The best overall primetime soap is Knots Landing because it never became a shell of itself and it had a proper ending, something the other primetime soaps cannot claim. Michele Lee, Joan Van Ark, and Donna Mills are all very good playing layered characters. I'd say Knots is the most 'real' of the primetime soaps from this era.
For my money, season 2 - 4 of Dynasty are its best as a glitzy primetime soap that still had some edge, season 5 it starts to focus on a particular storyline that provides its most memorable season ending cliffhanger, and I liked season 9 much more than 6 - 8, where the show really lost its way. If you want to watch one woman singlehandedly reinvent a show, look no further than Joan Collins as Alexis Carrington Colby. She rocked it and nobody could have played that part like she did.
Dallas is solid for the first 10 years and then it starts to fall apart as several important cast members leave. It's also the primetime soap where the male characters were generally more important than the female characters. Larry Hagman is incredibly good as the incredibly bad JR.
Falcon Crest was never my show and the little I've seen over the years just confirms it.
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DaytimeFan ·
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