KNOTS LANDING

[Contessa Donatella]

Something of a non sequiter, she was married to & had a child with Kale Browne, Michael Hudson on AW & Sam Rappaport on OLTL.

[DRW50]

It's not that uncommon, and I prefer this to the de-aging freakish CGI of today. Joan being in the part adds a  certain level of continuity.

Seeing that clip again reminds me of why I never bought how quickly Valene accepted Lillimae back into her life. 

[Franko]

I have similar feelings about the (also-mocked?) idea of Patrick Duffy and Victoria Principal re-enacting Bobby and Pam's 1978 wedding in 1986.

Hopefully this isn't too much of a spoiler: there will be more opportunities to see Knots characters in their youth.

[Vee]

In fairness, as I'm watching Season 3 the fractious tension is still there with Val all the way along, at least so far. She goes back and forth and is consistently less amused with her mother than anyone else.

[te.]

Reminds me of when Heather Locklear and Rena Sofer did flashbacks on Melrose Place when their characters were supposed to be 17. I guess Rena was "only" 30 at the time, while Heather was 37...

[DemetriKane]

Yeah most viewers hated her. I thought she was very relatable and gave a real depiction of a teen girl. Claudia did a great job with her material, she reminds me of Claire from Six Feet Under.

Yeah most viewers hated her. I thought she was very relatable and gave a real depiction of a teen girl. Claudia did a great job with her material, she reminds me of Claire from Six Feet Under.

Yeah most viewers hated her. I thought she was very relatable and gave a real depiction of a teen girl. Claudia did a great job with her material, she reminds me of Claire from Six Feet Under.

I liked Annie too. She definitely should have stayed around and created drama that first season.

Yeah most viewers hated her. I thought she was very relatable and gave a real depiction of a teen girl. Claudia did a great job with her material, she reminds me of Claire from Six Feet Under.

I liked Annie too. She definitely should have stayed around and created drama that first season.

[Vee]

Episode 14 (Cricket):

So this one introduces Stephen Macht as Karen's brother Joe. Macht, another in KL's long line of legendary character actors, who famously passed on or lost the role of Captain Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and is known to me best for his wonderfully insane turn in the hilariously silly Stephen King adaptation Graveyard Shift, where he plays a tyrannical mill foreman who is a Mainer by way of Jamaica by way of Scotland by way of Mars. Exhibit A:

That being said, soap fans may know Macht better for his run on GH as Ric Lansing's scheming father Trevor, consigliere of the Zacchara family in the late 2000s. GH didn't get nearly as much use out of him as they could've, and soaps should still be using him today. Anyway: He's been around the block all over film and TV and is amazing, but is a bit wasted on KL thus far.

Anyway, Val's old flame Rusty is played by another well-known character actor, Don Stroud, who I remember best from a very different role as one of the hapless priests in the original and terrible Amityville Horror. The moment with her and Rusty alone at the house when he surprises her is pregnant with tension, as Val seems uncomfortable and awkward re: Rusty's attentions but not entirely unwelcoming of them - perhaps because she's already begun sensing the undercurrents with Gary and Abby. Meanwhile, Gary is using supposed jealousy over Rusty as a way to defuse his own guilt (and Val's suspicion, perhaps) re: Abby. I also noted Lilimae condescending to Val's writerly ambitions in the opening scenes - ambitions which I know take fruit soon.

The entire Cricket plotline was incredibly tedious despite a great performance by Don Stroud at the end, but I did love Laura once again having no time for bullshīt from anyone, anywhere, seeing through Cricket and instantly dismissing her. As soon as Laura got her job she went from being a wilting doormat to having a will of steel, but it's always felt organic, because it's always felt as though it was just below the surface of her once-expected role in life as Richard's little woman of the '70s while all the while she knew in her heart her husband was inadequate. The intellect was always there.

What is smart about this episode's A-plot is that the writers tied Cricket being an orphan to Val's own pain over Lilimae turning her back on her, and had her invoke Gary's banishment from the Ewing fold. This justifies Val's commitment to Cricket, which thrillingly ended ASAP. But the resentment from Val to Lilimae is still very much there so far, week after week.

Nice continuity - Olivia's broken arm getting hurt again. This is what I like with background neighborhood/family stuff (like Michael's ADD) being consistently carried over week to week, a la daytime soaps.

Eric apparently does not want to go to college, which Uncle Joe talks him out of - Saint Sid would be rolling in his grave. And Eric's misbegotten attempt at a stache is back. Think twice, Eric!

Episode 15 (Best Intentions):

This one's again written by James Houghton (Grinnin' Kenny and future longtime Y&R scribe) as well as his sister Mona. It's very solid, with the Richard/Laura story culminating in her finally leaving him just as he once again gets his act together. But that's a cycle for Richard, as we now know - bad behavior due to bad circumstances in his own work life causing him to mistreat Laura at home, then an attempt to course-correct involving lovebombing, overbearing 'good' behavior, etc. We have seen Richard get his marriage on track before in mid-late Season 2 and IMO it was wonderful for awhile, but it didn't last because when things got bad at his new job he just took it all out on Laura and drove her away faster than ever before. Here, Laura tells him she's pregnant and he instantly moves to micromanaging their lives, something the matured Laura can't tolerate. And when abortion is mentioned, he hits her (and she's hit him before) - a terrible moment, but he's not hearing her afterwards, where she's clearly just done.

Because he can't read Laura at all anymore, Richard remains convinced they're able to get back on track and he's ready to commit to bettering himself as a husband (which, again, he's done before). The scene with him and Karen is heartbreaking, as she watches him cycle through the best and worst of himself and back again in front of her eyes at their lunch table - watches him reexamine his bad behavior and critique himself honestly - but can't bring herself to tell him Laura is probably done with him anyway. And it's true, because he gets home and Laura is gone, which leads to the wonderful end shot of the episode with him sitting in the darkened kitchen next to an envelope left for him. They've done two quiet, slow shots pulling out on the Averys as their marriage disintegrates this season and both were wonderful. The tragedy is it didn't have to go this way if they'd both been a bit more open with each other earlier, and John Pleshette's performance is consistently both heartbreaking and unsparing for Richard while Constance McCashin is fully committed to Laura's integrity and evolution.

This is apparently the last episode for my beloved Allan Miller as Scooter, where Laura tells him she wants to put the brakes on things but he has yet to be written out. I wonder how that'll happen.

As for the equally important B-plot, Val's book is ready to roll. Abby seems to have decided it's a good way to crowbar her way into things with the Ewing marriage even more, by distracting Gary further as Val's star rises (on a book that is a roman a clef about the Ewing family, something that appears to have escaped Gary's notice but is likely to stir his ire). And hey, as Abby's mind often seems to work with these things thus far, if both people get something they want - Val gets published, Abby gets her husband - doesn't that all work out? The stuff with JVA and Shackelford as Gary is dismissive of her writing talent and she bristles at it was very good. He just can't seem to comprehend (yet) that his wife could have ambitions and drives akin to his rapidly-rediscovered own.

We're cruising rapidly towards what I am apprised is a very strong home stretch for Season 3, following the next episode (Silver Shadows) which very few people seem to like. (I know @DRW50does so I will reserve judgment)

Edited June 3, 2022 by Vee

[DRW50]

I sound contrarian but I find myself far away from the opinions of many devoted fans, I'm sure. I skimmed a bit on Youtube just now but most of my opinion is from 15 or so years ago. I will say as an Abby fan I think it's a very important episode in keeping her as a nuanced figure, even if some might say it is not part of her overall narrative (and I don't turn a blind eye to thin material just because it has Abby in it - most of her material

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is dull as hell). 

I'm always glad to hear your thoughts on the incredibly compelling Richard/Laura relationship (Laura always has the most compelling relationships on the show, even if I think this hurt her in the end because it's much easier to watch or enjoy - or write - more cookie cutter material like what you increasingly get with Karen and Valene). It was around this time when I was finding my way into the show that I immediately connected with Laura...somewhere around this period is when we hear her talking about her mother and such. I do wonder if, as said above, Laura had a certain appeal to gay men, for a number of reasons - chief among them her never truly feeling like she belonged, no matter how much her financial or marital situation rose and fell. 

I like the Cricket story in that it calls back to Val and Lucy, something which should have been important to Val's narrative the whole time she was on Knots, but it's much closer to a generic early '80s plot, something you could find on Incredible Hulk or Little House with a few changes. 

Don Stroud I mostly just remember as being one of the first male celebs to pose naked in Playgirl. 

I just loved Stephen Macht's work on Knots and I wish he could have stayed much longer. Karen could have used him back in her life a few times to help puncture a certain bubble around the Fairgate house and her storylines and position on the show as the years passed. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by DRW50

[BetterForgotten]

For some reason this showed up in my Google news alerts, and I was a bit horrified to be honest…

EXCLUSIVE: Notoriously private Knots Landing star Joan Van Ark, 78, is spotted running errands in LA - in first public sighting in over THREE years

[Vee]

Honestly, I'm not sure how bad her current work would look if she was a bit less thin. We saw what happened to Kelly Monaco not long ago, and her face recovered.

[Chris 2]

Always thought Joan was cute. I feel badly for anyone who’s so afraid of aging that they need to get extensive plastic surgery (and I know the pressure for actors to stay young looking). I hope she’s healthy and wish the paparazzi would leave her alone.

[Contessa Donatella]

oh, that's so sad

[Vee]

Episode 16 (Silver Shadows):

Featuring Lew Ayres as Andrew Douglas, the silent movie director. I know Ayres best from the not very good '70s miniseries of Stephen King's 'salem's Lot, as well as some of his pre-Code Hollywood films from the '30s; I've always liked him. (He also appears in the campy and superfun Damien: Omen II with another Lorimar soap star Robert Foxworth, where poor Lew ends up drowning under a frozen lake as skaters watch to appease the will of Satan.) He's very good here in the rather cliche role he has, and Donna Mills is just soft enough with him - yes, she wants a line on his fortune, pulls a Vertigo with his lost love's clothes (after he already points them out to her and wanting to see her in them, in fairness) and antagonizes his butler (who Douglas smartly refers to as 'Erich von Stroheim,' nodding to silent director von Stroheim's own role in Sunset Boulevard), but she seems to genuinely care a bit for the old man and not want to abuse his trust too badly, but to make him happy in his last days and not exhaust him too soon. I truly hope that was not Donna Mills acting out as 'Terri' (a name no silent star would have) in the old film clip but I suspect it was. Anyway, her rapport with Ayres was lovely, and Abby is genuinely saddened by his decline and death. It would've been easy, again in this era and genre, to write Abby as an Alexis type from Dynasty or something waiting for the old coot to kick off and hissing when he leaves her with nothing, but that's not who she is with Douglas.

I was worried this would be a bottle episode not featuring the ensemble to liven it up, so doing a party at Douglas's with the ensemble cast worked well. (Kim Lankford must've been a dancer, she nailed the old-school foxtrot or whatever it was.) I could not care less about Larry, the man who seems caught between Abby and Karen, two women far too good for him, but I did love shitstirring Lilimae and Val. (Lilimae is oblivious to or dismissive of Val's feelings as always as she yammers on and on about Douglas' films, which was great.)

This was a better episode than most fans have made it out to be; I've seen far more interminable episodes in the first three seasons (Cricket, anyone? The biker episode? The Rose and the Briar? Val's cancer?). It moved along and the performances clicked. And the ending with Abby tearfully putting on the hat from Douglas' lost love was a beautiful little moment; the slow silent movie iris out was genuinely very touching. It's because Abby has these dimensions that sets her and the show aside from more cliche tropes of this genre.

BTW, John Pleshette and Julie Harris living it up dancing together in the background during Douglas and Abby's dance was great.

[Vee]

Episode 17 (Letting Go):

Oy, the opening scene. Is Larry really this engaging and hilarious? Come on, Karen. It's nice to see this mourning and moving on process play out with Karen as carefully as it has, but Larry being the catalyst is just boresville.

Uncle Joe gets laid in the afternoon! And his girlfriend is the annoying chick from (again) the 'salem's Lot miniseries, just as annoying here. Their entire domestic drama bores the hell out of me. Whatever. I do wonder if they'd intended to bring Stephen Macht on permanently and either shifted gears in Season 4 with new writers (or at least I think Peter Dunne was new?) or Macht opted out, or both. I know Macht has spoken in the past about never wanting to put down roots in the '80s on various shows (like Star Trek TNG, where he passed on Picard) and having too much of an ego. As it is, his role as Joe is dreadfully staid so far and not the dynamic performer I am used to from other things. They haven't really serviced Macht that well.

The centerpiece of the episode, of course, where it really perks up is the long, long sequence with the Fairgate home movies and everyone watching Sid and themselves in happier times. (And props to the show for apparently getting Don Murray back to film all this, as I doubt it's stuff they shot in S1 or S2) The music is lovely, and the superimpositions, etc. of Karen, Michael and Eric's faces as they watch and have their own emotional journeys while watching together all works more than a lot of period TV at that time which would overuse the same now-antiquated special effects. Michele Lee drives it by having an interesting mix of wonderment and fascination for much of the sequence, instead of heartbreak or grief - it's not til halfway through that a single seemingly-unnoticed tear falls down Karen's cheek, and then she gives herself over to the emotional catharsis of the sequence, along with her sons. (No comment on Diana calling herself a ham.)

There's a refreshing, candid and philosophical beat here where Karen admits to Larry "I don't know what my morality is" - she married an older man very young, and the moral and sexual mores have changed dramatically from the early '60s to the early '80s. She doesn't know where she stands in the culture as an unmarried woman of a certain age, and that is a smart thing to discuss on something like a soap, let alone a primetime soap. I do know the backstory on Lee taking off her real wedding ring (from James Farentino, who she remained on good terms with and later co-starred in a TV movie with as husband and wife) in the sequence at the end. It was a good scene and a good speech at Sid's grave, though it doesn't have quite the same weight or power for me of the largely wordless home movies sequence. The overly on the nose 'letting go' dialogue between Karen and the annoying girlfriend was also pretty rough.

I knew I recognized the handsome senator - it's Bruce Gray, who played Owen Madison on EON during the Mansion of the Damned/Nola Madison saga (which I am still enjoying immensely these days). I had no idea he later played a sugar daddy on Queer as Folk!

Speaking of morality, there's a great scene where Val heads over to Abby's to slutshame her about fùcking the senator. Abby is great as she bluntly tells her she used the currency available to her - sex - like men use money or material power. She isn't sneering about it or mustache-twirling, she's just honest and direct, and Val can't take it.

Abby: Morality is something you dwell on after you know where your next meal is coming from.

Val [appalled]: Do you really believe that?

Abby: What do you think?

Val: I think that I better keep my eye on you all of the time.

Abby: Val - do. How else are you gonna learn?

The Eric Fairgate teenage mustache watch - no mustache this week. Thank God.

Episode 18 (Exposé):

Finally, the Ewing family potboiler comes to light. And of course Gary tries to forbid it, while wanting to stick to his work wife Abby. LMAO at Lilimae greeting Gary's return home with 'home is the sailor.' She's right, too - almost everything bad that's ever happened to Val happened because of Gary and the Ewings.

I was wondering where Laura had gone to; she's not living in the cul-de-sac anymore, and it's an interesting adjustment to see her visiting people (for now - I have no idea if she moves back for good). I love McCashin's eternally dry wit, including re: the baby - 'every time the interest rates go up a percentage, the baby kicks.' And Lord, the hooker Richard spills it all to used to star on Hunter (after KL, obviously). Anyway, Richard finally has had enough of pimping for his boss, but it's too late for the 6 o'clock news! Poor lonely Richard wanders over to the Ward house, where a pretty kind Kenny and Ginger take him in and endure his awkward company - the looks between Lankford and Houghton were hilarious.

There's a wonderful scene in the midst of all this where Val confides in Laura and Ginger - both newly liberated, working women, both telling her to pursue her dreams as a writer. They are right to do so, but at the same time Val perceptively delineates between their circumstances and hers; she and Gary were torn apart for decades, lost their whole lives together and are not so willing to risk it or give it up for some other dream, when their dream has been each other. Or at least, this life was Val's dream - Gary's dreams are already becoming something else, have been for awhile. He already made it clear earlier this season in a rousing series of scenes that he will never be happy just being a suburban family man in Knots Landing, while that's all Val has wanted for them. Now Val has aspirations beyond just suburban homemaking too, but Gary can't accept it for her, and Val is having to decide how much both things truly mean to her. I'm not sure she wholly knows yet, but I am glad she signed the contracts (even if Abby manipulates that situation into happening, but Gary was right - he and Val did make a stupid, pointless deal).

When the hooker story hits and Richard gets the shaft he turns up at Laura's rambling on and going full manic Richard, before having a really sad breakdown in Laura's arms. Not for the first time, the transference circuit between the Averys is completed: Laura is the parent-lover, Richard the broken child. I know what's coming up next, I've heard a lot about it and I am very excited. We are now in the strong tail end of Season 3, and I am advised the show will never be the same. This has been another pretty uneven season - maybe more uneven than Season 2, I think - but it's coming together well so far.

Karen's ranting monologue about Gary, Val and Abby to a Joe who has already left was classic.

[Chris 2]

One of my favorite episodes. The scene between Valene and Abby (“How else are you going to learn?”) is great. But the home movies scene is amazing. I understand that Don Murray filmed those scenes prior to his departure at the beginning of the season. Michele Lee is a wonder here as Karen simultaneously expresses her joy at the memories of her life with Sid and her grief over his loss. Lee was nominated for an Emmy that year, and I believe this is the episode she submitted.