Knots Landing

[SoapDope]

David Jacobs said they had plans for the Ward's to do that story but CBS nixed it.  He must have forgotten that he did it anyway briefly with the Avery's in episode 2 where Richard yells at Laura for not being more friendly with Chip Todson. Laura goes over there and sleeps with him to get Richard's foot in the door with Petrolux & J.R.

I can picture Richard doing that to Laura regularly more than Kenny doing it to Ginger. Richard would do anything to be top dog even throwing his family and friends under the bus to get it. In Courageous Convictions I'm surprised Richard didn't start pimping Laura out in that episode to pay the bills. 

 

[Marco Dane]

I'm halfway thru season 3. Does Karen continue running Knots Landing motors up until season 14 or eventually sells it?

[Khan]

When it comes to the Wards, the show's very first opening sequence says it all.  There, you have Sid and Karen gleefully kissing like a couple of lovesick teens in their garage, Gary and Val sharing a tender moment (and a kiss) on their living room couch, Richard and Laura gettin' sexy in their bedroom with the tacky '70's wallpaper...and all Kenny and Ginger can do is look at it all from afar through their window.

[Reverend Ruthledge]

All of my favorite shows devolved into an inexplicable obsession with one character that I didn't find particularly interesting (GL with Reva, ATWT with Carly, AW with Rachel, KL with Paige). I just didn't get the reason why any of those women had to eat their shows. I guess they appealed to some but my interest in each of those shows waned when that switch from ensemble to one-woman focused happened. 

Someone with more historical information might know better but I think Knots Landing Motors just falls into the abyss never to mentioned again around the 5th or 6th season once the focus shifted onto more glamorous things. 

I think the problem is that the Wards fitted more with the original concept of the show and not how it played out. 

[Soaplovers]

I'm wondering if the original concept of the show (presented pre-Dallas) had the Wards as the new couple moving onto Seaview Circle... and once the show was refashioned as a spin-off.. a lot of the elements meant for the Wards ended up going to the Ewings.

 

[SoapDope]

LOL....great summary of the Wards and the opening credits. Houghton & Lankford were not strong actors. Lankford had weird facial and eye expressions. Houghton just sounded like a himbo when giving dialogue. 

Re: Val's Cable Show/PTL Club.....I just wanted to add another comment about that. Imagine if Joshua had an affair with Abby. Joshua is exposed and goes live on the air to confess like Jimmy Swaggart. He grabs Abby from behind the scenes and puts her on camera and starts crying out he was turned to sin by this wicked woman. "I should have know better to trust a woman with all that eye makeup"......

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Edited September 9, 2024 by SoapDope

[Broderick]

They're definitely the weakest couple (acting-wise), and I suspect Jacobs & Fillerman picked up quickly on that unfortunate trait.  

I'm about finished with the first season, and they've basically thrown ONE episode exclusively to Ginger -- the one in which Mrs. Rebecca Barnes Wentworth torments Ginger about her teenage abortion.  And even then, it was more of a "whodonit" (about a stalker), rather than a genuine look at the remorse a woman might feel about an abortion at sixteen.  

Almost immediately, that episode was overridden by Karen Fairgate's pregnancy & miscarriage, which were handled with introspection and sensitivity.  

[Reverend Ruthledge]

I read that the original concept of the show was to feature four different types of marriages; a stable, long-term marriage (the Fairgates), a tumultuous marriage (the Averys), a reconciled marriage (the Ewings) and a young, new marriage (the Wards). That was supposed to be the focus and I would assume that concept was pre-Dallas so I'm not sure if Gary and Val were supposed to originally be the "reconciled" couple or not. Or if that couple was originally supposed to be new to the neighborhood or already established. I'm not sure how much Dallas changed things for KL.

[Khan]

That would make sense, @Soaplovers.  I'd love to know, though, who the fourth couple was before they were replaced with Gary and Val.  What kind of characters were they?  Were they newlyweds, like the Ewings and the Wards?  Were they an older couple, like the Averys and the Fairgates?

 

LOL!!

I suspect that as well.  I think Filerman/Jacobs realized early on that things weren't clicking with Kenny and Ginger, or with James Houghton and Kim Lankford, but Jacobs just wasn't ready to let go of his original vision for the show yet.

If I could sum up David Jacobs' relationship with this show at least through the first four seasons, it'd be like this:

S1: "It's 'Scenes from a Marriage' times four.  It's gonna be a hit, I can feel it!"

S2: "No, really, trust me on this - once we get the bugs worked out, it'll take off!"

S3: "Okay, maybe I didn't think this 'Scenes from a Marriage x 4' concept through enough.  Just give us a lil' more time and we'll have it!"

S4: "[!@#$%^&*] it, let's just play Soap Opera!"

Edited September 9, 2024 by Khan

[Soaplovers]

I think the concept should have been Scenes from a Marriage X3.. with a divorced individual as the 4th element.   

TPTB did correct that somewhat with introducing Abby in season 2 as the recent divorcee.. and linking her as the younger sister of one of the married couples.

I don't know what the plans were for the original 4th couple... but I hoped that there wasn't overlap between that couple and the newlywed couple (Wards).

[SoapDope]

David Jacobs really was intent on doing a series with the " Scenes From A Marriage" concept. He had that short lived series " Married The First Year" that aired in Spring 1979. He also shot the pilot for Knots in Feb 1979 with that same idea. Constance McCashin said Jacobs was already talking to her about KL and offered her the part of Laura at Christmas 1978. 

David Jacobs was talented, but some of his original ideas were kind of out there. When I watched his Archive Of American Television interview, I was often scratching my head at some of the stuff he was saying he originally planned to do on Dallas and KL with storylines and his original casting choices. Thankfully they never made it to air. I remember him saying that the most fascinating character he created should have been Pamela Barnes Ewing, but as much as he loved Victoria, she fell flat of what he envisioned. I think Katzman is the blame for that. He declawed Pam after the miniseries and catered to Hagman as J.R. and to a lesser extent Patrick Duffy's Bobby. Jacobs said Bobby Ewing was supposed to be a fun playboy carefree character, but he became dull. 

[Broderick]

Houghton & Lankford ain't HOWLING bad actors by any means, but when you stick Ginger in scenes with the other three girls in the cul-de-sac, you notice right away who's the weakest of the four.  Even very early on, the other three girls seem to have established their characters in a more firm manner, and are already working certain "quirks" into their performances that Ginger just doesn't have.

Same thing is true when you compare Kenny with the three other guys. 

You notice it even in simple scenes, like when Richard Avery is explaining the Pythagorean Theorem to Valene with kitchen utensils, and John Pleshette, Joan Van Ark, and Michelle Lee are sitting there acting their asses off over a triangle made with butter knives, lol.  

[Chris 2]

Pleshette, Van Ark, and Lee have screen presence. Lankford doesn’t. Neither does Houghton. They’re lightweights. 

[SoapDope]

Well, Lankford did have some weird acting tics and quirks. Watch the end of the scene after she confronts Mrs. Handleman. Her facial expressions are off the wall. They wrote Houghton out of most of that episode.....LOL

In the episode " Home Is For Healing" about Lucy's visit. Lankford is really bad in the scene where she keep telling Kenny she's had it with all the parties and wants to get a pizza and take it to the beach. She likes to do that bug eyed thing. Houghton just comes across as a 70's man slut. 

Since Kenny was supposed to be a ladies man, maybe they should have made him and Ginger porn actors who are married and they try to keep a solid marriage working in the industry. They could just have switched out the audio equipment in the house for video equipment.

[Broderick]

I suppose the episode with Mrs. Handleman ("Constant Companion"?) was supposed to be a tour-de-force for Ginger, but it was written in such a way that the short nerdy guy from the school (Arthur?) and Mrs. Handleman stole the show, lol.  It became less about Ginger's abortion and more about that weird little Arthur. 

And then to make matters worse for Lankford, Valene was getting her GED in that episode, and that's the storyline where all the seasoned acting was occurring.