I do tend to think Dynasty fans overrate The Colby's a bit though
To me, personally, it was more of something that I truly loved. Regardless of the quality there was only an upside.
More realistically speaking - and a little older and wiser - there was no need for this spin-off and because of that it lacked the urgency that the other soaps had.
To watch them retroactively "come hell or high water" mould the spin-off reality into the Dynasty history can be a bit of painful experience in the first or first two episodes.
The overall narrative doesn't present the viewer with anything new and as you've pointed out this seems particularly jarring considering the timing of this new spin-off.
But shortly after its introduction the characters come to life and then you'll notice a difference in the tone of the show, or to be more precisely: the characters.
It's still very much a "dynasty" for the sake of being a "dynasty" and most characters look very familiar and yet, there's something distinctively different about the angle of these new characters.
It's almost as if the copycat had failed to copycat its parent show to the letter, and it's exactly
this what brings a new sort of excitement and suspense to the story.
Ironically, this not-exactly-the-same set up proves to be the major pet peeve of Dynasty fans who don't like The Colbys.
Because they only focus on something that isn't there "the way it should be" rather than embracing the Dynasty With A Twist.
And with that double argument of shameless copycat / it's too different from what I had expected it becomes a no-win situation.
Sable in season 2 is still very much about her relationship with Jason, but in a much more desperate and conniving way than Alexis did.
Alexis takes the throne and starts to attack, and this goes on and on and on. It was entertaining but as I mentioned before the urgency and build-up to this was inherent, regardless of the quality of the scripts etc.
The IMOS project and everyone involved, most notably the Cassidys, was well done - and I prefer to link it with the sci-fi stuff in the last episodes, but I wish the story
itself had done it. I don't mean going hardcore sci-fi but maybe something like KNOTS' aborted Empire Valley intrigue. You know, just to give THE COLBYS that extra flavour. It certainly wasn't the oil aspect that did the trick here (or in Dynasty, for that matter).
Several of the new characters were not as interesting as their DYNASTY counterparts in the early eighties, and especially Bliss and Zach could have been oomph'd up a bit more while Phillip could have been toned down in order to make him fit in and join the melodrama instead of making him the murderous madman.
Too bad they dropped DA Moretti with all that political background and replaced that feud with the very lacklustre Carter clan.
Kevin McCarthy, really? I mean, nothing wrong with the actor but he was in literally every other TV show at that time. He wasn't colourful enough to be a THE COLBYS adversary. That said, I absolutely loved his seemingly harmless but wickedly ruthless attorney.
But when THE COLBYS casting got it right, they got it very right, and it was unmistakably Maxwell Caulfied who added the much needed spunk 'n spark to the otherwise run-of-the-mill love triangle. He was just so good in everything he did on the show and to me that's even more important than the story itself.
After all, a soap isn't a story in the traditional sense of the word, it's about the characters being placed in all sorts of situations.
1980s soap started to dictate an increasingly high-octane approach, hence the many disaster cliffhangers and endless murders/attempts.
And yet only the killing of Ted Dinard and Krystle's unborn child had that seriously chilling effect. And Dallas and Falcon Crest had their own goodies of course.
THE COLBYS is rather tame in that regard, for the most part anyway, and that also gives it a somewhat old-skool soapy vibe.
Emerald Point N.A.S. was the new Spelling hit show that flopped, The Colbys was the doomed cash cow that somehow managed to surprise and succeed, imho.
