Falcon Crest

[kalbir]

@yrfan1983 Lana Turner is back for the next three episodes and they are epic.

[yrfan1983]

Omg 

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the fact that she appears sporadically makes each entrance that more fabulous 

[1974mdp]

The season with her was sooooo much fun! I recently watched the whole series on Freeve.

[yrfan1983]

After 28 episodes of Falcon Crest, I have a hot take of Jane Wyman’s portrayal of Angela Channing. But it may go against majority opinion <hides under blanket> 

I feel like Jane shows a limited range in her acting. Angela can be counted on to show a finite number of reactions: indignant. defiant. pleased.  mildly warm-hearted (to Emma and baby Joseph). That’s about all I can think of.

Angela Channing doesn’t feel like a fully-rounded character to me. Like a real person. I want to see Angela at her LOWEST… sobbing in the gutter… and then at her HIGHEST… elated beyond belief!  We never see either… we just see a tightly-controlled range of emotions in the middle.

To compare Angela to other 80s prime-time divas… I’ll pick two: Abby on Knots and Sue Ellen on Dallas… IMO we absolutely got more fully-rounded portrayals with these two than with Angela.

Jane Wyman is capable of much more… she won the Oscar in 1949 for playing a “deaf-mute” in the film Johnny Belinda, which I’ve never seen but am now motivated to.

Is it the writing that limits the portrayal of Angela? Or Jane’s acting choices? I don’t deny that the character of Angela Channing is an iconic symbol of the 80s and that Jane Wyman provided the stability for Falcon Crest to power through 9 seasons.  With this in mind, perhaps Jane’s portrayal was 100% on-point?

Would love to hear any opinions!

[Chris 2]

Angela is definitely the least fun of the 1980s soap villains (JR, Alexis, Abby). I think the challenge was the writing. The other big soap villains had vulnerabilities: JR knew his parents loved his brothers more than they loved him; Alexis couldn’t get past behind dumped by Blake; and Abby was not an all-out villain, but just someone who wanted to make enough money so that she wouldn’t have to be dependent on anyone. They seemed more human.

Angela, by contrast, was just a tough old bird. She didn’t really love anyone enough that she couldn’t live without them. No one really got close to her. She wasn’t particularly humorous or sympathetic. She just went about her business in a kind of joyless way and acted annoyed a lot. I never even thought she took much pleasure in running that vineyard and winery. She wanted to keep control of it, but I never saw a lot of passion about running it.

[Paul Raven]

Angela always had her guard up. Even in her romances, she did not lose it.

I guess that was the essence of the character. She didn't have any real vulnerabilities because she had closed off her emotions for such along time.

That's how it was written and that's how Jane played it.

 

[kalbir]

You're still early in the series. Angela has some good emotional scenes in seasons 3 and 4.

[I Am A Swede]

Funny how you can see things so differently. I always found Angela to be much better than both J.R. and Alexis. She wasn't (at least in my opinion) as clear a villain as those two were either. If anyone was the villain on Falcon Crest I'd say it was Richard. And I loved Angela's dry humour, which Jane Wyman played to perfection.

Alexis was too over the top, which of course she had to be to fit on Dynasty, and even though J.R. is iconic I could never really see any redeeming qualities in him. Maybe if Jock had been around longer J.R. would come off differently to me. I felt that that was the relationship that mattered most to J.R. and without Jock he became a bit one-note.

I can't do a comparison with Abby, because Knots Landing never aired in its entirety here, so I've only seen the first few seasons of that show.

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by I Am A Swede

[yrfan1983]

Thanks everyone- sounds like I’ll see different facets to Angela as I continue my viewings.

[DRW50]

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[Sapounopera]

Angela was all about the land. I have read somewhere that she was Scarlet O'Hara grown old and I really liked that comparison. 

[yrfan1983]

Just finished Lana’s 3 episode return - you were right! It was indeed epic and kicked the whole vibe of the show up a notch. Things are finally at a boiling point.  Richard using the opportunity of everyone gathered to reveal his parentage… and Chase punching him out after… is classic soap!

I adored the pageantry, production design, and costuming that went into the Tuscany Founders Festival. We talk about daytime soaps no longer having budget, but could even primetime shows in 2023 afford such a spectacle? I think I recognize the “town square” here as the Warner Bros lot in Burbank that later served as the town square for Gilmore Girls.

Lana’s hairdo is a work of art unto itself! Sometimes I pause the video to appreciate it. Is it a wig? Natural? I really can’t tell.

There must be more to the story of Jacqueline having “sold” baby Richard and I am here for it! Bummed to know that Jacqueline doesn’t make it to season 3

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Richard as a character is still a little fuzzy for me… in one scene, he tells Jacqueline “I was born damned!!” which is pretty character-defining. But in the next scene, he’s telling Chase that he is contrite. I’m sure he has some angle but it’s a bit too whipsaw.

Melissa is finally unshackled from the pregnancy story! I want to see her pro-active and making some money moves! She’s still oddly passive. I am lost as to what she wants from Lance…? She doesn’t have romantic feelings for him… so she just wants him to do a better job of playing the charade of being a husband and father…?

I had to google “Anne Jeffreys” to refresh myself on her Hollywood history… so far she isn’t making much of an impression.

Chao-Li and Lance’s scene in s2ep13 as EVERYTHING! So many layers, maybe even more than the writers intended. Is Angela even aware or cares that Chao-Li acts as a mentor to Lance? In the final scene, she directs Chao-Li to bring out the chardonnay to celebrate, but I doubt that Chao-Li would be included in the celebration.

Shannon Tweed was oddly and noticeably missing from S2ep13. She was there at the party at the end of ep 12, but not there at the beginning of ep 13 to catch Richard after Chase punched him… and then not there later at Richard’s office, with no mention. Maybe Shannon had a Playboy Centerfold of the Year shoot?

[soapfan770]

A 1986 ad for Falcon Crest reruns in syndication, made more interesting this promo aired for a NBC affiliate carrying the reruns:

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[kalbir]

Fall 1986 was not good timing to start reruns. I haven't seen anything to confirm this, but I doubt primetime soap reruns on network affiliates were beating Oprah.

[Chris 2]

The Lorimar soaps were pretty much a bust in broadcast syndication. Falcon Crest lasted I think a year before it wound up on Lifetime.