Knots Landing

[Vee]

I'm already four eps into Season 6. I will give some more thoughts on the end of S5 and this new beginning in overview later, but for now I'll just say the new Gary Ewing-friendly vision of the finally-real Lotus Point with its vast vistas, solar houses and New Age futurist greened biosphere offices is stunning - it looks like something out of '70s British sci-fi or Silent Running when Gary first shows it to Karen. I don't understand how they kept getting more money for these insane gigantic locations and stunning new sets year after year, but I guess that's the epoch of the '80s megasoap for you. (Meanwhile, Dallas still has the rinky-dink pool patio set and yellow floaties - where is their money going?)

It is really hard to put this show down for any length of time when everyone and everything continues to look stunning and the characters continue to grow and evolve while their business/social arenas continue to build out like this too. Gary and Abby are at maybe their very best together ever in these early episodes for me, after once again reaching new lows when she was exposed last season, and it is thrilling to see Karen at Lotus Point.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Vee

[DRW50]

Probably executive pockets. Dallas always looked oddly cheap.

Lotus Point is the high point of Knots for me. When it's gone I mourn it more than I mourned a number of actual characters. 

[Vee]

It looks like New Age Robot Heaven! They even introduced it in a fly-over with synths!

[yrfan1983]

The early eps of season 6 were filmed on location in Oregon, which helped contribute to the beautiful look of Lotus Point. Also, production was continuous from the season 5 finale into season 6, rather than taking the customary 2 month or so break. 

This was all done to avoid filming in LA during the ‘84 summer Olympics.

[titan1978]

Well, not so continuous that it stopped Donna Mills from getting a very flattering shorter haircut between seasons.

[Vee]

It really is absolutely amazing.

[yrfan1983]

Some musings on the final days of Diana Fairgate Fenece and Claudia Lonow…

In the KnotsLanding.net interview with David Jacobs and Michael Filerman, they both laud CL as a fantastic actress. But David J says repeatedly “Diana was not a popular character”.
I wonder – was she always an unpopular character, or did that happen during Season 5?

As Vee detailed, Diana devolved in S5 to a borderline psychopath – and certainly unlikeable/unrootable! Since common agreement is that CL is a great actress, to me the fault would then be with the writing… that the S5 writers failed to create a realistic portrayal of Diana torn between her love for her husband and her family, and instead presented us with an obsessed maniac.

After Diana returned from her oddly-timed multiple-episode trip to visit Uncle Joe (why couldn’t we have seen this? I would have loved to see straight-talker Uncle Joe try to clear up Diana’s muddled thinking), it felt the writers tried to wrap up Diana’s story with a minimum of effort. An underwhelming, half-hearted reconciliation with Karen… which was a real let-down after 5 seasons of being shown their intense mother-daughter bond. A barely-there-before-it’s-gone receptionist job at Gary Ewing Enterprises. Multiple eps with no Diana appearance at all. It makes me wonder if the writers would have preferred to just write her off after Chip’s funeral.

There’s an interesting occurrence we see with CL and later with both Teri Austin and Tonya Crowe. (maybe this happened to Pat Petersen too? But I haven’t confirmed)  All 3 actors spend years not in the opening credits, but instead in the “also starring” section, or even in Tonya’s case, many years in the end credits. Finally, all are promoted to opening credits, and all 3 only last one season before being let go.  Who knows all the ins-and-outs of each situation… but I surmise that it’s a contractual guarantee that after so many seasons, the actors will be added to the opening credits regardless of the writers’ future plans for the character. So, this makes me think the writers were forced to use Diana all of season 5 even after they lost interest in the character.

Most of this is conjecture on my part, as things just don’t add up, and I want to know why! Come on Claudia, write that tell-all memoir! She has said she struggled with drugs during this time, and we can only imagine how that played a part.
My wish for Diana is that she received an on-screen proper and thorough redemption arc. I do appreciate she got the Season 6 goodbye scenes (instead of just leaving off-screen for another Uncle Joe trip) and that we saw a more normal and mature Diana in the final season.

[Vee]

I assume it would have to be her drug habit that led to her being kept out of most of the latter half of Season 5 and then written out entirely. But Diana had very little place left to go at that point.

I did cringe at her exit scene with Karen talking admiringly about how Diana had stuck to her guns on 'what she believed in,' even when everyone was against her. Really? We're glossing that over? It was at least nice to see her being loving to her mother in the final eps she appeared in, and it will be fun to see her again sometime in Season 14 (I've glimpsed some of her guest appearance and she looks great).

I think part of Diana's behavior with Chip is realistic - the gawky, insecure, grieving and self-absorbed high school girl who never felt quite as beautiful or lucky as the others, feeling (as she herself said to him) 'lucky' to land a dreamy hunk like he appeared to be - and other parts just went way too far. I didn't really care to unpack or analyze it after a certain point, I just didn't want to see her anymore. Which is how the writers seemed to feel when they got rid of that messy thread in one rather hasty episode.

I did find it interesting that as soon as Steve Shaw and Pat Petersen are added to the main 'co-starring' credit at the top of the episode, poor Tonya Crowe gets bumped back down to the guest stars in the end credits (she was the first of the three to go co-starring in Season 5, I believe). Maybe it was a space thing or timing given that Lonow is credited as a Special Guest Star on each of those episodes as they prep her exit.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Vee

[yrfan1983]

Sigh… I guess you’re right that the character of Diana was basically unsalvageable post-Chip… but it didn’t have to be that way.  The Knots writers proved themselves as skilled creators of multi-layered, deeply felt characters. In this respect, I think they failed Diana.

For example, re: Diana feeling lucky Chip chose her – I can buy that concept. However, to my recollection, nothing we saw on-screen indicated that she felt insecure in the romance department.  Her arc in season 3 was focused on the family’s recovery from Sid’s death. IIRC in Seasons 1 and 2, she maybe had 1 or 2 “episode-of-the-week boyfriends”?  I guess we can chalk up her insecurities to failed off-screen romances.

[DRW50]

I'm not sure if Diana was ever popular with viewers. I tend to see her as an irritant even before Chip, similar to her vapid CBS cousin Vicky on Falcon Crest a few years later. Knots never knew how to write for the kids of the main characters (the waste/misuse of Olivia in her last years is still disheartening) as they reached a certain age anyway.

Edited September 12, 2022 by DRW50

[titan1978]

I was just thinking what a waste sticking Olivia with Harold was before you posted this.  One of my least favorite pairings.

I do not find Diana that compelling, never did.  But I think it would have been nice to see her a few more times over the later seasons.

Its so rare for a show to capture teenage angst without going too far into bratty.  It also takes a really skilled younger performer to pull it off.  Once they go too bratty, they almost always cut their losses.

[Soaplovers]

Olivia had such potential..and her final season sort of skimmed the surface of that with Gary remarking that she had inherited her mother's natural business acumen...but had ethics.  

I could have seen Olivia staying on in season 12 free of Harold...and maybe interacting with Paige/Linda at Sumner Group...since she had rocky history with Paige and would have made Linda miserable for hurting her cousins..plus was Greg's stepdaughter.

Some of Kate's stories could have been given to Olivia (except the Gary relationship in season 14).

Lotus Point was a great secondary location...like Seaview Circle, it was a gathering place for the character rather working or using the facilities (swimming, parks, restaurants, etc).

[Vee]

I know eventually they dispense with Eric and Michael, but I wish they'd tried a little harder. I really am attached to Olivia and the two boys. I suppose when the dramatic center of your show is the parents it's understandable (and I know they tried with Michael and Paige together in some way), but it might have helped with future planning had the show tried to revamp and survive, as some have postulated. I think it could've been done for a few years at least, before the Moonves purge of the mid-late '90s, but judging by interviews it seems the will or interest was not there with the showrunners after fourteen years. Which I can't fault them for.

I intend to ride Olivia's run out for as long as possible; she's great. I didn't know Crowe apparently auditioned for the post-Smith Emily Stewart recast (IIRC) on ATWT later on.

[DRW50]

I don't know if I can see her as Emily but she would have been better than what we got. 

My main complaints about Olivia were less Harold (although beyond looking good shirtless he didn't offer much) and more that they made the mistake of just having her there to be a brattier Saffron to Abby's Edwina in those last few years. By the time Abby left, it meant Olivia was completely isolated and limited as a character. 

[Vee]

I know very little about Olivia and her eventual mate. I'm just basking in the arboreal glory of Lotus Point, my new avatar.