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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 261800" data-attributes="member: 22">Encounters (KNOTS, 14 Oct 82) v End of the Road (1/2) (DALLAS, 16/23 Jan 81)It’s a “Debut of the Strangely Named Songstress” double bill!Just as Gary is immediately captivated by Ciji when he catches her rehearsing in Encounters, so JR is by Afton when Lucy brings her future in-laws to dinner at Southfork in End of the Road. While Sue Ellen registers her husband’s interest and glares accordingly, it’s Ginger rather than Abby who initially looks most disturbed  about her man’s fascination with Ciji. Abby’s jealous too, but about Gary's preoccupation with Val rather than Ciji. Back on DALLAS, Pam wishes she could make Bobby jealous. “Would you mind if I danced with Alex?” she asks him at Lucy’s wedding. When he nods indifferently, she ups the ante: “Would you mind if I went to bed with Alex?” If looks could kill, Bobby wouldn’t be coming back in the shower any time soon.The 80/81 season of DALLAS is the last to make its alphabetical debut and it just might be the most fascinatingly weird year of the entire series. Partly, this is due to the stock library music the show is obliged to use for the first half of the season which gives even the most innocuous scenes a slow, ominous “shark approaching” kind of vibe.  There’s also a strange sense that, following the worldwide Who Shot JR phenomenon,  the Ewings’ real world fame has somehow bled into the show’s fictional world. “Ever since Mitch wrote us about the wedding, I’ve been reading up on your family,” Afton tells Lucy. “When you marry a Ewing, you’re very easy to follow in the newspapers,” Clint Ogden tells Sue Ellen. Sue Ellen’s own line to JR — “That laugh of yours is positively evil, but I love it” — chimes directly with his real life persona as “TV’s man you love to hate.”As soon as JR and Afton clap eyes on each other, it’s a foregone conclusion that they’ll end up in bed together. Sue Ellen’s aware of it too. It’s almost as if all three are DALLAS viewers as well as DALLAS characters, and so know exactly where this storyline is going. This could easily be smug and annoying, but instead the predictability adds to the fun. This being the episode where we learn that JR’s been sleeping with his secretary Louella all along, his throwaway line to his father, “Do you suppose Afton can type?” is really funny. “So, the real JR Ewing has finally come home,” Sue Ellen says without a flicker of surprise when she finds his and Afton’s crumpled bedsheets during Lucy and Mitch’s wedding reception. (There’s a direct link between this scene and the one 33 years later at another Southfork wedding, this time between Sue Ellen’s son and Afton’s daughter, when Sue Ellen says to the mother of the bride, “The worst thing JR ever did was you.”)“Miss Texas to Mrs Southfork — devoted wife and mother, loved by all who know her,” says Clint describing the Sue Ellen he’s read about in the newspapers. Over on KNOTS, Val’s publicist Bess Riker describes the Texas Ewings somewhat differently, as “one of the most notorious families in the country.” Val’s frustration at the idea that the only way to interest the public in her Texas-based novel, Capricorn Crude, is to emphasise its links to her larger-than-life in-laws works as a perfect metaphor for KNOTS’ struggle to cut its ties with DALLAS and be allowed to forge its own identity. Val and Gary’s crossover appearance in End of the Road a year earlier can also be read as KNOTS making a bid for independence, as they use Ray turning out to be Jock’s son as a reason why they need never return to Southfork again. And sure enough, Val won’t be seen in Dallas in DALLAS for another thirty-four years. Mind you, a year later in Encounters, it sounds like she’s had enough of life in Seaview Circle as well. “I don’t wanna be here. I don’t wanna live in this house or coo at their babies or make small talk at the mailbox anymore!” she yells.At almost the exact same moment that Gary stumbles upon Ciji, Richard stumbles upon his future restaurant (and a whole new vocation). It’s exciting — almost as if KNOTS were being reinvented in front of our eyes.And the winner is ... EncountersBONUS BEATS:[MEDIA=youtube]jt7wa2j1Nzc[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?