Knots Landing

[Khan]

Well, we know Gary and Abby didn't exactly "fall in love."  We know how she schemed her way right into Gary's shorts.  But that's Abby's story, and she's sticking to it. 

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And I love how Abby asks Karen to keep an eye on Olivia while she's gone.  Because, when you think about it, she's not really asking her to keep an eye on her daughter the way anyone THINKS she means it.  It's more like she's saying, "If you think I'm a handful, just you wait!".

Man, the Lechowicks really went off the rails with Claudia fast, didn't they?  I mean, she didn't exactly kill Steve Brewer with her bare hands; nevertheless, she placed him in the worse kind of danger just to keep Kate close to her, and how do you bring a character back from THAT!?

[FrenchBug82]

I think she genuinely had feelings for him, inasmuch as she could have such feelings. But started as a scheme and even after she started caring, the schemes were always going to be a bigger priority. She would not let a man get in the way what she wanted to do.

That said, while watching that scene and her spin on it, it reminded me of the tour-de-force speech she gave at the gala when she had had enough of Greg blackmailing her about the twins' kidnapping and she managed to tell Val and the others the whole story as it happened in such a way that the way she handled it all sounded almost ... innocent. It was such clever manipulation.
JR was in your face about his evil. Abby was so good at convincing otber characters, but also almost us the audience, that, really, her actions were reasonable and bold rather than ruthless and immoral.

[Chris B]

As many times as I've watched the series, I can't decide if I liked Claudia or not. I thought Kathleen Noone did a great job in the role, but the connection to Greg and Kate's existence were weak. I feel like Donna Mills left at the right time. You could tell in her final season they were close to taking her too far, but they bundled replacing her. Claudia was too dark and Anne became too comical. I feel like the real missed opportunity was with Robin Strasser's Diane character. She had amazing chemistry with Michele Lee, which was critical to an Abby replacement and she could've easily moved into the cul-de-sac and mingled with The Sumner Group eventually. 

[Khan]

Jane Elliot, Robin Strasser, Kathleen Noone....  Someone at KNOTS was a BIG ABC soaps fan, lol.

I feel like that (Kathleen Noone's performance) was the only thing that "saved" Claudia for me.  Otherwise, I could have done without her.

When it comes to the Lechowicks, I have found, you have to accept that you won't always get good stories from them.  You might get good SCENES, or good individual episodes, or just good lines of dialogue, here and there.  But, as captivating as their work could be, there were very few of their stories that didn't carry some fundamental flaw.  Like blogger Tommy Krasker suggests, the Lechowicks were so busy being unpredictable, they forgot to be logical, too.

[FrenchBug82]

I agree that KN is what made her tolerable because the character was a mess.
When she was a schemer it was always kind of lame except that one murder-by-cop plot which was going way overboard on the other direction. 

I will say that some of the Claudia/Anne scenes were entertaining high points of low seasons but that also underscores how far down the show had fallen because that rivalry was played for laughs rather than the more complex interesting female hostilities of earlier seasons.
 

[Khan]

Well, that was the problem with the Lechowicks: everything was played for laughs; and what wasn't played for laughs was earnest to the point of being heavy-handed.  It's what happens when two frustrated comedy writers who couldn't get a job writing for sitcoms have to settle for producing a primetime soap instead.

The Lechowicks say they were offered jobs on all three Lorimar shows (DALLAS, FC and KL) but chose KL, because they found it to be the most relatable.  Yet, the two wrote material that was so outrageous that they might as well have written for DYNASTY. 

Overall, I love KNOTS, but I could have done without the Lechowicks' irreverence and slipshod plotting.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Khan

[Chris B]

The most important thing to the Lechowick's was STYLE! Style came before story or character, which is why the show had such slumps at times when they couldn't think up compelling stories. You saw the same thing when Lynn Latham joined Y&R. I actually feel she had potential to be the best post-Bill Bell HW (had she kept the old team), but her desire to change everything ruined her tenure. When it was still a collaboration she brought great ideas to the show that worked well, but once she got total control we got silly things like one minute scenes, no jewelry because of the way diamonds are mined, no bottled water because it's bad for the environment. Just silly stuff that has nothing to do with creating a good show.

[Khan]

Claudia was just so blatant in her villainy, you know?  Even Alexis Colby would have begged her to be more subtle.

In retrospect, I don't believe the Lechowicks had much respect for the soap genre, and certainly not enough respect for KNOTS.  Like I said before, they were just sitcom writers who needed a job.  "Homefront" was more their style of show: a mix of screwball comedy and family drama, with some soapiness thrown into the mix to keep things from getting too dull.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Khan

[Soaplovers]

Do you guys think the writers of season 13 and 14 were able to salvage Claudia?  

 

[Khan]

If anything, I think S13 showrunner John Romano and his team made things worse - first, by having Claudia attempt suicide (and having Karen practically beg Kate (and the audience) to forgive her mother) either out of guilt over how Steve Brewer's death had come between her and Kate, or as a means of manipulating herself back into her daughter's life; then, by having that skeezeball, Alex Barth, blackmail her and subject her to almost round-the-clock psychological torture over the circumstances surrounding Ruth Galveston's death. 

It's one thing for karma to reward Claudia handsomely for being responsible, however indirectly, for the deaths of her mother and illegitimate son, but it seems as if Romano & Co. were so intent on punishing her that they made her an even bigger victim than "poor Val"!

Ann Marcus salvaged Claudia somewhat in S14, exposing the secret that Alex held over her head, getting her back in the thick of things with Greg and Paige at the Sumner Group, and putting her in a triangle with Anne and Nick.  However, I think the leftover stench from her actions in S's 12 and 13 made it difficult, if not impossible, for Claudia ever to be viewed again as a viable character.  If CBS and Filerman/Jacobs/Lorimar had miraculously agreed to a S15 for KL, then Claudia (and probably Anne) would have needed to be written out.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Khan

[Soaplovers]

Ironically John Romano and company were able to restore Val.  While her teaching Lynette, the waitress, how to read was that early 90s preachy element.. it was in character for Val to take wayward woman under her wing (Annie, Olivia, Abby.. at first).  Plus, she and Gary were fighting about the Tidal Wave project with him mortaging the ranch while she was being the cautious voice of reason.  And she also kind of took Kate under her wing... providing her with a maternal figure that she was lacking from Claudia.

I think Ann Marcus' coming back in those final episodes of season 13 kind of reset Claudia's story with Alex starting to date Claudia's daughter Kate... and she/Alex were kind of blackmailing one another.  And I liked the Anne/Claudia/Greg/Nick story from season 14 as well.

However, I think the taint of Claudia's season 12 and early season 13 stories made her a poor Abby replacement.  Abby wanted money/power.. but she did love her children... which we couldn't say the same about Claudia.

[Khan]

I think Claudia loved Kate, but I think her personal history made it difficult for her to express that love properly.  To Claudia, loving someone meant doing everything in one's power to keep them close.  And I mean everything.

To me, it's that twisted sense of maternal love that helped differentiate Claudia from the other "power bitches" on KNOTS.  Abby wanted to succeed in a man's world without losing her femininity, and Anne wanted to be taken care of and to avoid adult responsibilities (such as working for a living or being an actual parent to her daughter).  But Claudia wanted always to do what SHE felt was best for her loved ones, and for Kate in particular.

As long as the writers had kept that want in mind, I think Claudia was a very effective character (sort of like a Karen on steroids, lol).  It's only when they had her do stupid and insane [!@#$%^&*] (...such as getting her own son killed...) that everyone lost track.

(Plus - and this is just my own opinion - but Claudia as the ultimate, overprotective mom was always going to be the hardest of sells when Stacy Galina was just so damn annoying as Kate.  Like, why is Claudia even bothering with her when she should be kicking her whiny butt to the curb, lol?)

I think that (Val's restoration) was almost accidental: a byproduct of a new showrunner and his team of writers, who had no prior knowledge of the show, and who likely wrote her IN character (or, as in character as she'd been in years) because they simply didn't KNOW her character, or know what else to do WITH her.

That story, along with the Mary Robeson story, worked for me more than the Nigel Treadwell story, which tied together everything (sometimes, ridiculously so) but which was also so underwhelming compared to similar plots from seasons past.

[FrenchBug82]

I personally don't agree that the waitress subplot was a Val restoration. It was movie-of-the-week weak.
Now her taking on the Greg book and not taking any of the doubts from Gary and the Mckenzies; THAT was old Val.

[Khan]

Agree.

[Soaplovers]

What I mean by Val restoration was that after the crappy stories provided to her in season 11 and 12, the waitress subplot was the first step in restoring her character.

Like @Khansaid.. it was a happy accident that Romano and co had no idea about Val's previous history and they actually ended up writing her in character.  Thus, when Ann Marcus took over in the final stretch of season 13, Val was ready to take on a new direction story wise and didn't need to be repaired.