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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 210112" data-attributes="member: 22">Blow Up (DALLAS, 06 Apr 84) v The Blushing Bride (KNOTS, 11 Feb 88)Blow Up has an interesting mixture of styles. A lot of it is really funny. You’ve got JR on high, manipulating the likes of Sue Ellen, Peter and, through Vaughn Leland, Cliff, until they’re all a bunch of twitching nervous wrecks, while also turning Lucy into a human time bomb who explodes drunkenly at Lady Jessica’s party at Southfork. Meanwhile, Pam is engaged to a man who doesn’t know he’s dying, but she does, which is a plot straight out of a three-hankie women’s picture from the 1940s or ‘50s. And then there’s Lady Jessica herself, who has wandered in from a schlocky horror flick and is shown caressing carving knives and defacing polaroid photos from a variety of creepy camera angles. Somehow it all slots together perfectly — the moment where Sad Pam tells Cartoony Cliff to stay away from Mark is particularly lovely  — and it all looks gorgeous.The Blushing Bride has lots of different plots going on, but feels tonally more consistent. Determined not to let Gary have any legal claim to the twins, Val insists he’s not their father, which puts Karen and Mack right in the middle of things because they know he is. The history of all four characters’ relationships with each other is in play and it all feels very emotional and serious. The same sense of gravity is applied to the Mackenzies’ mysterious new neighbours, Frank and Pat. Karen’s nosiness about them could easily be played for comedy, but the show is eager to impress upon us how much the Williamses have at stake. (However, this is slightly undermined by the geography of the cul-de-sac where, all of a sudden, it seems as if Karen can see into the Williams’ house from her kitchen and bedroom windows, which doesn’t really make sense.)Just as Mack rolls his eyes at Karen’s suspicions about Frank and Pat, Ray does the same at Donna’s regarding Lady Jessica, but by the end of their respective eps, Mack has come round to his wife’s way of thinking and we know Donna is bang on the money about Lady J.Like Mark Graison, Abby Ewing is engaged to someone who’s keeping A Big Secret. But whereas Mark remains blissfully ignorant, Abby smells a rat when she learns that Charles has had designs on her marina, so to speak, since before he came back into her life. In the same way that Blow Up begins with Pam trying to talk Mark into a fast wedding (lest he finds out he’s dying before the big day), The Blushing Bride ends with Abby just as eager to tie the knot. “The sooner the better — I don’t want Charles to get away,” she says ominously.The architect who inadvertently lets Charles’s cat out of the bag isn’t given a name, but is played by Kathryn Leigh Scott who must qualify as minor soap royalty: she was long-suffering Maggie Evans in DARK SHADOWS, Cecil Colby’s English secretary Jennifer in the first season of DYNASTY (her plummy pronunciation of “peanit butter” is a particular highlight) and the loud American tourist (and secret West Star agent) who befriends Cally during her and JR’s European honeymoon on DALLAS.Paige doesn’t appear until the final third of KNOTS and brings a more playful element to the ep as she flirts with Johnny Rourke in order to make Greg jealous. Johnny and JR share a distaste for May/December romances — at least those involving women they covet for themselves. “What kind of a woman does she think you are?” JR asks Sue Ellen following Lucy’s hilarious outburst. “Peter’s just a kid. He’s half your age. The things she said about you and him absolutely disgusted me.” “That’s your boyfriend?!” sneers Johnny when he sees Paige looking at Greg across the Lotus Point dance floor. “The man is old enough to be your father. Perhaps you like the paternal type.”And the winner is ... Blow UpBONUS BEATS:[MEDIA=youtube]dDf8hJIF10Y[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?