Falcon Crest

[Chris B]

I plan to have fun with these final four seasons, which I know will be different due to new staff and their various changes. Starting with season six, this is very fun to watch and I see why it worked at the time. 
 

On one hand it is extremely cheesy and dated with the synthesizer and ultra 80s fashion. I now get the Miami Vice reference. It’s very style over substance. All of the characters are written paper thin and whatever characteristic they’re going to show is dependent on the storyline. Melissa and Lance are soulless whores, Chase is a hot head bastard, Vicki pouts and Angela quips. With that said, it moves fast and is very amusing. 
 

I also really enjoy the Kim Novak mystery. It has no business working, but it’s fun for me as a big Hitchcock fan. 

[Chris 2]

I’m still working on season 5. Boy, Cole is an uptight, humorless, judgmental jerk. It doesn’t help that the actor playing him is pretty limited. But Cole is acting like a mini-Chase and he can’t be more than 25 or 26. And he has a lot of nerve calling Melissa a “tramp,” like he’s Tuscany Valley’s answer to the church lady.

[Joseph]

oh yeah the Kit Marlowe Story it's fun, and seeing her going against Angela, holding back her will to roast The Old Lady and manipulating things on Angie's back i do enjoy it even forgetting Kim was a Hitchcock Blonde

[Soapsuds]

 

[kalbir]

I say salary dump. I don't think she would've appeared in these two promos for CBS's Fall 1989 lineup if she was on her way out by her own choice.

 

 

[Khan]

Miller and Boyett must have produced the second promo.  It's got all their hallmarks.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Khan

[Chris B]

I finished season six and am about 10 episodes into season seven. This is a weird time for the show. I believe ratings were good with Jeff Freilich, but his writing was so awful. It's weird, hardcore FC fans seem to praise his seasons, but are upset about the changes in season nine. I feel like he made more changes than anybody. He literally made Chase an angry bastard who is furious and left his wife because she was raped. In general, it became a more male-dominated show as the women were either abused (Vicky) or made insane (Melissa). I can see why ratings were good though. It's the perfect popcorn tv. Scenes are super short and the story moves fast, with lots of action. Unfortunately, that hurt them later on because they blew the budget.

Season six was decent, but season seven is almost unwatchable. They've started to take a short term story arc format where everything rotates every 3-4 episodes with new characters brought in constantly to shift the plot. I don't think one story is landing, the worst being Vicky literally being punched out and body slammed by John Callahan's character Eric. Angela becoming Richard's mother is an odd desperate move. I don't see the point of it and it completely re-writes the type of man Douglas was during season one.

[Chris 2]

The ratings for season 6 were virtually identical to the season before it (as were the ratings for its lead-in, Dallas, that year). The big difference is that Dallas maintained its rating despite being up against Miami Vice that year, and Falcon Crest got the same rating even though it was no longer up against Miami Vice.

I’m watching the first few episodes and they haven’t yet gotten to Chase leaving Maggie yet. I’ll probably tune out then because I think it’s out of character for him and I find it very difficult to watch. I’m guessing they knew even then it was Foxworth’s last season, so they were writing him in a way so the audience wouldn’t miss him when he was gone. They wound up killing him off anyway, so I don’t understand why it was necessary to tear down Chase and Maggie’s marriage before he left.

I wonder if they were going to say that Jeff raped Maggie had the previous writing/production had stayed. There was no rape mentioned or implied during season 5.

I’m guessing the previous regime was planning to bring Julia back full time, too, but that changed with the new showrunner. I don’t know why they had to make her blind - this isn’t “Little House on the Prairie.”

I miss Terry. She was a fun, shades-of-gray character and I don’t know what they were thinking when they got rid of her. Greg, too. The morally ambiguous characters make the show fun.

i also liked Chase’s old coot of a lawyer, Riley Wicker, who has disappeared.

I hated the plot of Angela being Richard’s mother. It doesn’t make sense given how Douglas and Jacqueline acted or spoke in the early seasons. Very cheezy, like a daytime soap opera.

Jeff Frielich was a dreadful hack.

[Chris B]

The crazy thing is, had Freilich not been fired, his plan was to bring Chase back, but as a full on villain. I do like the writing for Richard and Maggie in season six, but her didn't understand Vicky, Chase or Cole at all. I also agree with you about Julia. It's weird that they brought Tony back, but wrote her off. I bought some of the books they have with FC secrets on falconcrest.org and they mention in season 8 they had budgeted 5 episodes for Julia to return, but it never happened. I wish we'd seen her at least once more.

[kalbir]

So which version of Falcon Crest is the favorite of this board?

Season 1: Wealthy Waltons in modern day California wine country.

Seasons 2-4: Dallas with grapes venturing into James Bond territory.

Season 5: Dallas with grapes venturing into Miami Vice territory.

Seasons 6 and 7: High octane, action-packed thrill ride.

Seasons 8 and 9 were the off the rails plus budget mode era so I didn't bother including those.

You had the all the ingredients for a great show (California wine country backdrop, the connected families, their wine businesses, the family/business conflicts, the acting talent, the soap elements) but the execution somehow didn't live up to the potential. I wonder how much network interference and backstage drama played a part in that.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by kalbir

[Khan]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if CBS and Lorimar had just left Earl Hamner and his original vision for FC alone, and not tried to force it into being another DALLAS or DYNASTY, I think they would have had something special on their hands.  Hamner was a wonderful writer, capable of crafting stories and characters filled with humanity and truth.  FC needed to reflect that more for sure.

[Chris B]

I'd rank it like this:

Top 5:

1. 4

2. 3

3. 9

4. 2

5. 1

 

Season 6 I'd say is watchable and the three seasons I find horrific are 5, 7 and 8 with 5 being the worst simply because it was so boring and had nothing to offer. 

[Soapsuds]

Seasons 2, 3, and 4 were the best. Season 3 being the best.

[Khan]

You know, I can't even say whether FC had a "best" season, because it was clear from the beginning that it wasn't the kind of show that Earl Hamner had wanted to write or was capable of writing.  IMO, it lasted as long as it did, because it followed DALLAS on Friday nights, and because it came at a time when the public was fascinated with all things Reagan, including his legendary ex-wife.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Khan

[Soapsuds]

I doubt CBS wanted nine more seasons of the Waltons after ending it.

And yes when you have weeks of FC beating KL and Dynasty in the ratings you know Dallas helped just a little.

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