Dynasty: Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

 

It was also a way to redo the mother/daughter affair stories that they couldn't do with Fallon by that point.

[te.]

Amanda was of course not only created to replace Fallon as the token daughter, but also post-Diana.

 

In all honesty, Amanda could've worked as well as Adam ended up doing by giving her a personality. Personally, I liked Catherine Oxenberg's "icey-ness" and they really should've played up that more to contrast her to Fallon's fire. It sort of amuses me how she was completely discarded and forgotten about once they wrote the recast out. I think there's a scene in season eight where Blake even says that it's great that "all his children" are there with him - Steven, Fallon and Adam. It's just brutal! Teri Garber is then introduced as "Cousin Leslie", but also discarded even more brutally then Amanda - literally, we last saw her bleeding to death in a cabin. Did she die? We don't know, because Dynasty writers treated their characters like petulant children throwing away their toys.

 

Personally, I would've had Alexis visiting Amanda in season nine when they had a Joan Collins for a limited amount of episodes rather than having her go on endless business trips. In my head Amanda would've continued to live off screen somewhere and mentioned every now and then.

 

But Dynasty is a lot better show in my fantasy than it actually was in reality. It really only had three solid seasons, one, two and nine. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those that doesn't enjoy the rest of Dynasty (obviously), but it started to falter quite early on and never lived up to what it could've been. Even Dallas was sort-of solid up until Bobby "died", Falcon Crest had a pretty decent run and Knots Landing, overall, is probably the most well-written 80s soap. With Dynasty they became obsessed with the image of the show rather than what was actually happening on it.

Edited February 28, 2017 by te.

[Khan]

 

Random thoughts:

 

David Jacobs said it best: DALLAS was the perfect show for the first Reagan administration, and DYNASTY was the perfect show for the second.

 

I've always believed KNOTS was the best-written of the four '80's primetime soaps (even when Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick effectively ran the show), because the producers paid more attention to the characters, and because they were willing to evolve.  That was one of DYNASTY's (and, to a lesser extent, DALLAS') major problems.  Once the Pollocks and Shapiros stumbled upon the formula that made DYNASTY successful, they never strayed or varied, not even when it was clear that what made DYNASTY a hit was now what was sabotaging it.

 

Again, I give David Paulsen credit for coming in and trying to turn things around.  Frankly, I think it was unfair of the Pollocks and Shapiros -- who, IMO, were bitter over someone from their main competitor coming aboard either at Spelling's request or ABC's -- turning around after the show's cancellation and saying, in essence, "See, we told you so!".  

 

That's why the reunion movie they co-wrote a couple of years later always leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.  To me, that POS comes across as one, giant "get even time."

Edited February 28, 2017 by Khan

[te.]

Don't get me started on the reunion - there's so much "nope" and crap going on that I just tend to pretend that Dynasty ended with Alexis going off the balcony. In a way weirdly think the season nine finale works well as a series finale - hey, things weren't going to end happily for the Carringtons!

 

Just the fact that they watch home movies of famous scenes in the reunion... who actually filmed that in the show universe? Did Blake have cameras filming all of Alexis and Krystle's catfights for his own enjoyment? What a perv! And that the Shapiros actually thought that it was going to reboot the show is obvious so it doesn't *really* give a sense of closure, so it's just a failure all around.

[te.]

Dear Lord you had to get me thinking about the reunion and there's just so much wrong with it, but for starters:

 

- Sammy Jo regressing into Trampy Ho of season five. The direction Sammy Jo was going in season nine would've had her become more and more like early Krystle - a good person with a bite to her.

 

 - The obvious attempt at bringing the show into "the 90s" - hello Krystle staring at a ceiling fan! Such a horrible attempt to channel Twin Peaks.

 

- The dumb-ass catfight. In all honesty, Krystle had so many reasons to beat the living crap out of Alexis, yet they chose to have her fight over... jewlery? Really, writers?

 

- Kirby getting together with her rapist and portrayed the relationship with Adam as "tru wuv" - come on. I don't mind Kirby coming back and in fact I'm one of the few Kirby fans, but they really needed to adress the relationship for how messed up it was. If anyone should've come back as Adam's end game it was Dana, but she was in the unsuccessful seasons I guess...

 

- Fallon regressing as a character.

 

- ROBOKRYSTLE.

 

- Recast Adam. Really?

 

- Barely adressing anything from the series finale and the outcome of it.

 

I could go on and on and on about how terrible it is. In fact I'm sure I deserve some sort of financial compensation for the amount of therapy I've needed to properly deal with the trauma of it all...

Edited February 28, 2017 by te.

[Soaplovers]

Amanda was an underwritten character, which was proven once Oxenberg was fired and recast with that horrid recast.  In essence, Oxenberg has a certain charisma then helped make Amanda more then what the writers provided.

 

Dynasty, Falcoln Crest, and Dallas pretty much ended in the 80s even though two of them lasted into 1990 and 1991.  Knots Landing made a pretty good transition into the 90s..and had the budget not gotten slashed so badly...the show could have had a 15th season (since CBS wanted to renew it).  The 90s was back to the basics..hence why KL did well in the early 90s 

[te.]

 

Dynasty is a very weird show in the sense that they managed to be both overwritten and underwritten.

 

To be fair, that's a form of accomplishment in itself.

[Roman]

Thanks for this. I thought I remembered that PSM left because Fallon was turned into a heroine and she hated that she lost her fire. 

[dragonflies]

Uhm okay....

 

 

[Soapsuds]

Ewwwwwwwwww.....forget it. This going to be a complete and utter mess.

[DRW50]

I'm not as bothered by this as I should be. Show's a pretty stalwart leading man, which is mostly what Blake also was, aside from John Forsythe's charm. I do wonder if this reboot will address that Blake was often an [!@#$%^&*] or if that will be whitewashed.

[dragonflies]

I like GS but as Blake Carrington..NOPE

[YRBB]

That's actually a pretty good choice for something so different. We KNEW they weren't going to cast a grandpa under any circumstances. That's what a lot of 50+ year olds look nowadays and it'll be less creepy that he is with such a young woman. He's also still good looking, so maybe they'll be tempted not to throw him aside completely for the 15 year olds.

Edited March 2, 2017 by YRBB

[Soapsuds]

An ass? A homophobe??

Agreed

[DRW50]

 

Ass.hole. He raped Krystle, was a homophobe, etc.