Flamingo Road

[Paul Raven]

Taking a deeper dive into Flamingo Roads ratings in it's second season , it actually did better numbers when it moved up to 9pm Tuesday.

That move was sort of forced upon NBC because of a lack of fresh programming.

Father Murphy @ 8 was moved to Sun  so Bret Maverick and Flamingo moved forward an hour, Barbara Mandrell reruns took over at 10.

The highest weekly ranking Flamingo got at 10 was 44th. Once the show was moved to 9 it began ranking in the mid 30's and the finale was #27.

Its highest 10pm was 16.6/26  and highest 9pm rating was 16.7/26.

So maybe a 3rd season might have done better in the right timeslot?

[te.]

This sort of explains why it seems like season 3 was a real shot and why they did a season 3 bible. Shame they didn't go forward with it - it sort of sounds like a mess, but it would've been interesting since it would've been the first prime time soap with proper supernatural elements to it. 

[All My Shadows]

I'm excited to be watching this show again for the first time in 20 years! I am hell-bent on being able to watch most of the 1981-1982 season of Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, and now Flamingo Road together, so I have to make my way through S1.

Flamingo Road was the first of the 80s primetime soaps that I had regular access to watching, so it has a special place in my heart, but I'm looking forward to watching it through grown-up eyes (I was 13 the first time lol). Some quick observations from the pilot movie and two-part series premiere, and please forgive me if these things have been brought up in the thread before:

- They burned through SO. MUCH. in the pilot movie that could have and should have been developed over the first season. It's very hard to see Lane/Field as this great tortured love story when, if I have it right, she spent more time in jail after meeting him than she did getting to know him and falling for him before Titus had her sent away. And then she continues to pine after him, even though as a woman who traveled with the carnival, you'd think she'd have less trouble getting over a short-term fling that was destined to go nowhere.

- There was no reason at all that we needed to know A, that Constance was adopted by the Weldons, and B, she's actually Claude and Lute-Mae's daughter, so soon. Like whyyyy would you squander that?

- It starts off as a very loveless show. We have only three established couples in the beginning, and the only one that is truly in love (Skipper/Annabelle) is over by the end of the pilot. Eudora and Claude have no warmth, and obviously Field is not in love with Constance. The series premiere did show some cute/fun stuff with the two of them, and IIRC, the second season does an excellent job of showing them as snarky friends/ex-lovers.

- To me, a mistake in the development of the series was the decision to put the Weldons at the center. The original book/movie really wasn't about who lived on Flamingo Road as much as it was about who aspired to live there, and as someone already posted, that's the more interesting set-up anyway. The Weldons are cold, old money, and we find out pretty quickly that they're not even all actually blood related, so if they were going for Ewing-style family dynamics, it was never going to be that.

- It's a Lorimar production, so there's tons of overlap with BTS personnel (plus we get Jordan Lee as the minister who marries Field and Constance lol), but I did not expect to hear some of the exact same music cues from Dallas and/or Knots Landing used throughout the two-part series premiere.

- Mark damn Harmon. That is all.

[kalbir]

I know Flamingo Road was Mark Harmon's first regular series role, but I consider St. Elsewhere his breakthrough role. Mark Harmon attempted a film career after leaving St. Elsewhere but for some reason it never took off and he returned to television, eventually having a career resurgence with NCIS.

[Paul Raven]

Mark Harmon had 2 short lived series before FR - Sam and 240 Robert.

And having Cristina Raines in a role played by Joan Crawford...

Edited September 8, 2024 by Paul Raven

[Chris 2]

Mark Harmon and Cristina Raines were a real-life couple, too. And I remember them speaking fondly of each other even after they were no longer together.

[SoapDope]

A few random facts about Mark Harmon.

Mark of course is married to Pam Dawber (Mork & Mindy) etc...His father was Football star Tom Harmon and his mother B movie actress Elyse Knox.

His oldest sister Kristin (Kris) was the wife of Ricky Nelson and she played herself on the family Ozzie & Harriet show. They had 4 children, actress Tracy (Sguare Pegs etc...) who was married to Billy Moses (Falcon Crest). Twins Gunnar & Matthew (Rock group Nelson) and Sam.

Marks middle sister Kelly was a model and actress. She was the spokesperson for Tic Tac in the 80's & 90's. Her first husband was John DeLorean who later married model/actress/host Cristina Ferrare.

Mark said he was encouraged to follow his dreams of acting by Ozzie Nelson who gave him one of his earliest roles on Ozzie & Harriet's short lived series Ozzie's Girls in the early 70's. OG was cancelled after 1 season because Ozzie was diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

[Paul Raven]

And Kelly Harmon briefly appeared on Y&R as Dr Jane Lewis.

[kalbir]

This I did not know. Thank you for the information.

I put Mark Harmon career as somewhere between Larry Hagman and George Clooney.

Mark Harmon and George Clooney had their breakthrough roles on NBC medical dramas. Larry Hagman and Mark Harmon had their career resurgences on CBS dramas that each had three seasons as the #1 show. I don't know if Mark Harmon was considered the breakout star of St. Elsewhere the way Larry Hagman was the breakout star of Dallas and George Clooney was the breakout star of ER. Mark Harmon film career didn't take off the way George Clooney film career did. I consider NCIS as Mark Harmon second signature role after St. Elsewhere the way Dallas was Larry Hagman second signature role after I Dream of Jeannie.

 

[All My Shadows]

I just finished up season one, which ends with Hurricane Michelle hitting Truro, which is situated in Florida’s Big Bend region…just as Hurricane Helene is about to hit Florida’s Big Bend region.

[te.]

I think the issue is also seeing the Weldons it kind of breaks the fantasy, especially as the show doesn't really do a good job with separating the "bad" part of Truro with the good part. I've said it before, but what's wrong with living like Lute-Mae? I never really got why Lane would aspire to live on Flamingo Road with I guess the Weldons and Titus? 

[All My Shadows]

When I finished the first season, I had so many thoughts I wanted to share, including echoing yours, and I still plan to make that post soon lol but yes, the line of separation wasn't strong enough. Lute-Mae's is supposed to be this bad, wrong side of the tracks type of place, yet the prominent men of Truro hold meetings there?

I've decided that Lane is really an awful person. She did exactly what Titus said she would do from the beginning. She complicated things with Field and Constance, and she lured murderers to town, putting the lives of a houseful of people in jeopardy. She was mad at Lute-Mae for not supporting her relationship with Field but also didn't hesitate to ask her for money on her way out of town. I don't understand how/why Constance is supposed to be the resident btch when all she was doing was RIGHTLY confronting her husband over the very public extramarital affair he carried out quite cavalierly in her face.

[te.]

I think it was a mistake to set it in modern day tbh. I think the whole thing would've worked better when the novel was originally set in the 1920s - it would certainly make more sense that during the prohibition that powerful men would keep meetings in the local brothel / Speakeasy. It also explains why someone like Lane would have such a limited worldview that Flamingo Road would be a goal; in the 80s you'd think a talented singer would be off to Los Angeles or New York pretty quickly. 

[dc11786]

I think the problem is Lute Mae's wasn't initially suppose to represent the "bad" part of Truro, but rather the intersection of the "good" and the "bad." The "bad" was more represented by the Eagle Cafe and the working class people that were fairly underrepresented even in the pilot. The second season does a slightly better job by introducing the Cuban barrio where the working class community lived. It's just a shame they didn't do more with what was there. I would have liked to have seen Lupe Sanchez trying to open her dress story and be turned down for a loan before Eudora goes in as her partner. I would have liked to have seen Alicia working at the daycare and encountering the child of one of Skipper's old flames from his days cavorting at the bordello with the mother trying to convince Skipper and Alicia the child was his. 

I remember Lane declaring that she would live on Flamingo Road, but I remember (and am possibly misrembering) that it had to do with power. Those on Flamingo Road had influence and Lane never wanted to be powerless again. Though, it was more because she wanted Field, but they abandoned the Field and Lane story pretty quick into season 2.

Going back to Lute Mae's, I thought it would have been interesting to bring that back into focus in season three. The apocalyptical tone of the gambling bill plot felt with Michael vs Sam and Fielding felt like this sort of good vs. evil world where the idea of sin was completely up in the air. I think bringing back Lute Mae's as this sort of a sanctuary in the storm of good and evil while the true evil existed on Flamingo Road would have been fun. 

Lane as the heroine is a hard sell. I thought it might have been Cristina Raines, but I just don't think the writing is there. There was a really marvellous article detailing the romantic quad between Sam / Lane / Field / Constance, but I just don't really feel that story very much. I think the Sam Curtis of the pilot was slowly watered down. Field was weak willed. Lane was inactive. Constance was the only player who had much energy, though I felt by the end of season 2 Field was a much stronger character in the lawyer role, which I found to be a surprisingly good fit for the character. Sam was in the thick of things in the gambling bill and Sam / Lane / Field as a united front was a wonderful story turn in reviving a dead story that never had much life in it.  

I think one of the other issues is that Lane was an outsider. If there had been a stronger attempt to build up the lower income area or if Lane had decided she was going to live in the Cuban barrio and made friends with the Sanchez family, maybe her role could have bloomed out more. I think the attempt at a Skipper / Lane friendship based on Annabelle and the bordello wasn't bad, but it wasn't utilized enough to move story. At the very least, let Constance think that Lane and Skipper are hooking up to give us a good Lane / Constance moment. Her romance with Sam and her friendship with Lute Mae wasn't enough. 

I don't know if Rita Lakin was involved that season on "Dynasty," but wasn't there a plot point about Blake going off to a brothel run by Carole Cook's character? So even in the 1980s, the brothel setting was being used for secret meetings.

For me, they should have just leaned more into the Southern gothic element. Claude's fortune was wavering wasn't it? I think he was holding onto an idea of what the Weldon name meant and he no longer had the true capital to accomplish that. He banked on his lineage, which he was basically desecrating by having a child with an underage sex worker and raising it as his adopted daughter. I would have played the frailness of Eudora longer and her pill addiction would have become more and more destructive before sending her off to rehab with Claude low key encouraging it so that he could sell the barrio without getting much interference from her. 

I think I would have shifted Lane away from music and had her explore journalism. Putting her at the Clarion would have put her in Elmo's orbit and Skipper's. I think there may have been a little more room to play because you could still play Lute Mae / Lane because of Lute Mae and Sam's connection. I would have had Lane interested in discovering the truth about the mill fire and slowly discovering more and more secrets about the Weldons. 

Random closing comment, last summer, I was bored and was playing with an AI story generator to see what they would come up with for a season 3 of Flamingo Road. Most of it wasn't very interesting, but one idea suggested that I did really like was introducing Eudora's sister who would be a trouble maker. I thought that was a fun idea especially if the role was played by someone like Dorothy Malone. 

 

[Soaplovers]

I think the problem was that the show was trying to sell Lane and Field as an endgame couple, but viewers ended up being more interested in Constance and her pursuits instead of Lane.