Chris 2

This sounds great. Now, I hate to sound negative but no Kate Mulgrew?

My guess is that since the ratings were good but not great and NBC Universal makes more off the back-end reruns than CBS does, CBS felt it should pay a lower license fee.

That place is amazing. I imagine it would have been difficult to build a set based on it, given all the ocean views. With the ranch, they were able to build an indoor set so that they didn’t have to go on location all the time. Also, it’s possible that the owners didn’t want KL shooting there continuously.

Re: Gary and Abby’s beach house. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I remember thinking it wasn’t a set, but an actual house. If so, I can imagine they phased it out due to the expense of the location shooting.

I think one of the great things that Knots did was write out characters when they had reached the end of the line, and brought new people in. It really helped keep the show fresh. Apparently David Jacobs pitched a reboot for a potential 15th season, with just the Mackenzies and the Ewings continuing, with a group of new neighbors. Would have been interesting, but I’d argue you didn’t need Gary and Val to continue, because they had come full circle. And you only needed one stable older couple. I do think dull Ben was a good match for Valene. But Doug Sheehan seems like he thought a bit highly of himself. He was lucky to get KL, IMHO. And I didn’t like his opening credit picture with his mouth hanging open. Nerdy. I liked Joanna Pettet a lot and when I saw her in the credits at the beginning of the episodes, I was hoping she’d become a regular.

“Family Ties” was the worst when it came to flashback episodes. They did 6 or 7 of them, and many were an hour long. NBC actually refused to accept one of them as part of the show’s regular episode order at one point, and it sat on the shelf for several years until NBC agreed to accept it later on. Witt Thomas (Harris) also loved the flashback episodes. In addition to Golden Girls, they did one flashback episode each year when they revived “It’s a Living” in first-run syndication.

The actress who played Kim was one of the most unappealing performers I can recall. And I was never a big fan of Michael Corbett’s either. And I’ve always found Louise Shaffer (Rae) to be one-note. So it goes without saying that that story was not a particular favorite.

You’ll notice that both of them choose their words about Victoria a bit carefully. Charlene ultimately says, “I got along fine with her.” By contrast, when Charlene was asked about Linda Gray, her first words are about Linda being “amazing - lovely, sweet…” Haven’t we all worked with people who are not outgoing or overly friendly and can be prickly at times?

I don’t believe Spelling’s ABC soaps ever transitioned to the cheap “shoot on film/edit on video” method that the Lorimar soaps (and most US dramas) used in the late 80s, so that accounts for some of it. I also think Aaron Spelling understood the value of reruns more than Lorimar did, and whenever I see his shows rerun even today, they look like they’re in great shape from a picture quality standpoint. Whereas Dallas - even for the earlier episodes truly edited on film - looks faded and grainy with all kinds of dust and dirt. I’m guessing Spelling took better care of his library, but wish I knew more details - I’m just speculating.

Restaurants are notoriously bad investments - Abby should have known that! She would have been better off investing in the used car lot

Laura having anything to do with Richard after the hostage episode is purely ridiculous. I know it’s a soap and people on soaps forgive each other more easily than they do in real life. But this is a bridge too far.

One of my favorite episodes. The scene between Valene and Abby (“How else are you going to learn?”) is great. But the home movies scene is amazing. I understand that Don Murray filmed those scenes prior to his departure at the beginning of the season. Michele Lee is a wonder here as Karen simultaneously expresses her joy at the memories of her life with Sid and her grief over his loss. Lee was nominated for an Emmy that year, and I believe this is the episode she submitted.

Always thought Joan was cute. I feel badly for anyone who’s so afraid of aging that they need to get extensive plastic surgery (and I know the pressure for actors to stay young looking). I hope she’s healthy and wish the paparazzi would leave her alone.

I thought it was crazy that Cole and Vicki were willing to abandon their young brother Kevin to Richard (and then some distant counsin) after Maggie’s death. I don’t recall if they ever mentioned Richard adopting him.

I don’t think she would have worked well on KL either. Knots was a show where actors who could give nuanced performances really shined, and those who couldn’t stuck out like a sore thumb.

Mooshy?

Oh yeah - that’s a lovely scene. And then Kenny moves to take the baby from Karen when she starts crying, but Ginger stops him.

It’s frustrating that the series isn’t available. I wish I had thought about taping it but who knew. I do have one episode (aside from the two commercially released seasons): the original airing of the 1993 finale, complete with commercials. I transferred it to DVD a while back.

Lilimae also worked, singing her little ditties and playing the autoharp. No one paid her for it though.

I’m guessing you meant to type “whenever Val and JR had a scene together.” If so, I totally agree. I love the scene between them on the front lawn of Southfork after he’s driven Gary way again and she tells him that he’s taken everything from her, but he can’t buy her off. I also love the scene where he drops by her book signing and asks, “Do you have a kiss for your favorite brother in law?” And she hisses under her breath, “You are disgusting!” They wrote a scene between the two of them for Dallas 2.0 where Val goes charging into his office to confront him. Hagman sadly passed before they could do it, so Sue Ellen stood in for JR in that scene and it really didn’t make a lot of sense since there wasn’t much history between Val and Sue Ellen. But I can picture him saying the lines and it would have been great.

I haven’t seen season 8 since it originally aired but I remember liking it much better than the hot mess that was Jeff Freilich’s season 7. But Dallas had greatly declined at that t point, so FC wasn’t getting the lead-in it once did. And it no longer had the clear cut setup of the Gioberti family coming to the valley, with Angela trying to drive them out.

I thought Pam was under appreciated by the producers. She was the second most important character after JR. I thought the show functioned better without Bobby than without Pam. Charlene Tilton is an actress with limited range. I wish they had cast someone who could really play the vixen, someone more like Pamela Sue Martin. The season following Who Shot JR was kinda dull - I agree. The show didn’t really perk up again until they started dealing with Jock’s death a season later. That season, plus the two following, are the series’ strongest years.

Thanks for posting this - I never saw it! And how nice to see Victoria Principal participating. I think her comments are spot on - she discussed how Pam became more secondary in her last year of the show and why she felt they shouldn’t have been surprised that she left.

Did Knots ever do anything cheesy like a fire where the regulars were trapped or an earthquake or anything like that? I don’t think they did because it didn’t seem to be their style.

The issue with the 30 min soaps is that they often aired at noon or 12:30 or 4:00 and those were prime slots for stations to air syndicated or local programming, and not have to share revenue with the network. Stations in larger markets aired news in the noon slots; back then it was less of an issue of ratings, and more an issue of community responsibility. There was no way any of our local affiliates were going to dump the noon news in favor of a soap opera. They were committed to news. Our local NBC station didn’t air The Doctors in its final years, nor did it air Search for Tomorrow. It had a local talk show called “People Are Talking,” which was popular and got higher ratings than The Doctors or SFT. Our local ABC affiliate didn’t clear Edge of Night at 4:00; it showed Big Valley and The Waltons and other syndicated reruns which were more profitable for them. It did air EON on a one-day delay in the mornings for about a year, after it moved over from CBS. But then it dropped EON, never to air it again.