confection called (I’m guessing) 'Real Life Romeo’. A second, more forgettable Apollonia number, 'Fire in My Eyes’, plays over a montage of Lance touting her demo to various record companies without any success. (Too bad for him he doesn’t have a Kenny Ward living at the bottom of his cul-de-sac.) Therefore, the winner of this week’s Song Wars is, surprisingly, Apollonia.And this week’s Top 3 are …1 (2) KNOTS LANDING2 (1) DALLAS3 (-) FALCON CREST</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?