Compared directly with this Knots story, the Dallas cliffhanger feels cartoony and very obvious. It's certainly less layered and complex. But that's part of the charm: it comes with a sense of fun and simplicity.
I think that applies to a lot of the early cliffhangers, especially the whodunnits. There's a Saturday Morning Picture Show vibe about them that bypasses the intellect and is just really exciting. Alongside those, there's the more unusual season finales that deny the viewer the kind of conventional cliffhanger they were expecting, thereby creating a different kind of surprise ending where you
really feel like the rug's been pulled from under you.
Falcon Crest Season 2 (Julia is revealed to be Carlo’s killer and shoots another cast member dead, but which one?)
This finale falls firmly into the former category. The episode is even called ‘Climax’ and it pretty much delivers what it says on the tin, even if there is an awful lot of pre-wedding happy family foreplay to wade through before we get to the really juicy stuff — namely, the denouement of a season-long murder mystery. The scene where Charles Fong identifies Carlo’s killer in a room full of wedding guests is both clunky and thrilling, in much the same way the “Who shot JR?” revelation on DALLAS was. Whereas his role of Dr. Chen on DYNASTY during the same year required him to unveil an entirely new face for Steven Carrington, James Hong’s role as Fong has him reveal an entirely new personality for Julia Cumson when he exposes her as the murderer. Julia’s subsequent speech, in which she hurriedly explains why she not only killed a man with whom she had no previous on-screen connection, but also then tried to bump off three of her closest friends, has a whiff of SCOOBY DOO about it. But while it might be ludicrous, it is also immensely exciting to discover that, all this time, the killer has been hiding not just in plain sight, but in the show’s opening titles.
I love the off-screen shooting which was also done in S&D's second season finale.
Me too! BROOKSIDE pulled a similar trick in '85
while ENDERS did it only a couple of years ago
However, FALCON CREST was my first experience of this soap trope and it felt very powerful. It's like the show is suddenly panning out to show a God’s eye view of the proceedings. Before we can catch our breath, there's the coffin-lowering coda that follows. By this point, any end-of-soap-season shooting would inevitably compared to JR’s three years earlier. As everyone knew, JR survived and so it's reasonable assume that Julia’s victim(s) will too. Thus the coffin scene exists to sends a clear, almost meta message to the audience. To paraphrase Cliff Barnes in the Southfork pool, “Whoever it was you just heard get shot is dead, you bastards!”
Knots Landing Season 8 (Karen and Abby notice a crack in the concrete under which Abby buried Peter’s body).
KNOTS’ Season 8 cliffhanger, like its Season 4 equivalent, subverts the traditional whodunnit. On paper, the burning question should be “Who killed Peter?”or "Who killed Ciji?" Instead, we end up distracted by the psychology of the Abby/Gary/Val triangle or, in this case, how Abby is gonna be able to extract herself from the corner she’s painted herself into. In a way, Abby’s painstaking attempts to cover up a crime feels like a trial run for Jill Bennett’s efforts to create the perfect alibi for one a year later. Both eps focus on one woman going to extraordinary, even unglamorous efforts to achieve her aims (a headscarf here, an unflattering wig there),delving into an unusual amount of plot detail in the process. Both women even take a trip to an airport parking lot to dispose of a car. Each ep contain a rich seam of Hitchcockian black comedy and suspense. Of the two, this one’s funnier but maybe doesn’t quite dig as deep (no pun intended) into the characters.
FALCON CREST!
Dallas Season 4 (Cliff finds a dead female body in the Southfork pool as JR looks down from behind the broken balcony rails.) vs Knots Landing Season 10 (Following Rick Hawkins’ murder, Paige finds herself in the middle of Greg and Ted and she doesn’t know who to believe).
This DALLAS cliffhanger's a classic, but I've got a real soft spot for the Abby-less second half of 'Down Came the Rain'. The more I watch it, the more I love it. Obviously, the conventional thing would have been for the season to conclude with Abby’s departure, just as DALLAS's did the same week when Sue Ellen left for England, but instead, it makes the bold move of bidding farewell to arguably its most iconic character midway through the ep before plunging Paige, Ted and Greg straight into the game of psychological cat and mouse Abby has left in her wake. It really feels like we’re in uncharted territory from this point and that spills over into the next season. The way it aired in the UK, I wasn’t even certain where one season ended and the next one began, which was disorientating in the best way.
Down Came the Rain Pt 2 mostly takes place in shadowy, claustrophobic places: elevators, dimly-lit offices, underground garages and, climactically, a rainstorm at night that mirrors Paige’s inability to see clearly: who should she believe — Ted or Greg? You’d think the answer would be a simple one, but every time she takes a step towards Greg, something happens to make Ted’s accusations against him seem increasingly plausible.
I know it won't win and, as classic cliffhangers go, it doesn't give off the same Saturday Morning Picture Show electric charge as "She's dead, you bastard!" but screw it, I'm going for ...
KNOTS!