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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 133232" data-attributes="member: 22">14 Dec 88: DYNASTY: Alexis in Blunderland v. 15 Dec 88: KNOTS LANDING: The Briar Patch v. 16 Dec 88: DALLAS: Showdown at the Ewing Corral v. 16 Dec 88: FALCON CREST: Life with FatherAlexis is back on DYNASTY after her two-week visit to Natumbe, JR is back in Dallas after his three-week ordeal in Haleyville (somehow it seems longer) and, best of all, Abby is back to her good old, bad old ways on KNOTS. From a character standpoint, Alexis’s two-episode absence has worked in her favour. Whereas her existence has traditionally revolved around thwarting Blake’s happiness, she now has interests beyond what we can see on screen and this makes her seem a stronger, more rounded figure. It’s ironic that Blake and Krystle’s marriage should now be facing its biggest threat and Alexis isn’t involved. When Adam tells his mother about Krystle’s recent strange behaviour, she’s interested but detached. “Krystle throwing plates? … I’ve known her for years — she’s never even been able to throw a tantrum!” she quips before moving swiftly on to more pressing matters. The damage caused by Sean Rowan and Manny Vasquez at the end of last season has left both Alexis and the Lotus Point gang on KNOTS in a financially vulnerable position. This week, each is approached by an interested party who offers to take the Carlton Hotel and Lotus Point off their respective hands. Looking to consolidate her holdings, Alexis agrees and asks Dex to deal with the sale. He proceeds to negotiate somewhat flirtatiously with an attractive representative of the as-yet-unnamed corporation. Meanwhile, Gary and Abby persuade Karen that the only way to avoid bankruptcy is to sell out to Murakame Holdings, ostensibly “a Japanese investment firm located in Hawaii”, but really a front for Abby herself. (FALCON CREST’s equivalent resort, the Del Oro Spa, appears safe for the time being. In fact, Angela hosts the show’s very first Christmas celebrations there.) “How soon after I own the property outright can I start drilling?” Abby asks Rick Hawkins, her new business associate-cum-confidante. “And how soon after that could I be pumping oil to a refinery?” While Abby is secretly getting into the oil business, Sable Colby is hatching a plan to anonymously acquire seven shipping tankers currently owned by Alexis. “I never thought of you as the type to be involved with shipping,” remarks her new business associate-cum-confidante Hamilton Stone. “They’re Colby ships,” she replies briskly. “It’s only fitting they should end up with someone who has a right to that family name.”The precise moment when Abby learned there was oil under Lotus Point and decided that contrition wasn’t as much fun as defrauding her business partners or planting drugs in her daughter’s boyfriend’s locker isn’t clear. As with Blake learning about Krystle’s AVM, it’s a turning point we weren’t privy to. For all we know, Abby’s “new leaf” was a smokescreen to lull everyone (including the viewer) into a false sense of security and this is what she had planned all along.And if the discovery of oil is to Abby what Krystle’s AVM is to Blake — i.e., something they have known about for an unspecified period of time without informing the viewer — then Sue Ellen is to Jeremy Wendell (“All these years that I’ve disliked JR … there’s one thing I’ve always envied him — and that’s you”) what Blake and Krystle are to Sable (“I’ve always admired the devotion that you and Krystle share”) — i.e., a source of long-standing affection that, again, we have been unaware of.Back in Haleyville, JR absconds from his new family’s farm by starting a fire, knocking his brother-in-law unconscious and stealing the keys to his truck, before driving off into the night. When he runs out of petrol in the middle of nowhere, one is reminded of the night Karen Mackenzie was pursued by Phil Harbert through the pitch-dark countryside, having also fled from a fire. When JR flags down a truck and asks for a ride, you half expect the driver to turn out to be a webbed-fingered psychopath and so when JR finally makes it to safety and calls Sly to send a helicopter for him, one feels a genuine sense of relief. There’s a great camera shot the following morning in which the foreground is dominated by a back view of Sly’s legs as she waits for JR’s chopper, seen from a distance but viewed through her legs, to land. I don’t know how to that sound any less pornographic so here’s a picture: <img src="https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/40910880_10156690361736532_206674371744366592_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=ae21a23292e89106c5d7aae9efa6721d&oe=5C35E6E7" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> The resemblance to the poster for the 1981 James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only, may not be entirely coincidental as the shot underlines the fact JR has finally escaped his hayseed hell and returned to the comparatively Bondian world of helicopters and sexily efficient secretaries. <img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hNe7iBPWdtQ/UNaKQddi-vI/AAAAAAAAbXk/N7A3dxkNX28/s1600/For+Your+Eyes+Only+film+Poster.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> “JR, what happened to you? … Those clothes, the way you look!” exclaims Sly. “You ever have a nightmare?” JR asks her by way of reply. “You take the worst one you ever had and triple it and that’s halfway to where I’ve been.” JR’s bad dreams might be over on DALLAS, but Fallon’s are just beginning on DYNASTY as she finds herself “haunted” by the body in the morgue. “Here we go again,” sighs Jeff. This time around, however, Fallon’s supernatural tendencies serve the drama a lot more effectively than they did on THE COLBYS. Whereas her extra-terrestrial encounter effectively ended that series’ run, figuratively as well as literally — there was simply nowhere the show could go after she disappeared in that flying saucer — her ghostly dreams serve to pull her (and us) further into the mystery at the heart of this season. In the same way that New DALLAS will later have fun combining different aspects of Sue Ellen’s character (e.g., making her a drunk and a savvy businesswoman simultaneously), this season’s DYNASTY isn’t afraid to mix and match different eras of Fallon. The scene where she hides in the back of Jeff’s car then startles him by stroking his ear with her bare foot is pure Fallon Season 1 (mischievous, provocative) while her dream of the dead body on the slab coming back to life recalls her Randall Adams period (ethereal, troubled by memories that are just out of reach). Whereas Emma Samms blossoms in this new era of DYNASTY, Heather Locklear is on less solid ground. Her previous character transition, when Sammy Jo turned from a gold-digging minx to into a more solemn, lovelorn personality almost overnight was surprisingly convincing. With Jeff still hung up on his ex, she is still playing the role of neglected lover as she did opposite Clay Fallmont and Steven — only the world she and Jeff now inhabit is faster-moving, the dialogue more flippant, and the actress appears a tad unsure of where to pitch her performance. Take the scene where Jeff calls her “Fallon” in bed by mistake — should she mine this moment for pathos, as DALLAS’s Afton did when Cliff came out of his coma saying Sue Ellen’s name, or for screwball comedy? Fallon and Sammy Jo’s rivalry over Jeff culminates in an old-fashioned DYNASTY catfight — but just as Sue Ellen subverted our expectations by bursting into laughter instead of tears upon finding JR in bed with Kimberly Cryder during last season’s DALLAS so this soap trope is likewise turned on its head when both women also collapse with a fit of the giggles as they realise neither of them really want the man they’re fighting over. On one hand, this is not Soap Land’s most convincingly staged fight — the characters are required to keep up a full conversation even while they’re scrapping and rolling around in a pool of mud. On the other, there’s something genuinely liberating and joyful about how much fun they end up having.Upon his return to civilisation, JR’s first port of call is Ewing Oil to see his new office. “Oh,” he says, visibly disappointed by the size of it. “It won’t take much to decorate this, that’s for sure.” As if this wasn’t bad enough, he then discovers Cliff Barnes installed just across the hall. (“My office is a little bit larger than yours, but I’m sure you’ll understand,” Cliff smirks.) In keeping with the general theme of Soap Land downsizing, Maggie Channing sets up shop at the Tuscany Herald by also moving into an office far more modest than what we’re used to seeing. “What do you think?” she asks husband Richard. “It looks like a newspaper office,” he replies diplomatically, and indeed it does — a traditional, small-town newspaper office that more closely resembles a set from THE WALTONS than the executive suite Richard himself has at the New Globe.Economic reality continues to nip at Soap Land’s heels as Krystle’s bag is snatched on DYNASTY. She sets off in pursuit of her assailant who turns out to be a little kid living in a shack with his family. “Why are those people going inside the box — do they live there?” Krystina asks her mommy who tells her that yes, they do. It’s a different kind of “the box” to the one where JR was sequestered during his stay at the penal colony, but not much bigger. Krystle’s instinct is to throw a hundred bucks at the problem. “We don’t need charity,” snaps the child’s mother. This being ‘80s prime-time TV, this depiction of “reality” actually feels more surreal than real. In fact, with public interest in Soap Land’s glamorous fantasy world steadily weakening, this glimpse of extreme poverty feel like a crack in the genre — a nightmarish netherworld that cannot be held at bay much longer. Alongside Abby’s new pal Rick Hawkins, another seemingly minor flunky is introduced this week — Colby Co controller Fritz Heath. Like Cesar Ortega on FALCON CREST, Heath is one of those long-standing employees we’ve never heard of before. “How long did you say this guy’s been with Colby Co?” Dex asks Alexis. “About twenty years,” she replies. Heath’s DALLAS equivalent would be Pete, the only ranch hand left at Southfork after Carter McKay’s henchman has driven the rest away with a combination of threats and hard cash. “I’ve been on this ranch twenty years,” Pete explains to Clayton. “Southfork’s about as close to home as I’ve had.” Cesar Ortega echoes this “loyal retainer” sentiment back on FC. “The Channings have always been good to the Ortegas,” he declares. “Pop, the Channings are only good to those who stay in their place and that’s it,” argues his daughter Pilar. The political edge the Ortgeas have brought to FALCON CREST is really interesting. As well as social inequality, feminism and racism are also matter-of-factly referred to this week. “She never heard of equal rights?” Gabriel asks of his late mother. “She heard of it. She just never thought it applied to her,” Cesar replies. Gabriel’s older brother Tommy, meanwhile, describes the Del Oro Spa as “a lily-white club” and “Anglo turf”. Here again, there’s a strange sense of “reality” seeping through Soap Land’s once impenetrable walls. Was it only last season that FC was full of gravity-defying ninjas and SCOOBY-DOO holograms? The subject of racial discrimination is also raised when Tommy is out looking for work: “That ad only came out today, man. He didn’t fill that job — he’s just waiting for some Anglo boy to walk through the door.” But then Maggie offers him $7.50 an hour in return for “hauling boxes, answering phones, making deliveries, doing what we all do, which is a little bit of everything.” Harold Dyer is also offered a job on KNOTS. By the end of this week’s episode, however, he’s been arrested after cocaine is found in his possession. Similarly on FC, Tommy is pursued by the cops when his buddy Paco is caught dealing drugs in the Del Oro Spa men’s room.While DYNASTY’s Adam makes out with new secretary Clare on the floor of his office, Bobby Ewing and Tracey Lawton slowly peel off each other’s clothes on DALLAS, accompanied by a slinky version of George Benson’s ‘Love Dance’ on the soundtrack. Latter-day DALLAS has produced some surprisingly sensual love scenes (see also: Jenna’s and Sue Ellen’s respective seductions of Ray and Nicholas Pearce last season). Elsewhere in the ep, it emerges that Tracey is the woman Carter McKay’s been looking for during the past few episodes. Might he be the possessive older husband she told Bobby she ran out on? She and McKay share a really good, emotionally gutsy scene in this week’s ep (“I told you I wished you were dead. Did you think that was some kind of a joke? … I have been running from you for years!” “… I’ve been living in Hell. I sold my soul to the Devil to find you and no matter how you feel, I’m not letting you go again!”), but their precise connection remains as mysterious as — well, Blake’s connection to the dead man at the lake. Watched in hindsight, however, there’s a pleasing symmetry in the fact that Mack and Tracey come face to face in the very week that J. Eddie Peck “awakens” (albeit inside Fallon’s dream) on DYNASTY. There are parallel “When Storylines Collide” moments towards the end of this week’s DYNASTY and DALLAS. Fallon, determined to get to the bottom of what Blake knows about the body, marches into the Carrington library to have it out with him once and for all. “Daddy, we’ve gotta —,“ she starts only to be cut short by the sight of him consoling a red-eyed Krystle. “Fallon, please call the family together. We have something to tell them,” he informs her gravely. JR, meanwhile, bursts angrily into the Southfork living room to confront Bobby. “Are you out of your mind — what is Cliff Barnes doing at Ewing Oil?” he barks. “The last thing on my mind is Ewing Oil,” Bobby snaps back. “We’re in a range war with the man who bought Ray’s place!”And this week’s Top 4 are …1 (2) KNOTS LANDING 2 (1) DYNASTY 3 (4) DALLAS4 (3) FALCON CREST</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?