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Dynasty
Dynasty
Why has Grey's Anatomy succeeded where 80s soaps failed?
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<blockquote data-quote="Spooky Owl!" data-source="post: 72788" data-attributes="member: 57984"><p>Yes, and that's probably why The Dream Season of DALLAS didn't work very well, despite its new producer/show-runner, Peter Dunne, having come fresh from KNOTS where he had done several seasons of spectacular work (under the watchful eye of David Jacobs).</p><p></p><p>KNOTS was chock full or subtlety and nuance, and, not being about a nuclear (okay, oil) family, the narrative tended to wander and wander. And it was fabulous. It took a couple of quirky, not-fully-serialized seasons to really click (and of course the last two or three seasons were tricky, and started to look like a youth-obsessed daytime soap because all the originals had either quit or were being cut over budget issues) but KNOTS strength was its lyrical lack of structure... Sometimes the plot was very focused and intense, and other times it was very leisurely and casual. But it was all so clever and character-based that nearly any and every phase of the show worked, and often worked brilliantly.</p><p></p><p>One of the weakness of it parent series was that DALLAS, because it indeed focused on a family living in one house, had to be always "on point" plotwise, or the thing fell apart or, at the very least became pedestrian and overtly repetitive. Which is why there wasn't one season post-"WhoShotJR?" of DALLAS which really worked without David Paulsen and his inspired sense of ironic plotting. (Katzman alone sure couldn't do it. Neither could Art Lewis or god knows Howard Lakin).</p><p></p><p>So when Dunne left KNOTS and took over DALLAS a year when Bobby was dead, he seemed to bring his KNOTSian sensibility to DALLAS. But what had seemed so brilliant on KNOTS felt politically correct and neck-clawing on DALLAS -- the "strengthened" Ewing women were a joke, the stories rambled ineffectually, people did and said things totally out of character, and, worse, it was <em>boring</em>! (But then David Jacobs wasn't supervising DALLAS as he was KNOTS). So when Katzman returned a year later with Paulsen in tow, despite that ghastly and perfunctory dream explanation, DALLAS came screeching back to what it should be, not stumbling too badly again until Paulsen left in 1988. </p><p></p><p>DYNASTY, as I often assert, started out with the most potential of any of them, a show cast and molded to become a classic. But as another show about a rich family living in the same house, the needed to stay focused on plot and <em>character</em> was the same as DALLAS'. And as we know, DYNASTY soon veered off onto becoming a smuggy, posing show that was a half-hearted celebration of the rich-and-famous, and any consideration of anything else just wasn't there... Diahann Carroll said years later that DYNASTY "really was just about wearing pretty clothes and being on a Number One show," and then asked the interviewer, "What do <strong>you </strong>remember about DYNASTY -- I mean the <strong>plot </strong>of DYNASTY?" </p><p></p><p>Well, yeah, that's pretty much sizes it up.</p><p></p><p>PEYTON PLACE benefited from an infamous book and hit movie to draw from, an established group of characters whom the writers could use and re-imagine (as long as the show's writers were paying attention to what they were doing, as they seemed to). Also, for the same reason the '60s has often been cited as the best decade for movie horror, there was a vibe that just seemed to be in the water during the '60s where you could do shock, torment, mystery and <em>noir </em>-- there was this fundamental sense of paranoid <em>focus</em> and atmosphere to be easily tapped into just so long as the producers weren't dolts... Sure, PEYTON PLACE "only" ran five years but the show was airing twice, and then thrice, per week, so it burned out quickly. But less is sometimes more. (For similar reasons, that's why I'd like to have seen how DARK SHADOWS might have fared had it been shot on film and broadcast in prime time).</p><p></p><p><img src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/64/30/db/6430dbf5d1f6e38b0148dfdbee039074--peyton-place-mia-farrow.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Spooky Owl!, post: 72788, member: 57984"] Yes, and that's probably why The Dream Season of DALLAS didn't work very well, despite its new producer/show-runner, Peter Dunne, having come fresh from KNOTS where he had done several seasons of spectacular work (under the watchful eye of David Jacobs). KNOTS was chock full or subtlety and nuance, and, not being about a nuclear (okay, oil) family, the narrative tended to wander and wander. And it was fabulous. It took a couple of quirky, not-fully-serialized seasons to really click (and of course the last two or three seasons were tricky, and started to look like a youth-obsessed daytime soap because all the originals had either quit or were being cut over budget issues) but KNOTS strength was its lyrical lack of structure... Sometimes the plot was very focused and intense, and other times it was very leisurely and casual. But it was all so clever and character-based that nearly any and every phase of the show worked, and often worked brilliantly. One of the weakness of it parent series was that DALLAS, because it indeed focused on a family living in one house, had to be always "on point" plotwise, or the thing fell apart or, at the very least became pedestrian and overtly repetitive. Which is why there wasn't one season post-"WhoShotJR?" of DALLAS which really worked without David Paulsen and his inspired sense of ironic plotting. (Katzman alone sure couldn't do it. Neither could Art Lewis or god knows Howard Lakin). So when Dunne left KNOTS and took over DALLAS a year when Bobby was dead, he seemed to bring his KNOTSian sensibility to DALLAS. But what had seemed so brilliant on KNOTS felt politically correct and neck-clawing on DALLAS -- the "strengthened" Ewing women were a joke, the stories rambled ineffectually, people did and said things totally out of character, and, worse, it was [I]boring[/I]! (But then David Jacobs wasn't supervising DALLAS as he was KNOTS). So when Katzman returned a year later with Paulsen in tow, despite that ghastly and perfunctory dream explanation, DALLAS came screeching back to what it should be, not stumbling too badly again until Paulsen left in 1988. DYNASTY, as I often assert, started out with the most potential of any of them, a show cast and molded to become a classic. But as another show about a rich family living in the same house, the needed to stay focused on plot and [I]character[/I] was the same as DALLAS'. And as we know, DYNASTY soon veered off onto becoming a smuggy, posing show that was a half-hearted celebration of the rich-and-famous, and any consideration of anything else just wasn't there... Diahann Carroll said years later that DYNASTY "really was just about wearing pretty clothes and being on a Number One show," and then asked the interviewer, "What do [B]you [/B]remember about DYNASTY -- I mean the [B]plot [/B]of DYNASTY?" Well, yeah, that's pretty much sizes it up. PEYTON PLACE benefited from an infamous book and hit movie to draw from, an established group of characters whom the writers could use and re-imagine (as long as the show's writers were paying attention to what they were doing, as they seemed to). Also, for the same reason the '60s has often been cited as the best decade for movie horror, there was a vibe that just seemed to be in the water during the '60s where you could do shock, torment, mystery and [I]noir [/I]-- there was this fundamental sense of paranoid [I]focus[/I] and atmosphere to be easily tapped into just so long as the producers weren't dolts... Sure, PEYTON PLACE "only" ran five years but the show was airing twice, and then thrice, per week, so it burned out quickly. But less is sometimes more. (For similar reasons, that's why I'd like to have seen how DARK SHADOWS might have fared had it been shot on film and broadcast in prime time). [IMG]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/64/30/db/6430dbf5d1f6e38b0148dfdbee039074--peyton-place-mia-farrow.jpg[/IMG] [/QUOTE]
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Why has Grey's Anatomy succeeded where 80s soaps failed?
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