Falcon Crest

[kalbir]

Angela/Jacqueline on-screen rivalry was made even more epic by Jane Wyman alleged beef with Lana Turner.

Quite the contrasts in the Golden Age Hollywood trio that had short arcs on CBS soaps in the 1980s. Lana Turner and her alleged diva demands at Falcon Crest. Ava Gardner keeping it real by saying she took part on Knots Landing for money thus not being in any position to throw diva demands. I haven't come across any accounts of Dorothy McGuire throwing diva demands at Y&R, but if she did, believe me we would have known about it.

Angela was all about preserving her family's legacy.

[te.]

Exactly. I don't actually think Angela was evil for the sake of it - she could actually be quite cordial to Chase when she didn't find him a threat. She went after people when they interfered with the land - a bit if Miss Ellie actually started getting more proactive and aggressive with protecting Southfork other than nagging to JR about not drilling on it lol. 

I don't actually think Angela really was that fussed about her family running it either, which was also an interesting quirk. Sure, she had more or less raised Lance - perhaps of some internalised sexism about having a rough time herself - to run it. But if he couldn't live up to her standards and make the land thrive? Well, Cole would do... maybe Vicki in a pinch. I actually wish the show would've in a serious way explored the Angela / Melissa dynamic in that sense, but they just turned Melissa into a crazy loose cannon. 

[Khan]

I would've loved even just a scene where Angela and Melissa came to some sort of understanding.  Even if it had been one of those cliched, enemies-trapped-in-the-same-place-type scenarios, like the ones OLTL would trot out every now and then for Viki and Dorian.  But something that would have revealed that, on some, deep-seated level, Angela and Melissa actually respected one another, even if they always were at odds.

[soapfan770]

For now the show is still free on Plex, if you don’t mind excessive ads. 

I recall Melissa becomes unstable between her own one night stand with Eric, and realizing her whole marriage has been a deception between learning that Lance had indeed sabotaged her winery at the end of Season 5 and of course realizing Lance had an ongoing affair with Dina by catching them in bed.

I guess all the lies caused her to crack, which is fine but her going batsh!t crazy is over the top. She stabilizes in Season 7 but is still her own worst enemy. Unfortunately the new TPTB on Season 8 sent her right back to crazy town again.

Edited February 22 by soapfan770

[adrnyc]

Yeah, your explanation makes sense. Thank you. Reading it, I can see what the writers were doing. However, I think the reason I couldn't put it together myself is that Melissa is a strong ass woman who has outmaneuvered so many characters so many times...I'm not buying that suddenly she can't find her own strength because Lance cheated on her (for the 75th time?

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) and is losing it. I guess this is what people mean when they say "the rot started showing."

Re: Plex...I believe KL and FC are leaving that platform the say time they leave Amazon - March 2. Fingers crossed it stays.

[Khan]

I might have said this before, but I thought it was odd how easily they kept going back to "Melissa is unstable," especially when I don't think Ana-Alicia was all that good at playing that kind of story.

[soapfan770]

While I liked Ana-Alicia no she wasn’t good at playing any time Melissa got angry or crazy, it was always over the top hysterics and screaming, making it hard to take the character seriously.

 

[Soapsuds]

Melissa was great with an edge, but I didn't like it when they made her bat crazy.

[kalbir]

This blogger does not seem to have a high opinion of the show.

I Think, Therefore I Review.: Falcon Crest

[DRW50]

I just can't agree with the toast being the show going out with a whimper (the rest of the season - sure, why not). It's the best wrapup of any of the primetime soaps of that era, and maybe of any era.

[kalbir]

@DRW50 I don't know what the timeline was for CBS deciding to end things, but I have a feeling the final four episodes were refilmed to wrap up the storylines. At least there was a proper ending and not an open ending in anticipation of a 10th season.

Edited February 25 by kalbir

[DRW50]

I do appreciate that aspect enough to give them more credit than I can others of the era, like Dallas and Dynasty. I appreciate Knots ending with closure as well, but the choice to end with Angela's toast, and her point of view, taking us through the heart of the show, what it always was underneath all the '80s excess and Rolodex of has-beens, was a perfect choice, and Jane Wyman's delivery (and apparently, she wrote the speech herself) did everything justice. It's not something you got at the time, and it's not something you'd get now (instead you would just have a poorly edited montage to some kind of emo pop cover).

[Khan]

I agree.

[kalbir]

Land and family legacy.

Dead 

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[te.]

Re-filmed I don't know, but they definitively re-wrote those scripts to fit in Angela. Obviously, the writing was on the wall at that point.

I agree though - Falcon Crest probably had the best ending of the 80s prime time soaps.