KNOTS LANDING

[Faulkner]

I was so impressed with Michele Lee in those early seasons. Such a gifted actress. Just watching her walk around an empty hospital waiting room alone is compelling.

[yrfan1983]

My favorite all-time episode

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 I often circle back to it for repeat viewings

[Soapsuds]

I am so enjoying the 1983-1984 season.

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[Soapsuds]

So in one episode Diana is defending Chip and treating Karen like garbage. When did this happen? She was afraid of Chip when on the run. 

[victoria foxton]

 

  

[Soapsuds]

 

[victoria foxton]

 

  

[Spin865]

With Greg, they really do a consistent line of Greg keeping the mask on for the rest of the show (although in later seasons it would be more the case of Greg meeting almost every remark with a sarcastic quip). And it makes the rare cases of the viewers seeing Greg's true emotions seem special (Greg's private reaction to Laura's video after her death is one of the few things on a primetime soap that have ever brought me to tears).  

[DRW50]

Noises Everywhere  is an example for me of the perils of maybe giving actors too much say in an episode...

[Vee]

Some long-delayed notes on Season 6, Episodes 5-7; I'll post stuff for 8-10 a little later but I wanted to break these messages up as it's too much. I discussed the first four of Season 6 on the last page (along with the tail end of S5). I have been very busy with IRL stuff for the last month, and also wanted to be sure to cycle all this mess out onto the forum before I continued with the remainder of Season 6. Once I clear the decks on the first third of S6 with this annoying spam I defy anyone to read, I will be resuming my KL binge. I was glad for the break, as mainlining a ton of the back and front ends of S5-6 at once was a lot to take on. I will say watching KL alongside House of the Dragon has been an intriguing, and simpatico viewing experience. There's a lot of tonal similarities!

• The two romantic foils for Ben and Mack during their relationship drama - Ben's Pacific News coworker P.K. Kelly and Mack's old flame for Jane Sumner - have varying responses from me. Millie Perkins is a good actress but is made up very matronly as Jane, and Mack's torch for her seems a bit implausible for a variety of reasons, like they've just kludged it into the Mack/Sumner backstory. Fortunately the show cuts it short quickly. With the so-so Ben/Kelly thing, they at least have Kelly admit that playing with Ben is a diversion from her own past romantic troubles. The actress, Wendel Meldrum(?), is decent and a graceful presence onscreen. So there's that.
• Where is James Westmont at Lotus Point? What's become of Abby's former right hand? Abby is sure Gary and Karen will tire of the development, and lies in wait to regain control: "I built Lotus Point from the ground up, I went through all the battles, I got my hands dirty. It wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me." I do love Gary and Abby still jousting over the business in the steam room, happily bantering about both their shared and opposing goals while deep in carnal embrace in their sauna now that they're both on something like the same page. The grand opening of LP is a great event for the show too, featuring Karen's incredible hat and outfit as well as a fun mix of the Knots Landing gang with the monied class Gary and co. have merged into. Sumner mounts a strong defense of his opponent, Caulfield, for the press after Abby calls his bluff on their mutually assured destruction pact; it seems he's found the limits of his flexibility vs. his morals post-Wolfbridge. 
• There's an interesting beat at the party where Abby meets Joshua, and then Cathy pointedly stakes her claim. In their romantic scenes Joshua is played as the virginal ingenue with Cathy the aggressor. Joshua is repressed but overcome amidst the teeming, misty wildlife splendor; it's sort of an externalization of their inner tumult and passion.
• Aaaand the shoe drops at the end of Ep 5 as Abby loads up a fateful floppy disk and discovers Ben's love note to Val, which she can't help but read as it scrolls across the screen. Donna Mills has some hilarious visual reactions mocking the opening text of the letter, then as Ben's voice-over drops the bomb, her shining face and red outfit are murkily half-reflected in the black old school Apple? computer screen. Great finish. This leads to the storyline turning more and more rapidly towards film noir in subsequent episodes, with Scott Easton and Abby plotting in her new eco-paradise office as she watches Gary and Val talking through the curtains, paranoid and unaware they’re talking about the MacKenzies. You don't initially know what exactly Easton is setting in motion or why, and I'm still not sure on the specifics. We also get an early glimpse of the creepy moon-faced Dr. Ackerman shortly after this, without initially knowing who he is - the reveal is set for when Val visits him at his office.
• The dissolution of Greg and Jane Sumner's marriage is brutal and spread across several episodes. She makes an attempt at reconciliation after the Wolfbridge chaos, but Greg coldly tells Jane she knows nothing about him anymore. Then he goes AWOL days before the election, before turning up drunk at - wait for it - Laura's (who's out of town and over him)! I loved that stab of vulnerability beneath his armor, and I love the overall plot arc so far of the writers deconstructing Greg Sumner, who had been fascinatingly opaque for much of his first year. He's been delving into a long dark night of the soul ever since he killed Mark St. Claire in cold blood and discovered the full weight of the price of his 'flexibility' and colluding with Wolfbridge in the first place. When he finally returns on Election Day, Jane pleads with Greg: "You're coming apart. You want to lose this election, Greg. Can't you see that?" But Greg refuses - there’s a part of him that wants to be punished for his 'compromises,' he admits to her, which is a big admission for him, but it's not big enough. Jane warns him that sooner or later he'll lose it all because he can't take it. When he does win over Caulfield, there's some great handheld camerawork as Sumner rattles on before the press and staff about the family of man. Greg is exhilarated again but Jane's had enough; he's won but she wants a divorce. Meanwhile, Laura's not in the mix right now bc of his bullshít, all the same behaviors Jane lived with for years. When Jane says she can't watch him fall apart, Greg instinctively, brutally reacts in the same violent way Devane often shows us whenever Greg is really impacted beneath his charisma and cool: "Why wait?” he snaps. Then he storms out, telling his aides to give his wife ten minutes to get out, and shuts the door in Jane's face as she cries. The character is absolutely fascinating to watch as he slowly unravels, reassembles himself and unravels again.
• The cross-cutting couples counseling with Gary/Karen and Val/Mack across the street from each other is a superfun use of the cul-de-sac canvas, as is Gary and Val strategizing together to save the MacKenzie marriage. I like them in these comic, chummy roles together, even as it makes Abby increasingly fearful for the future. There's two more beautiful bits where Val asks Mack to be her Lamaze coach, and when Gary calls Karen on being "caught up in the nobility of it all" re: not telling the truth about her medical diagnosis. When Gary and Val's well-intentioned meddling goes awry they still play the comedy, so the anguish of the Karen medical storyline doesn't become overpowering, and it changes shape right as it threatens to become truly tedious, with Karen and Mack reconciling even as she hasn't quite told him the truth yet.
• Episode 7 is a Peter Dunne-penned episode, and has some great directorial flourishes by show standby Larry Elikann, opening on a strobing TV monitor of a sermon from a TV evangelist who Joshua is transfixed by, then cross-cutting with Lilimae caught behind the gated bars at Val's, lost in her own musings. Joshua is still begging off Cathy's advances and is slowly being revealed to be a deeply damaged, repressed person while Lisa Hartman's character remains a more wilderness-oriented free spirit. Joshua's dreaded father, Jonathan Rush, turns up as played by Albert Salmi - he's shot like a horror movie monster at first, in looming low angles and extreme close-ups, and shames Lilimae at an awkward family dinner for her out of wedlock children (Val and Mack swiftly fleeing for Lamaze cracked me up). Jonathan mocks Lilimae’s wanderlust and dreams, leading to a great set of dueling philosophical conversations between the ex-lovers as well as their son and his girlfriend. "What good are your dreams in my world?" Jonathan asks Lilimae. "What good have your dreams ever done for you?" "They’re my dreams," Lilimae replies. "They led me far away and they led me into trouble, but they led me home again." "A fool's journey," Jonathan scoffs, but Lilimae feels differently: "In the end they led me to myself." Lilimae doesn't want Jonathan’s pity, and for much of his guest appearance he seems utterly incapable of love and affection. Joshua is still riddled and crippled by his father's puritanical pathology, going so far as to crash at the TV evangelist's office to confide in him and get what seems like decent advice. Elikann stages the confrontation between father and son in a darkened and shadowy Clements/Ewing living room with Lilimae listening in on the stairs, and the writers do give Jonathan some pathos and dimension as he first pleads for Joshua to go with him, then admits to missing Lilimae, leading to a tender, emotional and genuinely touching goodbye between the two. Again, you ain't getting this kind of nuance on Dallas or Falcon Crest.
• The Fairgate boys are as over the Mack/Karen break-up as we are: Eric (smart in his KL Motors shirt) is throwing a fit over Karen in the driveway, and Michael isn't here for it either. For his part, Mack in still crashing in his bathrobe on Ben's couch, which cracks me up. When Owen Madison from EON turns up with Karen's divorce papers this galvanizes Mack to get Karen to agree to go away with him for the weekend, leading to their oceanside reconciliation. But that dovetails into events most everyone but me knows well, which I will discuss shortly.
• It's chaos at Sumner HQ in the wake of victory as all the guest players from his crew get their fun little bits, but the coup de grace is from an absent Abby who sends flowers with a note: "Everybody loves a winner. Just remember, I love them best! Love, Abby." Greg is desperate to win Mack back to go with him to D.C., insisting he keeps him honest. But Mack's disillusioned, and their formerly close relationship is homosocial: "You were my hero. [...] Before I can do anything else I gotta love you again." Sumner is undeterred; everything in him, especially now, is in the gritted teeth, the tensed muscles in the grins, the anticipatory reactions. He finally reconnects with Laura (who he has yet to articulate a reason for pursuing so doggedly in recent days) over a bucket of chicken at his HQ after hours, where she reveals she voted for Caulfield lol. He wants her to go to D.C. with him and start fresh but remains vague on the specifics of what and who they are to each other. Laura's concerns are blunt and smart: "I don't wanna end up like Jane." IIRC the show cuts the scene and the storyline for the episode on that line, which is smart. It's a large, unresolved expanse.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Vee

[yrfan1983]

We love your detailed observations, Vee! Definitely not spam in my book. It's been a good number of years since I viewed all the seasons, so you're bringing back a flood of great memories.

I'm pretty sure James Westmont is never seen or heard of again. That is strange, as Abby seemed to thrive on his business support and acumen.

Wendel Meldrum is forever beloved as Kevin's teacher on The Wonder Years (though that's all tainted now, after the Fred Savage revelations... ugh). I just googled her and she was also the Seinfeld "Low-Talker"... love it! She passed away last year

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 RIP

I'm curious for your take mid-season on Joshua... my recollection is that his "turn to the dark side" is very abrupt... not that well-developed... before they go full barrel with Dark Joshua. 

One thing to keep in mind as the season progresses is that the writers had to do a major shift. The original plan was for Verna Ellers to remain away from home for longer. But... I remember in SOD, a KL producer was asked "do you ever take fan feedback into account when crafting stories?" and the answer was something like  "yes. We ended the Verna Ellers story sooner than intended, because we got so much negative feedback".

And then the season was expanded from the previous 25 to the super-sized 30 eps for the first time!

So the show had 5 extra eps of story to create, and Val home sooner than expected. Maybe that's why they had to accelerate Joshua's story.

[Vee]

I didn't know that - I'll have to look closer at some of the interviews posted around about this after the story wraps for me. I think her being gone what, 8 episodes or something like that is enough. I also know there's a lot of chaos around whatever the Empire Valley/conspiracy plotline is that I think begins late this season, and it seems the Peter Dunne team had one plan and the incoming Dallas creative team next season had another? I haven't dug into it much yet because I want to experience the storyline fresh.

I do think there are already hints that Joshua has a real darkness to him given his pathological repression re: Cathy, saying maybe Val losing the twins was God's will for her sin, etc. They've said he was always intended to be one year and out.

[j swift]

I've noted before that I thought the Lotus Point office set was brilliantly designed for this exact dramatic purpose.  Reflecting the contemporary affinity for open office design in that set, and in the later Sumner Group set, gave multiple opportunities for directors to shoot through windows and use character POV's of staring at their lovers and enemies.

Yet, when I research Knots' Emmy nominations, it was never honored in the category of set design.  In fact, in 1985 Dynasty was nominated, Miami Vice won, but the Knots set never received the respect it deserved given it's unique use as a dramatic device.  IMHO, in comparison, JR and Alexis's respective offices were generic and only allowed them to be shot from a single perspective.

FYI, according to the Emmy's website, Knots got 3 Noms (Leading Actress for Julie Harris & Michelle Lee in 1982, and the musical score in 1983) and 1 win (Joel Rosenbaum for the underscore in 1987).

Edited October 19, 2022 by j swift

[Franko]

I've said it before and I mean it: the Emmys only (slightly) respected the soaps when they had to, then they went back to praising the prestige shows to high heaven.

[Soapsuds]

I'm currently watching Season 5 and it is so good! Better than I remembered and I'm surprised it wasn't nominated for some Emmys that year.