I guess Maggie's death was supposed to parallel Chase's drowning 2 1/2 years before. (I just learned that Billy Moses had to pressure them
not to drown Cole when he left -- so Giobertis drowning was an intentional motif).
There was a new writing team almost every year during the last half of FC's run, some of whom even bragged in the press that they'd never watched the show -- which is rarely a good sign. (I don't know if that was the case for the new Season 9 crew).
I still don't remember very much from Season 9 (and I'm still not convinced I actually saw all of it). Some people feel the writing improved -- and the writing had obviously been a problem for a while. My memory of it, shared by others, was that the vibe was just too different, that it just didn't feel like FALCON CREST, be it good FC or bad FC.
It became darker, yes, but not the right kind of darker -- more like a slick, soulless '90s type of thing (even though the '90s were barely there by Season 9).
Season 7 became too frenetic (maybe that where the name "Freilich" came from) and even Michael Filerman complained about it. CBS was frustrated with the ratings slide and called up Filerman and said, "fix it!" (or so the legend goes). Camille Marchetta and others came in for Season 8, returned to an orchestral score, and tried to get serious again, but turned the show from silly (Season 7) to kind of boring for Season 8. Ratings continued to spiral (lead-in DALLAS was plummeting, too) and the new team came in for Season 9, dumping the orchestral score once again and replacing it with a synthesized series of musical compositions.
Change is inevitable -- and necessary -- as a television series rolls along. But getting the balance right is the trick, and few new producers can do so -- or may even know (or care) to do so. That was the executive producers' responsibility, Filerman, but he failed at it (but he was no David Jacobs).
But I took the spiral of the big four '80s wealth-based nighttime serials rather personally. They started out with such promise, a promise everybody seemed to sense. But their last halves and their related collapses were painful indeed.
I recall one of my co-workers in the breakroom circa 1988 snarling, "those shows drive me
up the wall!" She'd try to continue watching them, had watched for a few years, but their increasingly neurotic narratives she'd come to find pretty maddening.
No one disagreed with her. I chimed in (much as I do now). But these programs just seemed to lose their identities as the decade proceeded. They were no longer character dramas about rich families, but shrilly self-conscious metaphors for the '80s in some way, overly aware of their cultural significance but out of focus or creative steam. Still all dressed up but nowhere to go.
Which left the audience at home drooling in stunned disbelief at how none of them (except KNOTS) could tell a story anymore.
Unlike some, I did not mind the new arrangement of the theme music for Season 9 -- even if I was
meh on the visuals:
