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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 208071" data-attributes="member: 22">Birds Do It, Bees Do It, but JR refuses to do it, which leads Sue Ellen to adopt a Black Market BabyKNOTS (23 Mar 89) v DALLAS (15 Oct 78)Birds Do It, Bees Do It, in which the eye of every character, from billionaire tycoon Greg Sumner to schoolgirl Julie Williams, is drawn to an Ann Landers survey claiming that sex goes downhill after marriage, is a special KNOTS-goes-comedy episode. But fear not: this isn't the cutesy or heavy-handed comedy of Season 12, but the kind of comedy that is airy and witty and playful and, you know, actually funny.Granted, humour is hard to quantify. What makes Frank and Pat silently turning their newspapers at the same time in Birds Do It funnier than Val and Karen stirring and then sipping their tea in perfect unison during 'Back to the Cul-de-Sac'? It’s hard to say exactly, but I think it’s to do with a lightness of touch. The emphasis of the scene is less on the Williams’ choreographed actions (the way it is on Karen and Val’s) than it is on Julie feeling excluded by her parents and their antagonistic silence. So the scene remains based in character and truth, and the humour feels like a byproduct of that.Likewise at the beginning of Black Market Baby, why is Jock’s nonplussed reaction to JR and Sue Ellen’s anniversary gift of a piece of abstract sculpture (“What the hell is it?” he asks blankly) so much funnier than April and Bobby’s smirky remarks about an expressionist painting in And Away We Go! during Season 11? Again, I think it’s a question of emphasis. We’re not necessarily being asked to share Jock’s opinion of the art (as we are Bobby and April’s) because the humour is really about JR and Sue Ellen’s discomfort at having failed to impress their patriarch. As such, it’s not just a gag for its own sake — it’s a symptom of a much larger, more complex problem.As Ewingverse episodes go, Birds Do It and BMB could not be more different, yet both feature one half of a married couple trying to seduce the other, and failing miserably until the end of the episode. On KNOTS, Mack is anxious to prove that he and Karen are not part of the 82% of the populace for whom sex has gone downhill and so makes a series of attempts to woo her. But each time, Karen is so preoccupied with her latest disaster (Abby’s appointment to the coastal commission, Murakame’s plan to drill for oil on Lotus Point) that she doesn’t even notice she’s being wooed. Conversely, Sue Ellen’s blatant attempt to get JR into bed during the first act of Black Market Baby is such a turnoff (“Maybe the Ewin' man I married isn’t all the man he claims to be,” she slurs) that he drives off into the night, leaving Ray Krebbs to take advantage of his drunk and rejected wife. While Mack and Karen’s situation is light and amusing in a screwball comedy sort of way, both of JR and Sue Ellen’s bedroom scenes in BMB feel like a Texas version of 'Scenes from a Marriage' — they just drip with atmosphere. The fact that the Southfork interiors in this ep are filmed in a real house is a big help in that regard. You really get the sense of the couple living inside a pressure cooker, hemmed in by the rest of the family, their attempts at keeping up appearances in front of Mama and Daddy becoming increasingly strained, especially when compared to Bobby and Pam’s effortlessly radiant happiness (when they’re not squabbling over Pam’s decision to go back to work).KNOTS ends with Karen and Mack lying in bed, having finally done the deed, in a state of blissed-out catatonia. “‘Dear Ann Landers,’” Karen murmurs, “‘if sex was any better —‘“ “I’d be a dead man,” Mack gasps. DALLAS likewise concludes with JR and Sue Ellen having managed to get it together between the sheets — but only after a confused, angry, passionate, borderline violent struggle (“Is that what you want: somebody who doesn’t want you? I don’t want you! I don’t want you!” Sue Ellen moans eagerly) that leaves her unable to look him in the eye. As the frame freezes on Sue Ellen’s inscrutable expression, it becomes evident that, after only ten instalments, DALLAS is already starting to outgrow its stand-alone episode format.Similarly, although Birds Do It is a unique episode of KNOTS, as underlined by the bespoke score that also plays over the end credits, it’s more than just a self-contained diversion. In its light and witty way, it cleverly sets up some key plot points that will take the rest of the season into much darker territory — Abby revealing to Ted Melcher that she is really Murakame and Paige inveigling herself into the pink apartment that belongs to the Sumner Group. (Ah, how do I love Vincent Schiavelli’s two-scene cameo as the dog-carrying property manager? Let me count the ways.)And the winner is ... Black Market BabyBONUS BEATS[MEDIA=youtube]aNJ7cb7rgeA[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?