How David Jacobs Would Have Saved Dynasty

[Monzo]

In a February 1985 TV Guide article, David Jacobs and Esther Shapiro were asked what they would do differently with each other's shows.



While Esther Shapiro primarily advocated giving the women on Dallas much more power, David Jacobs saw weaknesses in Dynasty—weaknesses that would indeed later cause ratings problems. "They are adding too many people", Jacobs complained regarding Dynasty. "What has to happen to Dynasty at some point is that it has to focus on the story... Dallas is about money, while Dynasty is about things money can buy." Jacobs argued that the Dynasty characters were too wealthy for the audience to care about them.

Should Esther Shapiro have taken David Jacobs' comments to heart, or was it good that she stayed true to her vision?

 

[Werewillie Oleson]

Dallas is about money, while Dynasty is about things money can buy."

It can be specified as both soaps being about prestige, with the difference that the prestige in Dynasty was already achieved (the Rockefellers of Colorado) while Dallas was prestige in the making.
Whereas JR would really want to have Lankershim-Blaisdel, in the case of Blake Carrington it was more about control and loyalty. The nerve that anyone would defy the mighty Carrington tycoon!
It gives the Dallas business soap more longevity because they only had to come up with new "projects". Dynasty could not repeat that one storyline over and over again.

I guess a lot of Dynasty's status fetishism disappeared when they started to focus on the mansion, basically erasing the sounding board of real-life Denver.
So while Dynasty increased the opulence in terms of objects it became a less prestigious drama. Dallas continued its craving for more, financially but also psychologically since JR had the prestigious image of his father to live up to. And it was never going to be enough.
Dynasty had the pilosophy of the "million dollar spit in the ocean" and there was the arranged marriage to save Denver-Carrington. It does indeed feel very aristocratic and it's not the same as actually mortgaging Southfork.
But Dynasty didn't need to be faithful to the premise of Dallas. It was good when it was convincingly bitchy.

(but then the episode also spends a lot of time on characters talking about Amanda's happiness/unhappiness and it's SO boring).

 

[Rove]

In part I agree with Esther how the women on Dallas were written sometimes however when I compare the female characters on both shows I'd argue the ladies on Dallas were written with depth and offered material that viewers could relate to. The female characters on Dynasty were one dimensional and only intended to wear furs, jewels and throw shade at each other...which becomes repetitive.

The very character which put Dynasty on the world map was Alexis and her introduction was a masterstroke but instead of delving deeper into her background and her hatred of Blake the writers quickly married her off to Cecil so she could be on a level playing field with Blake...and afford those furs, jewels and trade barbs with Krystle.

David Jacobs is correct when he refers to Dynasty as having too much clutter however I'd argue where Dynasty lost me was the recast of the Carrington children...horrible.