World Cup Tournament World Cup of 80s Soap Cliffhangers

[Victoriafan3]

1. FC 2
2. Dallas 4

 

[Barbara Fan]

my vote
1- Falcon Crest season 2 (mainly because my mum liked it, i never watched it)
2- Dallas season 4

 

[Angela Channing]

Match 1
The Falcon Crest season 2 cliffhanger is in the premier league of soap opera end of season finales, in fact I think it's one of the best ever. The who killed Carlo Agretti mystery ran for a large part of season 2 and things came to a head in the final scene. One of the things that made this cliffhanger so thrilling was that there were several points at which the episode could have ended. I originally thought it would end when Mr Fong said "He would be killed by you" and pointed to the killer and the scene cuts to individual close ups of all the main cast and that would have been an exciting point at which to end. However, the action moved on and it was revealed that he was pointing at Julia which was a genuine jaw dropping moment because she was a main cast member so it was a totally unexpected outcome. This also would have been a great point to end the season but the action continued and Julia produces a gun and a struggle ensues over it causing the gun goes off. Unlike what normally happens in soap operas when someone is shot, there is an anti-climatic conclusion in which they make a full recovery, here we see a coffin lowered into the ground so we know someone was killed. The action played out brilliantly.

I really liked the Knots Landing ending especially the scenes in the lead up to the cliffhanger when Abby in full hair and make up and wearing designer clothes, drags and lifts Peter's body and buries it in the playground. It's quite a long process so you get a real feel of the effort and difficulty she had to put in to complete the task. Everything is potentially undone in the final scene when a crack is noticed in the concrete that has been laid over the site where she buried the body. It was a clever twist however it can't match the brilliance of the one in Falcon Crest so my winner is:

Falcon Crest Season 2

Match 2
The Dallas cliffhanger was really a double one: who was the body in the pool and was JR the cause of her death. I always felt it was Kristen because why else would they bring her back for the final episodes of the season so it didn't have the impact it otherwise would.

The Knots Landing cliffhanger, Paige's rain soaked dilemma, didn't really leave a strong sense of excitement so I don't rate it highly. My winner is:

Dallas Season 4

 

[Angela Channing]

Sorry all, I originally linked to the same comic strip twice, although the written description for the cliffhanger was correct. If this confused anyone, feel free to change your vote.

The correct comic strip is now showing.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Falcon Crest Season 2 vs Knots Landing Season 8

This Knots cliffhanger reminds me of Tales Of The Unexpected, a crack in the perfect cover-up that took up most of this episode's running time.
It looks like it ends with the question: has Abby's resourcefulness dried up or not?
But there's also the crack in the mother-daughter relationship, the mystery of two murder suspects suspecting each other.
Therefore Karen's question "what do you think, Abby?" feels like the understatement of the year.
Funnily enough, it's this storyline and especially Paige's involvement therein that leads to the other Knots cliffhanger in this round, as per Abby's threat in season 9.

The Falcon Crest cliffhanger is very theatrical and suspenseful and I love the effective editing of the sequences. A shocking reveal is immediately followed by a shocking question, and even without knowing the story it still looks good.
Three years of Dynasty and two years of Falcon Crest, I was still getting acquainted with the format of drama series that would suddenly stop and then return next prime time TV season.
This was the first cliffhanger that made me understand what a cliffhanger was supposed to do. A soap education, as it were.

Dallas Season 4 vs Knots Landing Season 10

From Who's In The Coffin (not the Y-shaped one) to Who's In The Pool.
They could have shown Kristin's face but it would still be a very dead Kristin Face, I think that's shocking enough.
It's also a wet and noirish ending for Knots Landing, but less comic book style than Dallas. I have no particular affinity with either of them, I prefer the Southfork scenery but the hard rain drums a bit of extra intensity into Paige's dilemma. However, sometimes less is more, and I feel there's more soap bubbles in the Ewing pool than in Greg Sumner's rain (I can imagine how Carlos operates the Rain ON/OFF switch).

Match 1: FALCON CREST Season 2
Match 2: DALLAS Season 4

 

[Michelle Stevens]

Match 1- Falcon Crest season 2

Match 2- Dallas season 4

 

[colbyco]

Match 1: FALCON CREST Season 2
Match 2: DALLAS Season 4

 

[Seaviewer]

Match 1: FC's "who was shot?" is a clever twist but KL's "what do you think, Abby?" still sticks in my mind as more memorable.
Knots Landing Season 8

Match 2: I think Paige's KL dilemma is underrated but but "the body in the pool" is one of Dallas's best, a worthy follow-up to "who shot JR?"
Dallas Season 4

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Round 2 - Week 4




With this something like our fourth Lorimararama, I felt it was time for its own branding...

​

Match 1

Another Falcon Crest cliffhanger that I've read much about but never before seen in visuals! This World Cup has done much to stimulate my interest to watch that series as well as giving a little more context to my fragmented knowledge of the series. I can imagine this one being very exciting indeed with the reveal followed by the shocking event followed by a mystery that gets into the heads of the audience and resonates all summer long. The biggest strike against this for me is that I have no tangible experience of having watched to deepen my love for it. Not that this has stopped me voting for such a cliffhanger in previous rounds. Besides...

As previously mentioned, the first time round this Knots cliffhanger didn't make as much impact on me as it might have done. In the UK there was no fanfare about this being a season finale and the Ninth season simply followed on, equally unheralded, a week later. Of course, it made an impression and I loved it, but I missed out on those excited butterflies of anticipation as the episode neared its end. Which makes this a fairly level match.

On paper it really needs to be Falcon Crest. It leaves the viewer's head swimming with possibilities in the same way as does Knots, but FC 's suspenseful ending also appears to immediately follow-up a Dallas-style instant gratification shocker (the same could be said for Knots, albeit the shocker happened an episode earlier with Peter becoming a human kebab).

There are four factors that swing this for me: Firstly, I have experiential memories of Knots. Secondly, I thought it was a bold move to have such a key character actually going to the trouble of covering up a murder and burying a body. Whatever happens, she's in shtuck from which it seems impossible to get out. Thirdly comes the underdog factor, with Knots struggling a bit this round. And finally, I feel I want to balance the scales on the basis of what comes in Match 2.

It's closer than I thought, but it's...

Knots Landing - Season Eight









Match 2

This one's far easier for me. The later seasons of Knots are not without their charm, but the final scenes of this episode marked the moment Knots went from a series firing on all cylinders to one that's still appointment TV but in which I felt less invested. The key event in this episode is Abby's departure earlier in the episode, and there's something about these following scenes that to me feel a little lifeless and by-the-numbers. Already, there's a sense of absence and a lack of sparkle. Even the secondary cliffhanger of Mack's temptation with Paula is not only a trope in general, it's one that has at this point already played out numerous times in the Fairgate-Mackenzie household and can't feel anything other than derivative (at best) or one that panders to the ego of its ageing actors by making their character irresistible to some nubile young thing (variations of which were concurrently happening all across soapland). The key cliffhanger is well-written and feels almost highbrow as there's a lot the viewer has been expected to retain about this ongoing skein. But such things do not a satisfying cliffhanger make.

Thinking about it, the Dallas cliffhanger ends on a very similar note to Knots. We find two male rivals in shadowy darkness either side of a helpless woman (a dead one in the case of Dallas). One accuses the other - a key character - of being a murderer and we're left to ask ourselves if there's a possibility he's right. 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. Viewed in a vacuum, I find this one far more enjoyable and satisfying.

So it's...

Dallas - Season "Four"

 

[Englishboy]

My vote is as follows

Match 1 = Falcon Crest Season 2

Match 2 = Dallas Season 4

 

[Angela Channing]

With this something like our fourth Lorimararama, I felt it was time for its own branding...

 

[Karin Schill]

1. Knots Landing Season 8
2. Dallas Season 4

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

1 - Falcon Crest season 2: there’s a great impending season of doom with the Knots cliffhanger but I’m choosing FC for this round. I love the old Agatha Christie adaptations like Evil Under The Sun and this scene had a very similar vibe with the cast of glamorous suspects lined up together waiting for the culprit to be revealed. The final scene with the coffin being lowered into the grave showed us what we’d see time and time again in cliffhangers to come - that there’d be a payoff to the viewer’s emotional investment in the high drama of the finale as opposed to some of the other shows where everyone would get up and dust themselves off year after year despite being machine gunned, drowned or thrown from a height. My only stupid issue with this finale is that Lana Turner clearly wasn’t in the room when this was being shot and her scene with Maggie in the hallway was edited in due to scheduling conflicts or whatever. Not a big deal but it’s something I notice every time I watch it.

2 - Dallas season 4: I’m a Knots fan and I don’t think I’ve ever watched this cliffhanger, so “She’s dead! You bastard” gets my vote again.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I love the off-screen shooting which was also done in S&D's second season finale.

 

[Angela Channing]

If you are intending to participate in this week's matches get your votes because the poll will close soon.

The deadline for voting is midday tomorrow, Wednesday 13 July.

A reminder of the matches:

Match 1
Falcon Crest Season 2 (Julia is revealed to be Carlo’s killer and shoots another cast member dead, but which one?) vs Knots Landing Season 8 (Karen and Abby notice a crack in the concrete under which Abby buried Peter’s body).

Match 2
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).

 

[James from London]

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!

 

[Angela Channing]

The voting for last week's matches has now closed and the results are as follows:

Match 1
Falcon Crest Season 2 - 11 votes
Knots Landing Season 3 - 3 votes

Match 2
Dallas Season 4 - 13 votes
Knots Landing Season 10 - 1 vote

The winners going through to round 2 are Falcon Crest Season 2 (Julia is revealed to be Carlo’s killer and shoots dead another cast member) and Dallas Season 4 (Cliff finds a dead female body in the Southfork pool as JR looks down from behind the broken balcony rails).

Congratulations to Falcon Crest and Dallas.

Thank you to everyone who voted in last week's matches. Details of the next 2 matches will be posted on this thread tomorrow.

 

[Angela Channing]

The poll is now open for you to choose which cliffhangers you would like to win each of the next 2 matches to go through to round 3.

You may vote for a winner of either match or for both matches but remember you are voting for your favourite cliffhanger, not your favourite episode or favourite soap opera.

Stating the reasons for your choices is encouraged as this makes the contest more interesting and may help others in making their decisions. However, this is entirely optional and you can just state your chosen winner of each match if you prefer.

Match 1

Falcon Crest Season 9 (Following Richard’s wedding Angela shares her thoughts about the people and the land of the Tuscany Valley ending with her toast to Falcon Crest) vs Dallas Season 12 (Sue Ellen shows JR her film about his life and taunts him that she will release it if he steps out of line).

 

[Angela Channing]

Match 2

Colby’s Season 2 (A UFO descends from the sky and takes Fallon away.) vs Knots Landing Season 9 (Jill forces ‘Poor Val’ to take pills to make it look like she committed suicide).

The vote will close at midday on Wednesday 20th July 2022.

 

[Monzo]

Match 1: Falcon Crest season 9

Match 2: The Colbys season 2