And, God, was he right. Lucy would have been a disaster in KNOTS and J.R. was so utterly out of place in the show that it was painful!

OTOH - and this, I'm sure, will be an unpopular opinion - if they were to downplay the histrionics a bit, and play up to her renewed sense of inner strength and resolve, Linda Gray's Sue Ellen would have made a pretty good addition to KNOTS once she'd left Dallas (and DALLAS). KNOTS especially needed someone who could fill Donna Mills' shoes as the smart, catty vixen, something neither Michelle Phillips' Anne nor Kathleen Noone's Claudia really could; and while I doubt there'd be as much enmity between Sue Ellen and Karen as there had been between Karen and Abby, nonetheless, I could see LG going toe-to-toe w/ Nicollette Sheridan's Paige, or sharing a sexy love-hate chemistry w/ William Devane's Greg.

Edited January 10, 201015 yr by Khan

Claudia Lonow and the character of Diana were fantastic! One of the best, most honest teens in TV shows ever, including her touching, evolving relationship with her mother.

I guess I saw it as about five years of her going "What about ME?" I did like her return near the end of the show's run. I would have enjoyed seeing more of that Diana, more settled.

The JR episodes of Knots weren't great, but I did like seeing him beaten at his own game for once. The main problem was how this person who was so different than anyone on KL fit in, and the rest was that the show's attempts to tell social issue stories back then were embarrassing (remember when they fought the biker gang?). I cringed when he pursued Karen, who, early on, could do anything! and was so hot! and all the rest. Michelle Lee was striking but the idea of JR making a move on her...I know part of it was supposed to be about her intellect, or him seeing her as someone he wanted to break, but I just thought it was silly. I would have been more interested if he'd made a move on Laura. She was more like one of his women anyway -- you could see her sitting at Southfork, getting drunk and making scathing comebacks.

And from interviews with David Jacobs on the Knots site, Karen was originally intended to be Knots' heavy, the show's female J.R. (before "along came a spider"). So there was a little more to J.R.'s choice of lady to flirt with. Didn't J.R. refer to, "that cute little bun Karen Fairgate" in one of his crossover eps?

Edited January 10, 201015 yr by SFK

And from interviews with David Jacobs on the Knots site, Karen was originally intended to be Knots' heavy, the show's female J.R. (before "along came a spider"). So there was a little more to J.R.'s choice of lady to flirt with. Didn't J.R. refer to, "that cute little bun Karen Fairgate" in one of his crossover eps?

What was along came a spider? I'm blanking for some reason.

That's interesting, the idea of her being the show's heavy in the original plans. I can sort of see that. There was a fervent, almost scary quality to Karen early on.

That was also when Laura and Valene were closer friends, which I preferred to Val/Karen, perhaps because there were no semi-frequent WE ARE SUCH CLOSE FRIENDS AREN'T WE, YES WE ARE!! anvils dropped into their conversations.

I thought Lucy was OK in the one Knots episode she was in, but I think her stories might have become tiresome in that setting. I loathed Diana and perpetually wanted someone to smack her in the face (which Eric finally did, in one of my favorite KL scenes ever!), and while some of that was down to Claudia Lonow's limitations as an actress, I think it was also based on how annoying the whole rebellious/bitter teen story was. It almost had to be that way, since we were supposed to empathize with the mother.

Oh my goodness, Claudia Lonow. I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaated her. I wanted to smack her disrespectful mouth (and I'm non-violent!) each and every week. I thought the Chip debacle looked good on her. I was delighted she left town.

She is up there with Y&R's Lauren Woodland ("Brittany Hodges") as one of my all-time most-hated actresses' and characters.

Basically, though, the writers had Gary blow up Empire Valley, b/c the story behind it (that Greg and others were developing it into an inter-global communications nexus...disguised as a suburban housing complex) turned out to be even more convoluted and absurd than the Wolfbridge Group story (which I happened to love, but David Jacobs still cannot explain to this day).

Oh my. Empire Valley. Wolfsbridge Group. Lotus Point. I loved the show and watched it faithfully, but I have almost no specific recollection of any of those season-long plot details. It was just "nefarious dealings where Abby tried to get rich/control the world", and that's about all I have retained. I guess I should google and try to refresh my memory.

I guess I saw it as about five years of her going "What about ME?" I did like her return near the end of the show's run. I would have enjoyed seeing more of that Diana, more settled.

No. I rather hoped she would die off camera, and Karen could mourn and get strung out on pills again. I LOVED when Karen got strung out on pills. Karen on pills, and Abby and her daughter fighting over drugs were two of my favorite arcs on KL.

Which, sadly, has nothing to do with Phil Capice.

Lotus Point I liked, because that brought Karen, Abby, and (when they bothered to remember she was on the show) Laura together in a business venture. It highlighted the complicated nature of the Karen/Abby relationship, which I loved. That lasted for several seasons, until it was finally shut down early in Abby's final season.

Wolfbridge -- was that the stuff where Ava Gardner was training Greg to become senator? I loved the bitch sessions between Laura and Ava.

I miss KL. I still have so many memories of that show, whereas more recent programs I watched for years, I can barely remember.

Edited January 10, 201015 yr by CarlD2

By "along came a spider", I was referring to Abby. Val and Karen could be a little annoying with their bff stuff which Michele and Joan just *love* to celebrate ("Let's get pizza."). Though nothing was quite as cringe-inducing as their "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" bit in "Back to the Cul-de-Sac". Maybe they have a point thought, that that was indeed the first time that kind of a girlfriend relationship was seen in a primetime drama, I dunno.

Oh right, Abby. It would have been interesting if they'd made Karen the heavy and Abby hadn't been there -- the show would have been so different, especially since I think Karen's struggles with being widowed and the early courtship with Mac were very important to the show's upward climb. One of the reasons I liked Karen/Mac, at least early on, was he was more of a match for her. Sid seemed a little scared of her sometimes.

Early Abby was so crazy. Sexing up Richard in the hot tub. The Gary/Abby/Val triangle was the making of Abby (and I always loved Gary and Abby together -- even Donna Mills said, when she left the show, that she was disappointed she'd barely interacted with Gary over the past few years).

I have never seen the reunion movie. I heard some of it wasn't too great. I don't know. I mainly just want to see the scene about Ginger being a lesbian. Poor Ginger. I missed her when she left. She and Priscilla Pointer (wasn't she Pam's mother on Dallas later on?) gave some of the most harrowing double acts ever on KL in that Ginger abortion episode.

Edited January 10, 201015 yr by CarlD2