Flamingo Road

Ben King · 12-06-2006, 03:47 PM

Does anyone remember this early 1980's Lorimar soap?

Substituting Dallas for Florida, Flamingo Road boasted a great cast - Morgan Fairchild, Howard Duff, David Selby, Mark Harmon, Cristina Raines, Kevin McCarthy, Stella Stevens, Barbara Rush, Barbara Rush's eyelashes, Cynthia Sikes, Esther Rolle etc.

I seem to recall that the first season cliffhanger involved Morgan Fairchild's character falling down a staircase during a hurricane and that storylines were much darker and more daring than standard soap fare towards the end of the second season, featuring characters dabbling with voodoo and the occult.

If Warners decide to release Falcon Crest next year as well as more Dallas and Knots Landing, I'm hoping that Flamingo will come to DVD too.

There were only 37 episodes including the pilot so hopefully Warners might release the whole lot in one go and package it as "The Complete Series".

Jeff Willis · 12-06-2006, 07:07 PM

This one's on my list. Hope it gets released.

Ethan Riley · 12-07-2006, 03:12 AM

Oh sure I'd buy it. I think the only reason it wasn't successful is because the number of nighttime soaps had reached the saturation point. It was at least as good as the rest of them. I do remember it unfortunately suffered from an unresolved cliffhanger in the last episode; something to do with Mark Harmon turning out to be a KKK member or some such...I recall him pulling off his hood during a cross burning lol

Ben King · 12-07-2006, 04:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley

Oh sure I'd buy it. I think the only reason it wasn't successful is because the number of nighttime soaps had reached the saturation point.

Not sure. Flamingo Road was actually quite an early (pre-Dynasty) entry into the genre and I believe Stella Stevens argued that the show was axed because NBC didn't have much faith in it. They jumped onto the night-time soap bandwagon but really weren't comfortable with showing a "trashy" soap opera, preferring to channel their resources into more quality fare like St. Elsewhere.

I'd say that the soap genre reached its peak circa 1984/5 - Dallas, Knots Landing, Dynasty and Falcon Crest were all in the top ten by that stage. And it was during the 1985/6 season - involving the "dream" season of Dallas, the aftermath of the Moldavian Massacre on Dynasty and the introduction of its hugely expensive but not very popular spin-off The Colbys that saw the soaps begin to tumble and fall.

But definitely all six shows are very interesting time capsules as examples of popular television in the 1980's, and it's a shame that the night-time soap genre is so far under-represented on DVD.

mickeyTOR · 12-07-2006, 08:29 AM

I don't think he was a KKK guy. In fact, I think he was wearing a monks outfit. The character was supposed to have been dead - and in that final shot you see him taking that brown hood off in what I seem to recall was some sort of church. It's been 25 years though so I could be wrong.

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Jeff Willis · 12-07-2006, 09:41 AM

I'm not 100% on this but I think you guys are referring to another character in the show, played by David Selby. I think the character name was "Michael Tyrone" or something similar.

I always thought F.R. was one of the better primetime soaps. Morgan Fairchild (Dallas-area native

) was great in that series.

Charles Ellis · 12-09-2006, 07:44 PM

Well Ben, I wish you luck in your quest as similarly I'm still waiting for Fox to release Peyton Place!

Ben King · 05-07-2007, 09:25 PM

No plans for a DVD release according to Warners at the chat.



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