Dynasty Discussion Thread

[Soapsuds]

@Khan

The reunion movie sucked. The best part was Steven.

Al Corley left because Steven wasn't gay enough. He complained about it.

[Khan]

I've seen "Monte Carlo" and "Sins," and for me, the problem with both miniseries is that Dame Joan is essentially playing Alexis again.  Not that you would ever expect her to break out and portray a battered wife from the wrong side of the tracks, but I think most looked at "Monte Carlo" and "Sins" and asked, "Why should I watch these when I'm already getting the same thing every week on 'Dynasty'?"

I know.  And he was right to leave, too.

I knew the reunion movie was going to blow mighty chunks when they had Krystle overhear one character tell another all about how Alexis and Dex went over the railing at the Carrington mansion and how she killed him when she turned in mid-air and landed on top of him.  First of all, that didn't happen at the mansion; it happened at the Carlton.  Second, writing out Dex that way was just crass, lol.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Khan

[Franko]

I just put myself in the perspective of the people of Denver and how they must be bored to tears by the endless business rivalry between Blake & Alexis. I just want someone to say, "Look, you've been divorced for 20 years, move the hell on!"

On Fire sounds like a real downer. I think there was also the aspect that John's character didn't have much retirement money saved.

Say what you will about Linda, but it seems like she at least tried to not just do the same old, same old with her side projects. (Slightly off topic, and it helped that she didn't have a weekly series at the time, but I think that Farrah Fawcett was the champ at this in the '80s.)

[Soapsuds]

I was hoping they wouldn't bring it up in the movie.

I laughed at the thought/idea of turning in mid air. Who was she? Wonder Woman.

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And I was huh? When they explained that Dex and Alexis fell at the mansion. Who wrote that [!@#$%^&*]?

[Khan]

All they had to say was that Dex died from the impact from the fall.  That's it.  Adding the twist that Alexis basically crushed him to death was unnecessary.  If I had been Joan Collins, I would have protested: "Like hell you're gonna imply that my body weight killed him!"

ICAM.  Unfortunately, the only real motivation Alexis ever had was to get revenge on Blake.  Which is fine, if the producers stick to their guns and write her off after four or six episodes (the actual number depending upon who you ask).  But, they keep her on, which is a problem, because what do you do with her if she succeeds?  What do you do with her if she doesn't?  So, you keep pulling the proverbial rug out from under her, so she'll have to start all over again.  It's so damn repetitive.  Even Wile E. Coyote would say, "Girl, give it up!".

Even Alexis' return seems pointless to me.  She's back in Denver; she testifies against Blake at the trial; she moves into the cottage on his estate; she gets reacquainted with her children, who are, at best, feeling about weary toward her; she makes an enemy out of Krystle by causing the miscarriage; and she causes Anders and the rest of the staff to ally themselves with the new Mrs. Carrington (which, by the way, pretty much kills the show's original premise).  She does all these things, stirs all these pots, but to what end?  What is she hoping to achieve?  Does she want Blake to take her back?  Is she spying on the family on behalf of Blake's enemies or some tabloid for money?  Is she dying of some disease and wants to make amends (but not before making Krystle's life hell just by sticking around)?  What does the heffa want? 

It's as if they brought on Alexis just to goose the ratings and figured they'd come up with an actual game plan for her later.  It's the same trick they also used on Dominique when she first appeared: "Who am I, you ask?"  Yes, Dominique, that is what we are asking.  Who the hell are you, and what the hell do you want?

Edited November 9, 2023 by Khan

[chrisml]

Do you think the problem with the repetitive nature of Alexis's stories was a result of John Forsythe's complaints and demands? If Blake didn't have to win every time, there would have been places to go storyline wise. From what I've seen of the first season, I don't see how Blake became the "moral center" of the show. 

[Paul Raven]

I guess originally Blake was painted as the villianous character who I assumed a la JR we were going to be fascinated to watch. But unlike JR and later Alexis, there was no mischief in his portrayal so he just came across as unsympathetic.

John Forsythe had played light comedy way back to Bachelor Father, but there was nothing in the writing or direction for him to lean into that talent.

Nightime soaps were restricted by having to focus on the same characters season after season and not stray too far from the formula. There was no way Blake was going backburner for a season.

[Khan]

No, I think the problem lay in the Pollocks' basic inability to create multi-dimensional characters.  Abby Ewing (KNOTS LANDING) and Angela Channing (FALCON CREST) were fascinating antagonists, because their wants were tangible and relatable.  Abby wanted to break free from middle-class mediocrity and compete in a man's world; Angela was determined to fulfill her grandfather's vision of making the winery the finest in Tuscany Valley.  Even J.R. Ewing had a want - to best all his competitors and make his daddy's legacy his own - that lent itself to a variety of stories.  But, as I've said before, all there really was to Alexis was her need to punish Blake, which gets old fast.  (It's the same problem I had with the Pollock's work on THE DOCTORS.  On both shows, the "good" characters were idiots, and the "bad" characters were bad "just because.")

Plus, if I'm being totally honest, I don't think Alexis suffered all that much by being thrown out of the mansion.  It's not as if Blake left her destitute, thereby forcing her to turn to prostitution on the streets of London or anything.  Anders even mentions keeping up with all her exploits through the tabloids, which doesn't sound like suffering to me.  And for all Alexis' talk about being denied the right to raise Fallon and Steven as their mother, I can't help but think back to what Jessica Tate told Corinne's real mom on an episode of "Soap": "All I know is that if anyone had taken my baby away from me, I would've moved heaven and earth to find her, and it wouldn't have taken twenty-three years!"  If you truly cared about your kids' welfare, Alexis, why did you wait so damn long to come back into their lives?  Why didn't you just tell Blake what he could do with all his threats and figure out some way to get them back, like Abby did when her ex-husband kidnapped Brian and Olivia on KNOTS?

I think - and this is just what I think - we were supposed to root for Matthew Blaisdel (and for him and Krystle to be reunited) at the start.  Blake, as originally envisioned, was a fabulously wealthy man who was also very ruthless and, at times, amoral.  Matthew, on the other hand, was an anguished single dad, vying to make a name for himself in the cutthroat oil industry, while wrestling with his feelings for Krystle and his marital obligation to Claudia, who had returned from the sanitarium.  On paper, it's a great contrast, and ideal fodder for storylines that could pit the two men against each other in various ways.  However, what blew the whole thing was the casting.  Bo Hopkins just does not work as a romantic lead.  

Edited November 9, 2023 by Khan

[Khan]

God bless John Forsythe, but as a last-minute substitution for George Peppard, he was all wrong for his role, too.  He couldn't play Blake as he was created, and he wasn't all that interesting as a mellower, more honorable Blake either.

His best work was as "Charlie," a voice on an intercom ("Kelly, Jill?  You'll be going undercover as bikini models.  And Sabrina, you'll be posing as a beer truck driver making deliveries at the compound.  Best of luck, Angels.  Now, off to my next orgy!")

Edited November 9, 2023 by Khan

[Broderick]

To cloudy her motivations even further, it often appeared in her initial episodes that Alexis was "in love" with Blake -- her rivalry with Krystle, her camping out in the studio on the Carrington estate, her painting Blake's portrait.  But then she HATED him and married Cecil Colby to "crush" Denver Carrington.  The writing was too shallow to reflect a mixture of love and hate.  Alexis came across as just a mischievous trouble-maker, which compromised the Blake & Krystle characters into being "all good" so that Alexis could be "all bad".  And that's when the show veered into cartoonish antics so those roles could be furthered. 

Yes, the first season was fairly uneventful, but I found the characters (as presented in the first season) to be somewhat relatable with clear motivations.  By the time Alexis came along, everyone's motivations were chunked out the window to create a Cruella de Ville out of Alexis.  

Joan Collins obviously made the show into a 1980s success, but I believe it came at the expense of the show's integrity.  

[Chris 2]

Amen. I’d love to see the footage of Peppard as Blake if it still exists, because I think he would have been a much more interesting Blake than the grandfatherly Forsythe. I don’t think Peppard was let go because he was wrong for the role; I think Peppard was let go because he was a pain in the ass.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Chris 2

[Khan]

I agree, @Broderick.  It might have made more sense to say that Alexis was back in order to reclaim her status in Blake's life (and bed).  To me, that's a stronger line of action than "I'm back to irritate the [!@#$%^&*] out of you and your new wife."  Then, when Blake spurns her for a second time, that's when Alexis could officially declare revenge. 

Because, seriously, what means did she have to destroy Blake's life that she could have used before then and didn't?  Again, the producers aren't clear about that, because they don't really know.  They just have her stirring up [!@#$%^&*] until they can figure out what to do with her - which they finally do when they hit upon the absurd notion of marrying her off to Blake's chief business rival, killing him off immediately afterward and having her assume control of his company, despite showing absolutely no business acumen up to that point.

As I've said before, DYNASTY, in its' first season, wasn't a great show, but it was promising.  If ABC had been more patient - maybe hire a stronger writing team, and figure out some way of salvaging the Blaisdel family (like recasting Lindsay with Heather Locklear) - DYNASTY could have, over time, become as solid and reliable as KL.  

[Paul Raven]

Some comments from Ralph Senesky director of the pilot and episode 5.

LAKE CARRINGTON: It is pretty much accepted that the whopping success 2 years earlier of the television series DALLAS had an effect on DYNASTY. Consider a similarity: the unscrupulous J.R. Ewing, an oil baron in Texas of the earlier series, and DYNASTY’s Blake Carrington, an oil baron in Denver. George Peppard, the first Blake Carrington was properly unscrupulous, but he lacked the fascinating evil charm that Larry Hagman brought to his baron. John Forsythe brought power to his baron sans the unscrupulousness

 

From something I’ve recently learned from an 8-year old television interview by Richard Shapiro, co-creator of DYNASTY, John had brought unexpected positive elements to his characterization of Blake Carrington. In the pilot, in a scene following the wedding of Blake and Krystle, an enraged Walter Lankershim, a wildcatter friend of Matthew Blaisdel, armed with a gun comes to the Carrington mansion because of an accident at their oil derrick.

In the interview Richard stated, “…and the script says ‘Blake puts the dogs on him’, and John Forsythe said, “I’m not putting any dogs on anyone.” …when we got into the editing room…there was a shot of John standing on the porch and he just moved his eyes to the left and I said “that’s it, that’s the signal”

I had staged the scene unaware of any of that conversation and unaware of what occurred after I turned in my director’s cut. It was true. John had brought dignity, decency and integrity to his man of power.

Episode 5

 I was even more certain of what I sensed while directing that episode — the series was changing direction, there was a shift of tone. When I was signed to direct OIL, along with the script I was given the series ‘Bible’, a document with many more pages than were in the 2-hour script. It contained the background history of the story and complete detailed biographical information of all of the leading characters. This was the usual procedure for any project that was a possible series. I had ‘lived with’ the Carringtons for almost 10 months. I felt I knew them intimately and as currently being scripted they were not acting as they had in the pilot. It was as if a new ‘Bible’ had been created for the series.

[Broderick]

And that was a decision which made Cecil into an inept cartoon character.  Supposedly, he was a longtime businessman and savvy about the world.  Wouldn't Cecil have long ago drafted a will naming nephew Jeff as his heir & successor at ColbyCo?   Sure, if some British lady came along, batted her eyes, and said, "Sessil, I'd love to be your wife for one episode!", Cecil would've probably set aside a marital trust of some type for the new wife.  But he obviously wouldn't have made her CEO of his company.  lol.  In real-life, she wouldn't have even been a minority shareholder, other than through a marital trust that Jeff was trustee of.  All of that just looked ridiculous.    

[j swift]

But he lived in a Palazzo!, (that's Italian for mansion, in case you didn't know)