KNOTS LANDING

[Khan]

I agree.  Abby made an innocent statement.  Scott Easton took that ball and ran with it.  Once Abby realized what he had done, she was horrified.  (After all, she had gone through something similar years before, when her ex-husband kidnapped her kids).  However, there was no way for Abby to undo the mess without making it look as if she had conspired with Easton.

[Soapsuds]

Abby later paid with Olivia drug problems and her hating Abby for what she did. 

The ones I hated were Val and Ben for keeping the truth from Gary.

Val got on my sh!t list very quickly and Ben was just a loser at that point.

[Soaplovers]

I think I recall the only reason Abby finally said something was because her nephew Michael was going to be blamed for drugs that were Olivia's and she finally decided to fess up.  And if I recall, she spinned it as though she didn't say anything until she had definite proof.

I even remember a scene where Val told Abby she knew she was looking for the twins and wasn't super angry with her.

[titan1978]

I would also argue that she did loose Gary as well, and she seemed genuinely in love with him up to a point. By season 7 the writers were done with them, and Abby was too.

[te.]

Ultimately, for community soaps it's all about interactions between characters that you'd sometimes not expect to; Knots suffered from the same syndrome Melrose Place did in its later seasons, namely islanding of characters into their own storyline bubbles. The show was still good, but you could tell that probably for budget reasons those interactions became less and less.

[SoapDope]

Any updates if and when Knots will be streaming ? I hope they do a remaster like they did with Dallas. 

[All My Shadows]

Was coming here to ask the same question. On the occasion of the show's 44th anniversary, we needs to know.

[SoapDope]

I recently re-watched the episode " The Lie" where Laura is raped by the artist guy she met in a bar. It was one of the best shows in the early years when the episodes were mostly self contained. Constance McCashin really knocked it out of the park showing how sad and lonely Laura was in her marriage to Richard and stuck being a Stepford wife.. I loved the scene she has with Val on the stairs in her house talking about her background and how she felt trapped. Pretty groundbreaking stuff for an episode done in 1979 (all the first season shows were filmed in 79). 

It would have been interesting years later to have done a storyline where Karen hires a highly recommended artist for some sort of advertising campaign for Lotus Point with Laura's involvement. When he arrives Laura is confronted by a face from the past. Over the course of the season he would feel confident and smug tormenting her and she would have to revisit the injustice that was done to her. In the end he get's his comeuppance in some big way. I hated that he got away with what he done to her. 

[Khan]

Like another poster said, DALLAS and KL burned through so much story in their initial years with all those self-contained episodes that it is a shame how much of that stuff is forgotten once they became all-out soaps.

[Vee]

That reminds me: New year, new season for me!

[SoapDope]

Yes. A lot of that could have been mined for future storyline material. It's like they divorced themselves from those early years. 

Dallas: Some ideas

Pam & Cliff's cousin Jimmy could have been developed into a supporting character.

Instead of having Lucy kidnapped by Roger the photographer, Willie (Greg Evigan) gets out of jail and abducts her.

Kit Mainwaring could have come back in some shocking way.

The return of Alan Beam seeking revenge. Since they made baby Christopher not J.R.'s, they could have had Alan be his father.

Country star Garnett McGee (Kate Mulgrew) returns wanting Ray back and coming between him and Donna. 

Knots:

Laura's attacker from season 1 returns and she has to revisit the past.

Annie (Karen Allen) Sid's daughter return to the canvas.

Maybe those beach thugs (boy that was a terrible episode) return and wreak havoc again in the cul-de-sac. They would write Val stinks on the front of her house and throw Karen's trash cans through her picture window. Karen would turn vigilante and go after them in her car like she did in the later seasons......LOL

 

[Khan]

I, myself, would have loved to see Jane Elliot pop up again as Judy Trent.  Yes, her storyline with (no, not that) Paul Rudd, Ted Shackelford and Joan Van Ark reeked, but I don't blame JE for that.  Rudd was all wrong as Earl Trent, and Gary and Judy's affair lacked basic motivation and chemistry, too.  But the scenes JE had with Donna Mills were divine and made me wish she had stayed on longer as a sparring partner for Abby.

I don't know how I would have worked it, exactly, but as soon as Judy returned (freed from Earl, who literally drank himself to death, lol), I would have pivoted her away from Gary and Val as quickly as possible and paired her instead with William Devane's Greg, either pre- or post-Laura, while making sure she and DM/Abby remained in each other's orbit.  (Not that Nicollette Sheridan was awful as Paige, but she just was so young and out of her league with Devane and Mills).

Another way for Laura to revisit the past:

Joshua rapes Cathy at a certain point.  Cathy presses charges against Joshua.  Laura realizes for the first time that what had happened to years ago was, in fact, rape.  Laura looks into the matter privately and learns that, due to the statute of limitations, she will not be able to file charges against that artist.  Nevertheless, Laura remains compelled at least to confront him.  Except, when she does, she learns he is living in a hospice and (likely due to the effects of the disease) no longer remembers her.  Seeing him in such pitiful shape, Laura realizes she has the justice and closure she has been looking for and walks away, never to think or see him again.

Edited January 3 by Khan

[Soaplovers]

And didn't Val figure out that Laura pointed the finger at the wrong guy during the 'Laura is raped' episode?

I still remember Val's combined look of concern and resignation when she saw Laura doing the same thing at the bar as the episode was coming to a close.

Season 1 was a good season for developing the characters, but later writers totally missed the boat on mining those episodes for ideas in later seasons.

[Maxim]

Guys I've been trying to get into this show and I just can't... Is season 1 just bad or... is this the quality overall. It's just boring to me. BUT what I see from clips... the later seasons look amazing. Are they?

[SoapDope]

 I was thinking about Judy (Jane Elliot) too. She and Abby sparring would be awesome. Judy with Greg would be good too, maybe fighting with Laura. I also like your idea about Laura visiting/confronting her rapist in hospice. I'm surprised Joshua didn't rape Cathy (reminiscent of the Roger & Holly rape storyline in GL in 1979).  When you look back at season 1 of Knots, viewers probably assumed with Richard's short temper that at some point he would start beating Laura. 

Another storyline that was quickly brushed over was when Chip Todson forced/harassed Laura to sleep with him. Joseph Hacker who played Chip later appeared again on Knots as Jim Westmont. 

I assumed that too the way she told her during the stairs chat "It hurt's me to see you going on this way, and your going to have to do something about it" "I know you have it in you to do the right thing". 

The episode has kind of a " Looking for Mr. Goodbar" overtone. 

The first three seasons have kind of a" Scenes from a marriage" type of setting, but then it become full on nighttime soap drama around season 4 with long storylines arcs and cliffhangers. Dallas started off that way too.