Knots Landing

[Franko]

Daniel Avery, having walked out on his wife and family (like father, like son), returns to California. He picks up the pieces at and with the restaurant that was Daniel's during his infancy.

[Soaplovers]

I do agree that Latham didn't understand really what made Abby, Val, nor Laura tick.

Val wasn't a village idiot, nor a victim, in the way that Latham wrote her.   If anything.. Val was a survivor and truly the little engine that could... and she was perceptive and could read people.

Abby would have figured out a way to do the right thing without implicating herself nor revealing her part in the event happening.

Laura.. she was too layered of a character for someone basic like Latham to tackle.  Although her character has a large impact on the canvas all the way through the reunion movie.

[DRW50]

That's a great idea. Home & Away is currently doing a storyline where a man whose parents split up due to the father cheating and leaving for another woman ends up cheating and leaving his wife for another woman, which estranges him from his sister, who never forgave their father. It's very strong soap that impacts generations of characters. 

Anything that would get John Pleshette back would be a bonus. 

Sorry to say Claudia instead of Diana in my post...

Interestingly I do think they knew how to make Paige a fairly complex character, but she was an exception to the rule for them. 

I definitely cannot imagine a character like Laura existing in the last 5-6 years of Knots. You only had a few archetypes.

[Franko]

It's yet another of those stories I might have to hang onto for my own hypothetical soap. Although I am curious if Richard would be in a good place in 2024, or if he's still blowing his (last) "chances of a lifetime."

[DRW50]

I think Richard would always have a lot of regrets. I do think he would have stayed with his new wife, but you'd see he always loved Laura most (even though we know if he'd stayed with her, he would have also been miserable because he will always want what he doesn't have).

[Paul Raven]

There would have to be some links to the original to make it viable.

But yes, only guest appearances to launch a few stories or intro new(er) characters.

Going on the actors ages, Claudia Lonow is 61

Tonya Crowe is 53

Diana and Olivia could have children in their 20's and teens.

Meg, Betsy and Bobby would be on their 30's.

So plenty of characters to base a show around.

 

 

[Vee]

I can't really speak on much like this til I've seen the whole of the show, but my own early thoughts were to use Greg and Laura's daughter Meg who the MacKenzies raised as a hotshot political operative caught between two worlds and moral compasses, as well as maybe either Diana or Michael's (or Olivia's) gay son named for Eric, and maybe Daniel Avery. How you would weave any of them organically back into that locale is hard to make plausible, obviously.

I thought about the twins but tbh my idea for Bobby Jr. was tied mainly to an idea of a brief, one-season revival and conclusion to Dallas, where eco-crusader Bobby II (or Betsy!) would go back to Texas and clash with one of J.R.'s sons over the future of the business and the climate crisis at large. Like Gary, he would be kind of the fairhaired boy with a pristine vision of the future. But that's for another thread. (The better idea, inverting the 'good/bad' Ewing boys and making Christopher the baddie as David Jacobs suggested, is obvious, but I was operating as though Dallas 2012 is canon and therefore Christopher is dead, so you had to use other heirs of J.R. while I would have John Ross in a more conflicted and soulful role.)

Edited August 22, 2024 by Vee

[Forever8]

In this wishful reboot, I would also open it up with Bobby and Betsy's 40th birthday. Maybe Betsy became an actress and is having hard times having to live with Gary and Val. Bobby could be involved with the kid Henry and Sheila Fisher had and has taken over Gary's business endeavors and inherited his reckless streak. 

Since Mack died, Meg and her family could've moved in with Karen. Meg could've followed in Mack's footsteps and became an attorney. Maybe Meg's husband is slightly older and has been married before, and Meg runs into the same issues with helping to raise her husband's child from his marriage that Karen had with Annie, but we get to actually see the child in more than one episode. The child and Karen develop a bond, and Karen gives her daughter advice on how to deal. 

We can get appearances from Abby and introduce new families on Seaview Circle too. 

 

 

 

[SoapDope]

Maybe Lucy eventually had a child and they come to live with grandparents Gary and Val.

There is also Kenny & Ginger's daughter Erin. 

[Soaplovers]

I would have either Val or Karen still living on the Cul da sec.. and one of their children and/or grandchildren decide to move in with them due to the economic situation going.

As Val or Karen sit back, they see how their kids/grandkids fare with the neighbors that are in various states of life stages (gay couple, newlyweds given the house by a wealthy family member, an immigrant couple that has obtained enough wealth to live on Seaview Circle, etc).

And it would be interesting to see how Karen, a liberal feminist of the 70s/80s, would react to a younger more progressive feminist.

[Khan]

For me, the question would be: if someone were to revive KL today, which KL would we get?  Would we get the KL of seasons 1-3, with self-contained episodes about the ups and downs of married life in the suburbs; the KL of seasons 4-14, with sudsier, less middle-class storylines that rivalled the other primetime soaps of the day; or a hybrid of the two?

[BetterForgotten]

Would we envision it as a streaming show with a limited seasonal episode order, or a broadcast network show where the state of hour-long dramas is quite bizarre right now? 

That said, I do think this is quite a WISHFUL exercise, lol. Warner Brothers Discovery is notoriously cheap, and would probably never greenlight a revisitation of this materiel. We're lucky we're getting what we're getting right now quite frankly. 

Edited August 22, 2024 by BetterForgotten

[Chris B]

I would like something like the first four seasons if the show did return. The main focus on the cul-de-sac and domestic/family issues, but serialized. With that said, Knots is one show I never want to see return. I don't think the writing would be up to snuff. Whoever writes it would just view it as another primetime soap and we'd get a camp mess that doesn't represent Knots.

Now a fantasy idea I've always had that would *never* happen is a one off limited series of 6-8 episodes with the original cast. I'd frame it around Mack dying which would be a way to bring everybody back. Paige, all of Karen's kids, Abby, Greg, etc. Instead of trying to build a next generation, I'd use it as a send off and show how Karen deals with losing another husband and you could also die an off screen Eric death to further highlight the depth of loss Karen has had.

The only person I'd have still living in the cul-de-sac that we know would be Val. Since she was a writer I'd have her now being a podcaster and investigate what happened to Mack. You could tie a mystery in to Greg due to his past with Mack. 

Because of the ages of the cast this would never happen, but I love when tv/film takes changes on older actors. This is one aspect of life we rarely get as the main focus, but when they do (Grace & Frankie/Thelma) it tends to be very good.

[SoapDope]

You would think in this day ad age it would be a continuing drama, but most younger people have the attention span of a gnat. They will fast forward if something big is not happening every 5 minutes. That's the reason soaps are a dying breed. Younger generations are not willing to invest years on end watching a series slowly unfold.

Remember when soaps would have days worth of scenes of just people sitting around chit chatting over breakfast, dinner, at the office etc...? I tried showing a younger person Dallas and they could not believe people actually sat around and watched that stuff.

[Reverend Ruthledge]

You are, sadly, right.