Spin865

11 hours ago, Vee said:

Out of somewhat morbid curiosity, as FC seems perpetually troubled and the also-ran: If someone was, let's say, terminally bored and looking to play Lorimar completionist, what FC material could he skim briefly to get a sense of the show? The pilot? A couple eps in Seasons X or Y? I am def not looking to pick the show up full time, I'm just mildly intrigued and I know I shouldn't limit my perusal to the very strange final season with the super-atmospheric opening and the OTT action-packed makeover.

As someone who watched the show for the first time when it started streaming on Freevee, I think any part of season 2 is the most "pure" Falcon Crest. 

 I bought season 7 on Apple and the HD combined with the Bradford May lighting gives it a very un-Dallas like cinematic feel.

On 1/19/2023 at 5:16 PM, Vee said:

I really enjoyed Priscilla Pointer as the tough Rebecca in Season 6 prepared to square off with J.R. and co. (The totally dropped romantic beat with her and Clayton Farlow is also interesting.) So of course she is killed immediately and the men continue to reign supreme.

I've never been big on Morgan Brittany, not on Melrose or anywhere else, and Katherine's endless torch/obsession feels long since tired almost two seasons before she runs down Bobby. It feels like it's taken him five years to catch on to her infatuation with him as is.

Rewatching the Katherine stuff, if they just listened to Afton when she called Pam in Paris about Katherine, so many things could of been avoided for the characters. And not just on Dallas on Knots also.   

9 hours ago, Vee said:

 

• Lord, it's a small world: Greg plans to move with Laura and her kids to Chevy Chase back east. As a former Maryland/D.C. resident born and raised I have no comment on this development. He’s looking at schools for the Avery boys but hilariously notes "I have no idea how old they are." It's a fair question at this point tbqh. Also hilarious: "I'm spending much too much time with my constituents," Greg complains to Laura. "I need to get back to where the action is." He smiles cavalierly as he tells her his father is either dead or dying, which leads to the weighted exchange up top in this post. Greg may be in love with Laura, may even be candid with her, but the emotional mask he uses is still something he controls very carefully.
•  

On some level Greg will always have a bit of a mask on. That's why moments like him crying and kind of falling apart watching Laura's farewell video after she died feels a big more special and personal than most soap grief.    

4 hours ago, Vee said:

And now, the conclusion:

• Episode 8 of Season 6, "Tomorrow Never Knows" is famous for reasons I don't think I need to elaborate on for most people here. I knew vaguely of some of the events coming but not the hows, whys or specifics, which made it all very compelling for me. This ep is also the first fateful mention of the mysterious Paul Galveston, where we get a warning about him very early on: "No one works with him, you only work for him." Like Wolfbridge in S5, the writers very slowly start to weave first offhand references to Galveston and his empire into the show. First, like Wolfbridge, there's connections without a name attached then more direct references; Laura looking for water sources for Lotus Point and getting wind of a bigger power player in the region. Once again the show draws disparate and seemingly unconnected threads together slowly, and of course we're about to discover just how deep Galveston's involvement in the core of the show really goes - all I knew was he was a major business player who made trouble for several characters and is apparently Sumner's father or something, but I did not expect him to be tied into Val's babies. I do suspect the deeply strange "Who Killed Loder?"/Tidal Basin subplot with Mack and his ex-con right hand Tom Jezik (amazingly still on the show and a regular recurring player, which I did not expect a year ago), all about a dirty cop and some dead women, is also connected to Galveston but I have no idea at present. That whole weird story is fascinating so far though in that it seems so random.
• Ep 8 also gives us Cathy singing "Time After Time"! It's no Cyndi but Lisa Hartman does a great job and then moves directly into an old Ciji track. They've transformed the character a lot very quickly, but I'm not too fussed about it. I can buy her trying to move on from the kind of person she was with Ray and Gary real quick.
• Alas, Mack is finally moving out of Ben's. Their comic and occasionally homoerotic relationship will hopefully live on.
• That's the end of the funny little loose ends for this episode as it's time for the main event: The creepy lullaby music as Val goes into labor is terrifying, and it's so unsettling as she tries to call around the neighborhood with no one home and phones ringing in empty houses - except for the Fairgate boys, who are partying with sub-Friday the 13th Part III disco music while Eric is happily fed pizza by a young lady while also wearing a rather well-fitting red striped top. The boys rush Val to the hospital and are clearly very worried for her, which is touching to watch. The birth sequence is incredibly disturbing in spite of dated camera effects - the close-ups on Val's face and Ackerman in almost direct close-ups to the camera, howling away in either direction, the mix of triumphal orchestral music with the creepy discordant synths. Anyway, Ackerman gives Val the bad news as the biggest story in Knots history begins, and all Val can say is "but I saw them. I heard them cry." And so did the audience! This must have been the most insane mindfuck of a twist for a live viewing public without spoilers or streaming BITD. And it's very hard to watch JVA like this as she takes the news, having radiated joy about these new children after the struggles of her desperate youth for well, a few too many months for a TV pregnancy, but never mind that. There's also an intriguing cut during these events directly to Abby soothing a crying Olivia following another of her (prophetic?) nightmares just before or after Val gives birth - an almost mystical, supernatural element is almost intuited with this connection between the two, not unlike the townsfolk of Twin Peaks reacting psychically to evil acts in the night on that show a few short years later.
• Gary has a great, cryptic line to Abby as he goes to Val upon hearing she's gone into labor: "You have nothing to worry about. You never have." When you look at that statement through the lens of how the Ewings came back together against impossible odds at the end of last season and the start of this one, and how Gary ran headlong after Abby when he saw her taken hostage while leaving Val behind, it has a new and unique impact. That doesn't mean I don't think Gary loves Val, or that she's not in his blood, because she is, the same as Abby. But it's different, and I think Gary knows at least part of that. That's why he tells Abby she has nothing to worry about - because he believes it. At this juncture in their lives anyway, when push comes to shove I suspect he'd always be the man chasing after her because of how she excites and inspires him.
• Abby seems genuinely sad for Val when Gary breaks the news about the twins, and it's well played by Donna Mills. It’s not camp or bitchery, and the slightly guilty sigh of relief she lets out after hanging up their call is real and conflicted too. then comes the final call in the dark from a brusque mystery man in the dark asking for "the father’s blood type," which is creepy as fùck. Abby's mounting dread as she begins to put the pieces together about what the man calls "the children in question" must have mirrored the audience's. This was the absolute right way to do this story vs. what they'd originally planned for Abby, but I'll get to that more in a bit.
• Julie Harris' performance as Lilimae reacts to the news about the twins in Ep 9 is possibly harder to watch than JVA's. It feels like the weight of all her own sins coming down on her, like something she feels punished for far more than Joshua.
• There's a lot more film noir lighting in Abby's drawing room, and Ben's office, in the hospital corridors with the camera prowling down through the shadows as Gary and Ben discuss events, then as Gary comes home to Abby, who listens in horror as Gary muses that Val thinks she saw the twins.
• Off-kilter camerawork persists in the fallout from the 'miscarriage' even in the sunlit cul-de-sac. Everyone's staggered reactions are played out carefully, including Karen and Mack returning from their seaside trip happy in love and getting the bad news from the boys - there's a great moment where Karen wordlessly bolts into the house. They also do a beautiful job with a key scene with Lilimae sadly dismantling the nursery with the help of Gary, of all people. When he quietly confessed he wanted the twins to be his, they gave Lilimae the admittedly portentous but graceful line "in a way they were." "You are the continuous thread that runs through her life," she acknowledges. "And you," Gary counters. They hold hands as he helps her take the cribs apart, and finally seem to have found some degree of common ground after years. Shackelford and Harris don't vie for power, they're just very giving to each other onscreen. We all know it's not always that way on other soaps in either daytime or primetime.
• The gaslighting aspect of Val's story, and the veil falling behind her eyes as she tries to put on a genial face, hits very different in today's world. Other reactions also get space to play out: Karen wanting to cancel Thanksgiving dinner (Val says no), and an equally naive and damaged Joshua earnestly asking his new favorite TV preacher if Val's miscarriage is retribution for her sins. He's still shot through with dogmatic puritanism and dysfunction despite his earnest and unworldly innocence, and that's what makes him potentially dangerous. So of course, the pastor suggests Joshua try writing a sermon of his own. I'm pretty sure I know where this is going and it's quite topical for the time.
• The atmospheric direction from the early sequences post-tragedy kicks into high gear at the close of Ep 9 as a dazed Val wanders through her now-empty nursery, with the roving camera from above following her as she shrinks into herself in a light-shafted corner of the blank space. They have Gary go fetch her, where Val confesses, "we should never have gotten married again." (She might be right, despite how killer they've been together since early Season 5.) But as Gary says, "I've never regretted it." Both statements of note.
• Mack’s Thanksgiving speech for the ensemble at the MacKenzie house is very classy stuff, owning his mistakes and being humble and thankful for having his new family back. Abby being back in the cul-de-sac for a community event for the first time in several years is something I made note of about this ep a couple pages ago, and it's trippy to see her there; you can tell she's uncomfortable, having previously tried to beg off IIRC, but it's fitting that she is there and we get to see her and the others having to adjust to who she is now vs. the rest of them. Even Tom Jezik is there! The dinner is pretty wholesome and comforting in the face of a monstrous tragedy; everyone in turn gets to give thanks and give their own perspective on the various storylines of the moment, and that feels very of a piece with something daytime would do at its best. Of course there's a twist in the tail at the end, when Gary and Val return and Val cheerily chirps, "Gary and I were late again as usual." Just ambiguous enough to be unsettling for the freeze frame.
• A brief interlude: Greg Sumner spends his Turkey Day alone in his suite, with even more atmospheric lighting, lonely angles and shadows on him and his perfectly plated hotel food. There's very little said between him and the help. A little artistry on this show says more than most dialogue.
• By Ep 10 ("Message in a Bottle") Val is flying a kite in her hallucinatory erotic dreams of her, Gary and a cheerful Abby on the beach. A lot to unpack there, and obviously Val is not well. This is another very well-shot episode from newcomer(?) Nick Havinga who also did Ep 8. "I had no business raising an Ewing, let alone being one," Val calmly tells Ben, while also seeming to quietly blame J.R. for what happened to the twins. I was wondering if they'd hit that beat, and I'm glad they did. It makes sense her mind would go there.
• All the stuff with Abby from this point on is straight out of '70s conspiracy thrillers, all Alan J. Pakula or Sidney Lumet's greatest hits, stuff like Klute or The Parallax View - creepy phone calls, tinkling music, disappeared people. Abby races out to the Galveston Industries plane on its airstrip accompanied by amazing Harry Manfredini-esque strings, only to find no Scott Easton waiting for her - just a strange Easton doppelgänger. Abby rapidly turns into an '80s TV version of a Hitchcock Blonde with all the fashion, trappings and music to match as she scrambles to hunt down Easton, play phone tag and unravel the scheme that is turning her world upside down. This is compounded further after (in another smart plotting move) Olivia goes to see Val, who lets Olivia in on the secret of her very much alive babies; Olivia tells Abby, who acts on her own concern by going straight to Val's doctor: Ackerman. She knows something is up, and she tells him she knows he knows - on another show a character like Abby wouldn't necessarily do that, trying to undo a horrible crime against someone she's supposed to hate and fear. Instead of Abby as the direct conspirator as was originally planned (and vetoed by Donna Mills), her role is repositioned so that her culpability is mitigated. Instead the story becomes a conspiracy thriller starring Donna Mills, where we know she has done mischief in the past and gotten in over her head, but here she becomes almost the audience identification figure in the storyline - the only person who knows something is up, trying to learn the truth about something she never intended to happen but feels guilt for. They go so far with this as to have Abby storm Galveston Industries, security be damned, with the viewer cheering her on; here, she find Easton's weird doppelgänger who essentially says Easton is dead and watch your step. Her growing paranoia and fear is so well played, so carefully built up, and by the end of the ep Abby is literally rocking in her chair out of sheer nerves. She's tried to do her due diligence, which is a smart move by the writers by way of Mills. She becomes the protagonist, or at least the antiheroine. It's brilliantly nuanced character and plot work and you'd never know they didn't originally plan it this way as opposed to something that Mills is right about - the original idea would've left Abby irredeemable.
• Paul Galveston finally appears in the flesh in Ep 10, where he and Gary bond over horses and ranches. The surrogate father/son angle here, with Galveston appearing to be a superficially kinder sketch of Jock Ewing to Gary, is not lost on me and is a fascinating idea if they lean into it. Which is notable given I know whose father he apparently really is.
• The whole weird Loder/Tidal Basin storyline continues in this ep with a focus on Jezik, still the most unlikely surprise recurring player. There's a super-cinematic suspense sequence of Jezik meeting a contact at a foggy abandoned warehouse with a drip-drip-dripping water faucet, followed by silhouetted men grabbing him and working him over for snooping in the wrong places. It's very well done, but this whole side story is still baffling yet spellbinding to me because unlike Wolfbridge it feels beamed in from another show, with most of the events (murders) and key players (a dead cop named Loder) taking place offscreen. I assume it must go back to Galveston too - this team loves giant umbrellas on this show - but the jury is out for me on how well it will play in the final analysis.
• There's a nice sequence in this ep too as Karen listens to Val tell her origin story about falling for Gary, calling him 'this blond god' who helped her in the diner back in Texas. But most of Ep 10's stuff with Val is given over to her collapsing psyche, with a terrifying, brilliantly shot sequence with Joshua walking in on Val talking to herself in the dark about the babies, and then a campier but equally spooky dream sequence of her in a blazing white hospital room with creepy Ackerman, her family and her men all looking on in scrubs, chiding her, gaslighting her. Val's rightful paranoia gives way to paranoid delusions against her loved ones, and that leads to her finally making her getaway. JVA is genuinely frightening in this stuff so far, and with the first third of an already epic season down (maybe my favorite for now, and not just for the baby story but for the evolutions in Abby, Gary and Sumner so far) I'm very excited to finally continue on with the show.

Eric and Michael have real  "Wonder Fairgate brothers powers activate!" vibes in episode 9. On the subject of the preacher, I'm confused with what I think is supposed to be a cable news station having a religious show on it (even if the preacher seems more of a middle of the road type than a Pat Robertson type). Howard Duff who played Paul Galveston played a similar character on Dallas a few years later.   

On 10/3/2022 at 11:59 AM, Vee said:

 

• That last, to me, is the central line with what Greg is now going through - he knows what he's done despite his bravado and justifications to his wife, and has determined he will take the hit to his spirit and soul for his success, because in his mind it's his fee for the wrong he's done to get there. Jane tries to get through to him, but soon enough the Sumner mask is back up - no trouble, everything's fine. There's a great moment though with Greg alone in this episode or the next one, scarred and brooding over his recent actions and the murder of St. Claire, staring in the mirror, then reaching out wordlessly to touch his reflection. It's these silent codas that give the show and its characters so much artistic foundation and subtle depths. For her part, Laura (still close to Greg by his wish, for reasons that become clearer if still explicitly understated a little later) wants to know what they mean to each other, wants him to give her a reason to stay. "I want you to stay," he finally admits, "but if I were you I wouldn't." That's big for him to say, and that attitude along with the silent scene in the mirror are a sign of what is starting to happen with him over the next several episodes.

With Greg, they really do a consistent line of Greg keeping the mask on for the rest of the show (although in later seasons it would be more the case of Greg meeting almost every remark with a sarcastic quip). And it makes the rare cases of the viewers seeing Greg's true emotions seem special (Greg's private reaction to Laura's video after her death is one of the few things on a primetime soap that have ever brought me to tears).  

5 hours ago, Vee said:

I will have a lot to say about the first act of Season 6 soon enough, but I will say that the end of Episode 8 is a killer. Putting aside how hard it is to watch JVA in this material because everything is on her face, and Abby's genuinely sad and sympathetic reaction to the news about Val losing the babies in spite of everything (a moment virtually every other primetime soap I can recall would've played for camp bitchery), the final phone call from one of Easton/whoever's associates asking for 'the father's blood type' for 'the children in question' is so, so creepy. Donna Mills was so right to make them change the story and do it this way, and it still is just as effective and chilling if not far moreso, because Abby, who couldn't stomach Wolfbridge, would never have intended this either and has suddenly found herself trapped inside of this plot. The mounting confusion and then horror in Mills' eyes is just great, and it's through that that Abby can become an audience identification character in this story on a certain level, because they've been in on it for a few episodes ahead of her. The mindfuck on this reveal for a live audience back in the day must have been insane.

Also, Val's infamous creepy doctor looks a lot like Larry Drake a.k.a. Dr. Giggles.

Since I rewatched this episode a few days ago my question is what kind of horrible horror movie-like nightmare was Oliva having that Abby had to sleep in the same bed as her? I will pretend she was having some premonition about Val's baby's being stolen. And I love that the Cul- De- Sac is such a close place that Michael appears to know Gary's ranch house telephone number by heart.   

47 minutes ago, Vee said:

I'm almost a third of the way through the first mega-sized season (30 episodes - I haven't dealt with that in a long time), so I'll probably reserve my early commentary on the first part of Season 6 for when I hit 10. I'm not doing them episode by episode again any time soon lol, but I do have a lot to discuss in addition to what I already have mentioned here in the last couple pages. So far it seems the show has simply gone from strength to strength, and as I've said it seems Gary and Abby are better than ever together at this point - honest with each other about who they are but still carnally in sync and passionately fulfilled, in part because of how they differ and counter the other. I'm also enjoying the gradual deconstruction of Greg Sumner's character, digging beneath the grinning, opaque master politician who, as his wife says, always keeps his mask up. He really is coming apart.

I've been rewatching  season 6 and I have to say that episode 9 is one of the best episodes I can remember. The combination of Richard Gollance and Larry Elikan is a good one.   

6 minutes ago, Vee said:

Wasn't Petersen in the opening for at least a couple seasons near the end? I have also seen him and Tonya Crowe in the yearly ensemble shots a la Lonow; I'm not sure if Steve Shaw ever made it into those.

Petersen was in the opening in season 11 and 12. Shaw was never in the opening. Crowe was only in the season 11 opening but she probably had more actual screen time in the couple seasons before that. 

1 hour ago, Vee said:

I know eventually they dispense with Eric and Michael, but I wish they'd tried a little harder. I really am attached to Olivia and the two boys. I suppose when the dramatic center of your show is the parents it's understandable (and I know they tried with Michael and Paige together in some way), but it might have helped with future planning had the show tried to revamp and survive, as some have postulated. I think it could've been done for a few years at least, before the Moonves purge of the mid-late '90s, but judging by interviews it seems the will or interest was not there with the showrunners after fourteen years. Which I can't fault them for.

I intend to ride Olivia's run out for as long as possible; she's great. I didn't know Crowe apparently auditioned for the post-Smith Emily Stewart recast (IIRC) on ATWT later on.

Michael stays around till the end of season 12 and has a decent sized storyline in season 11.  I think Eric leaves the show sometime in season 8 and comes back a few times for the Michael/Eric/Linda storyline but unfortunately Steve Shaw passed away during season 12. I think Olivia's storylines were okay until her last season.  That was the season after Donna Mills left. 

14 hours ago, kalbir said:

Also Knots Landing season 12-14 overlapped w/ season 1-3 of Beverly Hills 90210.

Dallas final season overlapped w/ season 1 of Beverly Hills 90210. Knots Landing final season overlapped w/ season 1 of Melrose Place. Funny how the final seasons of the first 1980s primetime soap and its spinoff (technically both premiered in the late 1970s but they are mostly associated w/ the 1980s) overlap w/ the first seasons of the first 1990s primetime soap and its spinoff.

The interesting thing is due to I guess the huge difference between the number of CBS viewers and Fox viewers in the early 90's, Knots in it's last seasons always beat 90210 (at that shows peak of popularity!) in the ratings (well not in the younger demo ratings I assume) http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/2020/03/1992-93-ratings-history.html    

5 hours ago, Vee said:

I know some have sung the praises of the latter half of the infamous Season 13 and even Season 14, so I'll be curious about it when/if I get there lol. A story featuring Val and Greg Sumner does sound interesting, at least. I only had a glimpse of it when sneaking a peek at Claudia Lonow's return appearance in the final season and it was a real shift to see the early '90s look and style changes, as well as a much older Diana and Val and Gary's preteen twins. That's the power of longform soap opera, which KL qualifies as given its length of run; you can watch people grow and change in relative real time.

I'd definitely be curious on people's opinions of Seasons 7-9 as I approach them, or earlier. It's welcome any time, you don't need to wait on me. It's also been interesting for me hitting the Peter Dunne golden era, as like I've said I am most familiar with him from his run on the final season of Melrose Place, which revitalized that show considerably and should not have been cancelled - yet I'm pretty sure it was also a fairly similar riff on his story with Ciji, only replacing her with Rena Sofer and a crime in the past.

I sure wish Khan was here.

The end of Season 13 and 14 were big improvements. The short Val/Greg storyline was the best story Val had in years since she's probably the main character to suffer the most in the post-peak years. You know it's funny how the show was on for such a long time that it was competing with the 90's Fox soaps. by the end (well just for the first season of Melrose).  

4 hours ago, Vee said:

I am very curious about it myself - bringing in a Dallas writer to KL (or a KL writer to Dallas, which I will get to as I browse that show off and on) seems so anathema to me. I've obviously heard very mixed things about the next couple seasons after S6, but it's that sort of wilderness or experimental period that intrigues me too; it sort of goes beyond the bounds of what I am somewhat prepared for. I've also heard Season 9 is good but I have no idea. I'm excited to see the Williams family and Karen's boys growing into their own storylines, however good or bad, and Nicollette Sheridan.

I am well aware of the Latham/Lechowick team's complicated and controversial reputation, but my only experience with them firsthand was their dreadful work at Y&R. I'm not dismissing them out of hand here because I know some loved what they did at Knots, some hated it and many were inbetween. I also know the show remained popular. Either way, once I'm out of the supposed golden era with Peter Dunne I am very curious, because I know there was a lot people loved well after and I want to see what it was for myself. I may or may not do some more regular episodic discussions for Season 6, but I can't keep this up forever and will start discussing the show more in overview as I watch at some point going forward.

To me even though the show changes and has a really rough season 8, it always at least watchable to me until around the start of season 13. It takes a long time for the show to have a kind of "why are we still doing this?" feeling that I got from say Melrose Place as early as season 5.