Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest or Knots Landing? (1 Viewer)

[classicmovieguy]

In Season 2 of "Falcon Crest" it's mentioned that Jacqueline (Turner's character) has returned with an eye toward buying a small hotel in San Francisco. Perhaps this was going to be the 'plot device' that would keep Jacqueline on the show in a 'recurring' capacity. The other characters might have occasionally stopped by the hotel for a chat, etc. If there was a feud it would have been minimised by keeping Turner away from the main action involving Wyman.

 

[JohnMor]

Still can't believe they got Ava Gardner to do Knot's Landing. I truly wish I could get my hands on these. I never saw that season first run and would love to see it.

She was great. I remember her from the first run very vividly. They couldn't have cast a better mother for Devane. Shame she hated working so fast and wouldn't agree to come back. Just never liked the TV production schedule.

 

[classicmovieguy]

Leslie Caron and Gina Lollobrigida also had guest spots on "Falcon Crest".

 

[AlanP]

And let's no forget another big one was Kim Novak. Wyman wanted her to return but Novak didn't like the schedule...

 

[classicmovieguy]

A lot of the classic film actresses recruited for these primetime soaps found the schedule untenable. They were used to a slower pace. It's a testament to the incredible resilience and work ethic of Jane Wyman that she was able to hold up so brilliantly as the figurehead for "Falcon Crest".

 

[AlanP]

Seems like I remember Wyman and Lollabrigda had problems working together......I think that she was originally slated for more episodes and they were scratched due to problems on set.....Also remember that Stanwyck was considered as Angela briefly.

And Celeste Holm did not have kind words for Wyman when she did a brief stint on the series......

 

[classicmovieguy]

I suppose they *all* couldn't have been wrong...

 

[Kasey]

I was a teenager when when these shows aired and wasn't watching much TV then, but am seeing them now on DVD. Dallas is my favorite, followed by Falcon Crest. I haven't seen enough of Knots to assess it properly because S1 doesn't seem soapy enough and the episodes are kind of self-contained. Dynasty is my least-favorite because even though it's the glitziest it seems tacky and self-indulgent. Not trolling here either, but IMO Linda Evans is a terrible actress. I saw her on an episode of The Lieutenant and she was just as bad and hadn't grown professionally 20 years later except for the fame.

 

[Nick*Z]

Well, where to begin. Bottom line: I don't know too many people who watched Dynasty for its tight narratives because, frankly, the show had none. I'll concur that Season Two was the best written of the lot with Season 5's Moldavian Massacre taking the series over the top. The problem with Dynasty was that it could never figure out what to do with its secondary characters, like Kate O'Mara's sublime Caress Morell; Alexis' half sister, who breezed in from a South American prison, poised to wreck Alexis' perfect world and expose a lifetime of underhanded dealings with first-hand accounts. But then she was chloroformed by Blake's evil brother, Ben and sent back to the third world prison hell hole from whence she was never heard from again - a sad end to a character who had much to offer the series.


Dynasty's writing is REALLY sloppy. A few of the more glaring oddities to consider: (1) after Nick Toscani battles with Blake and leaves him for dead atop a cliff during the season 2 cliffhanger James Farantino's character was completely written out of the show. (2) a big buildup for a mysterious stranger in season 3 - Dominique Devereaux (the elegant Diahann Carroll) was reduced to rubble as the writers struggled to find plot points to plug n' play with her character. (3) Catherine Oxenburg's strong-willed princess fell apart after Season 5 and was replaced by another actress before getting involved in a poolside cat fight with Heather Locklear's Sammy Jo and then attempting suicide. Badly done! (4) Blake's brother Ben, after conspiring with Alexis to destroy him at the end of season , had a total change of heart and became Blake's devoted sibling the following season - dumb. (5) Throughout the show, nobody could decided if the long suffering Steven Carrington was gay, bi-curious or just totally confused. (6) Adam Carrington was evil to the core, conspiring to poison Jeff with some dodgy paint. He also was forever plotting to take over his father's empire with an assist from his mum - Alexis. But then Adam discovered love and before long, became virtuously obsessed with the fact his wife couldn't bear him a son. Silly again. (7) When Pamela Sue Martin's Fallon drove her car off a hillside that ought to have been the end of her. Instead, she suffered the indignation of being replaced by Emma Samms, losing her memory, marrying the despicably adolescent Myles Colby in the Dynasty II: The Colbys spin-off, but then going back to Jeff on Dynasty, whom she tortured emotionally, and was then sucked up in a space ship, before being returned unharmed a few episodes later (Close Encounters ripoff, anyone?!?).


Bringing Sable Carrington over from the defunct Colby's spin-off ought to have given Dynasty a real claws out boost, except that by then the audience had tired of too many ridiculous loopholes in the plot. The cast was solid, though, and those who clung to this soap opera, yours truly included, sincerely hoped the writers would come up with more meaningful ways of marketing them to us weekly rather than weakly. Boo-hoo, and sadly - Dynasty died a painful death - lasting three more seasons after the most widely watched cliffhanger of all time - the aforementioned massacre in which (guffaw and choke!) nobody except Steven's gay lover and Jeff's paramour died. What? Boy, the Moldavian guards responsible for this palace coup were REALLY poor shots.


Dallas always had better writing. So it was something of a misfire when Dynasty surpassed them in the ratings during season five, they suddenly felt they had to compete with this new upstart by dressing their home-styled Ewing clan in glam-bam gowns; the shoulder pads and hair exponentially growing with each episode thereafter. Dallas' target audience was men; Dynasty's women. By subverting the conventions of Dallas the show increasingly alienated the audience it had built up successfully until that point; that and the (wait for it) dream sequence in which Bobby Ewing died - though not really - only to be resurrected two seasons later and wind up in Pam's shower. What?!?


Falcon Crest's misfire occurred blessedly late in the series; after Richard Channing's perilous alliance with the Sacred 36; a mafia-styled organization that threatened to have the whole clan assassinated in order to gain control over a global conspiracy theory. It might have worked except that immediately following the shocking season cliffhanger (Ursula Andress lying next to Richard dead with a bullet in her head), the writers of this celebrated soap equally lost interest and reason in tandem on how to tie up the loose ends once the next season commenced. Instead, they simply decided to forget about the previous season. The mafia went away and the story lines moved on - or rather downward. The show also committed a cardinal sin; changing Bill Conti's iconic and bombastic theme song for a truly pathetic and mellow substitute, presumably to herald a new approach to the series that never caught on with audiences.


As the 80s wrapped up so too did all of these glorious escapist melodramas; the audience shifting toward the younger talents burgeoning in Aaron Spellings' original Beverly Hills 90210 and later, Melrose Place. Every decade has its high points. Dallas, Dynasty, Dynasty II, Falcon Crest and Knots Landing - at least for a brief time - were the iconic trailblazers of their time. Today, many play mostly as quaint relics. They're still good for a gander - but their narratives don't really hold up as well as one fondly recalls, having lived through them the first go around.

 

[classicmovieguy]

Well, where to begin. Bottom line: I don't know too many people who watched Dynasty for its tight narratives because, frankly, the show had none. I'll concur that Season Two was the best written of the lot with Season 5's Moldavian Massacre taking the series over the top. The problem with Dynasty was that it could never figure out what to do with its secondary characters, like Kate O'Mara's sublime Caress Morell; Alexis' half sister, who breezed in from a South American prison, poised to wreck Alexis' perfect world and expose a lifetime of underhanded dealings with first-hand accounts. But then she was chloroformed by Blake's evil brother, Ben and sent back to the third world prison hell hole from whence she was never heard from again - a sad end to a character who had much to offer the series.

Actually Caress DID return after being taken back to jail - Dex and Clay helped her escape, but her return to Denver fizzled away. Her ultimate exit was so disappointing, when she could have stuck around to annoy Alexis for at least 1 more full season.

 

[JohnMor]

My favorite scene from Dynasty . One of the best character introductions: Diahann Carroll as Dominique Devereaux.

 

[classicmovieguy]

My favorite scene from Dynasty . One of the best character introductions: Diahann Carroll as Dominique Devereaux.

Wasn't she fabulous? Again, I feel the writers short-changed Dominique, especially in the later seasons. If the rumours I've heard were true (and Dominique was poised to return in the 10th year of "Dynasty") I'm sure we'd have again seen her in full force.

 

[AlanP]

One big flaw with Dynasty was The Colbys! It intertwined some characters in its storylines. Thus if you didn't follow Colbys Dynasty became somewhat confusing and vice versa....Should have been one series with a smaller Colbys cast! Would have loved to see Alexis and Heston or Stanwyck go at it. The plots could have been stellar. And at that point Dynasty was getting stale. This could have been what it needed. Instead it diluted Dynasty... Too much energy was spent to launch The Colbys, thus they could not keep the priorities straight on Dynasty! It lost it's focus and became a disaster.

 

[Mr. Handley]

Dallas by a mile.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Dynasty's writing always suffered because of the actors' availability and contract disputes. Lots of storylines got screwed up because of things the actors did.

 

[Charles Ellis]

Dynasty was so over the top, you HAD to watch! Dallas could be rather venal at times with all the backstabbing, while Knots Landing was decidedly more laid-back, possibly due to its suburban setting. Falcon Crest decidedly more unique than the others, with better actors and its own way of storytelling- having Jane Wyman as the star certainly helped. Yet it's Dynasty I have on DVD- like I said, over the top- a shock a minute though it suffered by recasting (Emma Samms- really?) and the show reached a point of no return after the Moldavian Massacre.


Mind you- those were from the 80's. My all-time favorite primetime soap aired twenty years earlier. Perhaps you heard of it- based on a notorious novel about the private sins of a certain New England town...........

 

[bmasters9]

Falcon Crest's misfire occurred blessedly late in the series; after Richard Channing's perilous alliance with the Sacred 36; a mafia-styled organization that threatened to have the whole clan assassinated in order to gain control over a global conspiracy theory. It might have worked except that immediately following the shocking season cliffhanger (Ursula Andress lying next to Richard dead with a bullet in her head), the writers of this celebrated soap equally lost interest and reason in tandem on how to tie up the loose ends once the next season commenced. Instead, they simply decided to forget about the previous season. The mafia went away and the story lines moved on - or rather downward. The show also committed a cardinal sin; changing Bill Conti's iconic and bombastic theme song for a truly pathetic and mellow substitute, presumably to herald a new approach to the series that never caught on with audiences.

That change of title track for the ninth and final season (1989-90), I strongly agree, was one of the main factors that did Falcon Crest in. That ninth-season track had no life to it, whereas the Bill Conti track, in all its variations, was very, very lively.

 

[classicmovieguy]

That change of title track for the ninth and final season (1989-90), I strongly agree, was one of the main factors that did Falcon Crest in. That ninth-season track had no life to it, whereas the Bill Conti track, in all its variations, was very, very lively.

The final season's theme made it sound like some tacky Movie of the Week murder mystery.

 

[classictvfan40]

My favorite was Dallas

 

[radicaldelusion]

The first six seasons of dynasty, Dallas until Victoria Principal's last season, seasons 1-4 of Falcon Crest. BUT - the slow, steady horse wins the race. Overall, Knots Landing, after a lackluster first first two seasons, remained remakably consistent for the remaining 10 years, with more long-term major cast members remaining at the end. The ratings had a spike into the top 10 for a couple years during the peak of primtime soaps' populaity, but overall, it remained a moderate hit throughout it's entire run. It didn't run itself into the ground like Dallas, and it didn't crash and burn and get cancelled too soon with major unresolved cliffhangers like dynasty. It never changed producers and writers and character direction like underwear as did Falcon Crest.

One thing about Knots is for sure, however. It was dull before Donna Mills joined the cast, and it lost some of its majic when she departed. Unlike Dallas' final season, which was sad and almost pathetic, with southfork totlly empty, and Falcon Crest's final season, which was more like a spin-off, Knots's last season was rejuvenated. Both Knots and Dynasty had lost direction in the 2 seasons prior to their final, with their last seasons recapturing the true essence of the characters. Knots was able to bow out with Grace. Dynasty wasn't. CBS squeezed every last drop out of Dallas until the sponge was bone-dry. Falcon Crest's final season was actually pretty good compared to the previous 3 seasons, but was a different show. I think if they had changed the name and made it a spinoff, it may have had a chance.

While the official term, "primetime soap," may have died after the end of Melrose Place, with the exception of Revenge and the fatally-flawed attempt to resurrect Dallas (and the blasphemous upcoming re-do of Dynasty), their legacy lives on. Nearly all primetime dramas are now serialized either partially or completely. Each one is more genre specific than the broad-range term "soap," but wasn't "24" an action soap targeted at a male audience? Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder, Designated Survivor, & This Is Us are just several broadcast network fully serialized current shows.

TNT's handling of Dallas 2.0 is baffling to anyone who watched the original show. The series premiere had the highest ratings of any non-broadcast network original series in history. Each episode declined from there. Why? Because instead of using pre-existing characters from the next generation of the Ewing family, they created new, unrelated ones that the audience didn't care about. They re-wrote history. Southfork looked totally different. When they did bring back original characters, they were used mostly as props, given one-liners, and maybe one episode where they were part of the storyline.

Lucas Krebbs ( Bobby's biological son with Jenna Wade), Margaret Krebbs, James Beaumont (Ewing) & his son (JR's grandson), JR & Callie's son (none of JR's children or grandchildren other than John Ross were ever mentioned, even at the funeral or the reading of his will). All of these characters would have been in their 20s, the right age for the demographic they were going after. At the same time, it would have pleased the viewers of the original series, staying true to the legacy.
QUOTE="classicmovieguy, post: 4227417, member: 379750"]Of the 'Big 4' primetime soaps of the 80's, which would be your favourite, if you could pick just one?


Curious to see the responses for this... [/QUOTE]