KNOTS LANDING

[titan1978]

He did. Abby finds out by reading a letter he wrote Val that is saved on his 1980’s computer. The direction is so great too- Abby reads the line, then her face becomes clear on the monitor, and the credits roll. Ben knew for quite a long time before that scene happens.

[Vee]

For me the essential thing about the show's nature is the evolution of the characters, which is why I always urge people to watch the first three seasons (or at least select episodes). When the show starts out at the end of the '70s just about every woman in the cul-de-sac is a California housewife devoted to her husband. By the fourth season they all have careers, drives and lives of their own, and that only continues to build. The men were, for a long stretch at least, strong but often secondary. (The same element is also why the families, and the children of the Fairgates or Abby's kids, were so important. Val sublimated her mostly-dissipated relationship with Lucy Ewing onto Olivia, and Val and Abby were both very close to Karen's kids particularly in the early seasons.)

The less central focus on the males changed with the arrival of William Devane as Greg Sumner and will change more, I'm sure.

Edited August 19, 2024 by Vee

[All My Shadows]

Oh, duh, the scene with Abby reading the letter was at the very end of the first episode I caught yesterday. I stand corrected on that.

I have every intention of watching from the beginning. It might be more accurate to say that I plan to watch past season 2 since I’ve worn the DVDs out. I’m due for another watch of those two seasons, though. Maybe by then it’ll be streaming on demand and I can just pick up with 1981-1982 *fingers crossed* 

[kalbir]

It was the additions of Kevin Dobson and William Devane that gave Knots Landing a more masculine energy. I feel their castings were strategic to get the male audience away from Hill Street Blues and it worked.

[Vee]

I'm sure other far more knowledgeable people will give you advice about the early years and mine is just a neophyte's, but I do have a watch/skip list for the first 3 I made for @Darn when the time comes. (Spoilers: The biker hell episode in S1 is not on it.)

Speaking of actual character evolution, unlike Dallas: It's still a crazy quantum shift to me as a viewer seeing Val with actual small children of her own. I know this is a central storyline of the show's history but her and Gary's entire run on Dallas and KL up til now was built so heavily on having their youth and their family denied them for decades, and how Val had never had children of her own to raise. And now she has a real family and children of her own, and it's just mindblowing in its own way.

Absolutely. I do think that Sumner (and his family empire) was a story nexus unto himself unlike anyone else though, and thus far it's worked. Anyway, here I go! I'll be locked in for at least a few hours (and have fortunately secured the rest of S7 for when I inevitably have to take a break from FreeVee).

Yes, the late great Dobson and Doug Sheehan, Ted Shackelford and Bill Devane are all very rugged and sexy. But I'd also truly like to thank the fates for getting the Fairgate boys into the pool in my very first episode on FreeVee. It's nice to finally see Eric's much-hyped Black girlfriend too.

However it will go pear-shaped soon, the Empire Valley story is still so ahead of its time for our current surveillance state.

Greg (re: Gary): We have his wife.

Empire Valley Goon: His wife? Isn't that a little strange?

Greg: This is the latter half of the twentieth century, Frank. It isn't strange at all.

Edited August 19, 2024 by Vee

[Vee]

I love that the neighborhood cul-de-sac stuff is still such a part of the show even while it's riding high in the corporate '80s - the backyard party, then Karen dropping in on Val and the twins with a piece of cookware from the day before and bantering with her (Val: "Tell Aunt Karen to have a cup of coffee and shut up!"). It all has the same character and tonal throughlines from the first three seasons. Same with the behind closed doors suburban drama of Val and Ben hearing a thump upstairs (Joshua beating Cathy in their own family home) and it reverberating outward into household gossip.

It is interesting how the new Paulsen team at least initially is committing to the psychological depth of the show, which Dallas just never has had much of IMO - Gary's grief over Bobby manifesting by retreating back to the ranch and the horses on Westfork. The unique relationships between Olivia and Gary and Olivia and Val from the early years are still being utilized and serviced. Doesn't hit nearly the same with the irksome Charlie Wade or other children on Dallas, who are all largely props. It's nice that Abby gets to bring up losing a brother too.

It's clear Jill was originally intended to be a temptation for Mack. I do wonder when and how they decided to pivot BTS. I know Michele Lee(?) vetoed infidelity for Mack and Karen at a later date (I think with Michelle Phillips' character) and IMO she was right that they needed to be the stable couple - I think Victoria Wyndham and Doug Watson eventually did the same for their couple on AW.

Hunt Block has arrived! Man, he looks young (and hot). I wonder where Block is today. I liked a lot of his ATWT work even though it was a world away from the depths of Scott Bryce's Craig Montgomery, and his role on OLTL was too brief and largely a writers' strike invention, gunned down and disposed of a day or two after it ended; his character was not wholly a bad guy, and his very brief scenes with Susan Haskell had real tenderness. It's amusing to me how his very first scene is just a riff on Chip the con man from Season 4. I love Greg's reaction to Abby's amorous approval of the younger man: "We'll trash him over lunch."

Edited August 19, 2024 by Vee

[Vee]

Season 7, Episode 6 is written by Bernard Lechowick, who soon will take over wholesale with wife Lynn Marie Latham. I loved an overcompensating Karen showing up to the family dinner she invites Jill too in a Y&R-esque plunging evening gown. And Jill's reaction to Michael making Chinese with background cries of distress from the kitchen: "Smells different." Of course they end up ordering delivery. Again, all business most primetime soaps of the era just couldn't be bothered with.

Abby is operating more like J.R. at this point, digging up convenient dirt on Elliott the geologist to advance the plot. It's a very Dallas move, but it does work for her character.

Cavanaugh, the lawyer briefly shown last season as being involved with the Fishers' illegal adoption, is now the prime target left in this whole baby caper. I still don't understand how or why Galveston or his equally-dead flunky got involved in masterminding this thing on behalf of Abby or Gary in the first place, but maybe Cavanaugh will say something about it. I'm not holding my breath! But at this point it's not that serious. It could well be that Galveston's aide was just that keen to appease Abby/the Ewings because Galveston was already so fixated on Gary as the heir he never had.

Edited August 19, 2024 by Vee

[Vee]

This whole convo was great.

Lilimae: Has Mack said [Jill's] pretty?

Karen: No.

Lilimae: Then he thinks she's pretty.

Teri Austin is pretty impressive. I an see why they kept her and let it play out. I wonder when that idea entered the picture, as we know KL was notoriously more fluid on long-term plotting and open to new ideas or actors/characters who took off while Dallas was supposedly plotted out a year in advance. They obviously decided to bring her back after her brief appearance in S6, but who came up with it? Paulsen from Dallas (who allegedly was not a fan of the looser approach at Knots), David Jacobs or someone else?

[DRW50]

They tease Mack cheating for years. If there was a veto in place I wonder why they kept trying. Maybe because they ran out of natural story for Mack and Karen a number of years before the show ended.

I think the only place I really enjoyed Hunt Block was on GL.

Edited August 19, 2024 by DRW50

[Vee]

Ironically, a role he allegedly only got because James DePaiva turned Paul Rauch down flat.

I am kind of happy the MacKenzies stayed solid, at least at a present viewer. I really like Karen and Mack, even with their recurring bombast and sanctimony. Their interplay is still sexy and fun, especially in this tense space with Jill in the mix. I do think a real breakup for a little while (nowhere near as long as Gary and Val) and some serious rivals for both, might have had juice much further down the road.

Wild for Joshua to see another young audience member being used and abused and ask her how she can let her boyfriend treat her like that, approaching a moment of self-reflection for himself only to seduce her.

Edited August 19, 2024 by Vee

[DRW50]

I do appreciate the idea of them staying solid as a couple. Unfortunately, I just have no great use for either of them in the last 4-5 years of the show, but I do look forward to how you view them.

Philip Brown also had the role of Ben but left due to overwork or not feeling he could play the part.

[Vee]

Yes, I forgot about that.

I got through to Joshua's demise - about six more eps, before taking a break, so I am a third through S7. Fortunately I still have some access to the show when I want to dip back in, but hopefully FreeVee will put the cleaner non-bootleg versions they have on demand sooner than that or the livestream will roll back around.

I can definitely see what people are critiquing re: this season now. There's still a lot to like and a lot of solid stuff, and the heavy synths and high stylization (a la Miami Vice) of some of the Joshua goes psycho material and the Empire Valley intrigue are very well put together and atmospheric, but both stories grew/are growing increasingly tedious and OTT, and I was a longtime defender of the Empire Valley saga til now. (Why is Abby shepherding satellite convoys?)

I felt very little for Joshua's death other than relief the whole thing was over; I felt his sudden descent into total psychosis was very rushed. He's a character you could've let percolate til the end of the year at least scheming and consolidating more power, if done more carefully but we know Paulsen's team came in with a mandate to dump both this and EV. Twitter and its delightful new infatuation with Knots is right: Today Joshua would have a top podcast or YT channel and a TV deal on Fox News or Newsmax, grifting heavily. Which is why so much of his initial televangelist story last season was (like the earlier Empire Valley stuff) still so relevant and topical today.

As Tommy Krasker's wonderful KL blog has said re: Season 7, it's clear they started a la Dallas' long-term seasonal plotting from the point of 'let's have Cathy and Ben have an affair' and worked backwards, because I was surprised how early they started setting up a strong bond between them this season. I'm not thrilled that is down the road. It's a shame Ben is apparently going to get wasted in future (and he's already getting a bit of a heavy edit, more on that another time) because he's been such a solid part of the show and his double act with Mack is pure magic. I wonder what would have happened there if the Dunne team had stuck around, as many writers from that era have claimed they never intended to reunite Gary and Val (I have my doubts) and wanted Ben to be her true love. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with perpetually teasing or eventually reuniting Gary and Val - Gary and Abby (still my favorite of their pairings so far as of S6) have had a long run though they could've had longer, the Gary/Val push-pull relationship is one of the hearts of the show and them finally having secret twins is gold for that - but there was more material left to do for Ben, with or even without Val.

I'll talk more about other stuff in a day or two when I collect my thoughts. Then I'll move through Season 7 slowly, but I am hoping FreeVee lets the show off the livestream leash soon. I'd also hoped they would put the restored versions up when it went public - these are cleaner but not HD - and I'll be disappointed if I get deeper into the show without them. I really hope a HD restoration like Dallas is truly coming. The show deserves it.

Edited August 19, 2024 by Vee

[te.]

Joshua had a death sentence on him once he started physically abusing Cathy. IIRC, he actually didn't cross that line in season six, so it was just another thing to make him as unlikeable as possible to make the audience be relieved that he was killed off.

[Vee]

He was definitely moving into a villain role throughout late Season 6, but he didn't get totally apeshit til this year.

[te.]

Perhaps, but I feel like the season six writers set him up to be redeemable. I mean, Lillimae was shown to have major issues with psychiatry, Val had gone full-on into split mode after the twins' "death" and now the son was starting to show major signs of being unstable. I think they might've ended up exploring what on earth was wrong with the Clemens' clan.