Yup. At that point the well of keeping Gary and Val apart had truly run dry.
AND the twins's teacher AND a singer like C.J. That was outrageously ridiculous.
I agree - it just became too ridiculous. With someone like Jill, she was clearly going progressively mad, but since she had been "nice" previously it came to reason that no one would believe she'd pull off a stunt like that and characters needed to actually be convinced she'd do something like that. With Danny, he was just basically cartoon villainy too fast and there was no reason for characters not to realise his true nature.
I don't think of him as a villain who needed to be exposed for what he was or some evil masterplan.
I think a huge part of why it didn't work for me was that the well of keeping Val / Gary apart was finally running dry; the coincidences, Danny taking on the Jill reheated role, Amanda just being a singer and it just starts feeling very Knots-by-the-numbers. They've done this before, better and not made everyone look like idiots, to put it quite simply. If they had gone with Pat / Gary briefly it might've worked to keep Gary / Val apart a bit longer, or if Ben had come back to resolve that storyline, but it was time to move on at that point imho.
It might have been a situation where they did not want to 'villainize' either Pat or Frank. I think it would have been more interesting if Frank had become involved with Val, since there was an underlying taboo about black man/white woman affairs in those years that would have given their affair more dimension than your typical extra-marital affair on soaps. Perhaps the Frank/Val affair might have spurred Gary and Pat toward a reciprocal affair, though even that would have seemed a bit reactive rather than having true feeling. Either way, it would have made the Williamses acquire "enemies" on the cul-de-sac and the producers likely wanted to give them to be friends with everyone. Had the Williamses broken up over an affair with a neighbor, one or both of them would have been forced to move out (and take Julie with them), and the only reason they were so involved in the lives of the main cast was because of that address.
Why is it so important that they are together?
Why is it so important they are apart?
Maybe a Val / Pat affair would've brought it into a new era?
All I meant was that Knots was entertaining regardless of their marital situation.
