2 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

I will echo a little bit what @YRBB said, I definitely start with Dallas as well!!

Right. KNOTS is definitely the superior show in a lot of aspects, but DALLAS is a great introduction to the primetime soap world.

1 hour ago, te. said:

Am I the only one who loathes season 4 of Dynasty? It's genuinely terrible. People are fooled by the cast being intact.

LOL! DYNASTY's Seasons 4 and 5 (and to a lesser extent, Season 3) have very little narrative logic and become worse and worse. BUT the star power of the show had viewers mesmerized.

I say start with Dallas and add the others in when appropriate. Start Knots halfway through Dallas’s third season. Start Dynasty once you’re halfway through Knots Landing’s second season, and start Falcon Crest where you just about a third of the way through Dynasty’s second season. If you really want to fill out the set, throw in Flamingo Road where appropriate. Paper Dolls is easy to find, Yellow Rose has some identity issues but is a fun watch. I think Emerald Point NAS is out there somewhere? That might be on my list to watch this summer.

I watched the 1981-1982 seasons of the four Lorimar shows (Dallas, Knots, Flamingo, Falcon) simultaneously last year, and it was a real blast.

I’m really a devotee of early Knots. It’s at its best, for me, in seasons 3-5. The first two seasons are as everyone says - some great episodes, some duds, but I just can’t imagine skipping episodes if your goal is to watch the complete series. I’m liking season 6, but it’s become a show that is mostly different from what it started as and even different from its initial “soapy” form.

Dallas. It’s become a hard watch for me bc it really does start to center on JR outsmarting everyone. But you can’t beat the atmosphere and vibe. It was #1 for a reason.

Falcon Crest turns the tension on in the first episode and it just goes on from there. I’m almost done with the third season, and IMO, it has the strongest start out of the big four. Def just my opinion, though.

People will say that Dynasty was only good in its first and final seasons, but if you want to watch DYNASTY in its most beloved, iconic, and remembered form, it’s the first 4-5 seasons. It ain’t gotta make sense. It aimed to entertain, and it did exactly that. Watch the trashy seasons because that’s Dynasty.

Flamingo Road was my first 80s primetime soap, and it still holds a special place in my heart. It’s a quick watch with a great cast and a different vibe due to its setting and focus. It has its weaknesses, but it’s a good show.

Paper Dolls is amazing. That is all.

Peyton Place is the granddaddy and, imo, most like daytime soaps when it comes to episode and story pacing. I’m almost 200 episodes in, and it is glorious.

Wow!! Thank you so much to all of you! There are so many thoughtful responses. It seems the overwhelming consensus is to watch Knots Landing with some great cases for Dallas.

I'm halfway through season 1 of Knots. The assault episode followed by the episode where Val's mom visits are excellent with great character development. I see what some of you mean about the duds, like the motorcycle gang. But the good outweighs the bad. No regrets so far!

I'm very curious and excited to see seasons where long term storylines start to form.

After reading what everyone has to say, I'll probably start mixing in episodes of Dallas, Dynasty, and yes, Falcon Crest ;) after a few seasons of Knots.

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by vote4llama

23 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

I guess people point out that this started with shows like Hill Street Blues which mixed a procedural with overarching storylines.

That's where the trend of serializing primetime shows started, but I believe what kicked it into high gear and made it fashionable for the rest of the television was "Cheers." People were OBSESSED with Sam and Diane and whether or not they would get back together - even though S2 made it clear that the two together would never be anything but a total disaster - to the point where creators/EP's Glen and Les Charles have apologized for just about every other show on TV becoming serialized, lol.

23 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Dallas has that whole Family Legacy angle, as well as a LOT of business shenanigans (which all these soaps did--that was very 80s--but) and if that doesn't appeal to you...

The whole "Ewings vs. Barnes" legacy always appealed to me. What didn't appeal to me, though, was how DALLAS ultimately was reduced to "J.R. vs. The Rest of the Free World," with J.R. coming out on top. Every. Single. Year. To me, that gets old (just as Blake and Alexis' constant fighting on DYNASTY always gets old).

23 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

Jacobs quoted Scenes from a Marriage in his pitch, right?

Yes. Jacobs' initial pitch to CBS was "Scenes from a Marriage" x 4. Michael Filerman, on the other hand, wanted to do "No Down Payment," a forgotten 1957 pot-boiler starring Joanne Woodward and Tony Randall that, if you watch it, bears a lot of similarities to early KL. As Jacobs often said, "I wanted to produce art, [MF] wanted to produce trash; and together, we made television."

23 hours ago, EricMontreal22 said:

as I said before I'm a huge Family fan.

Same here. I love "Family." That show could cut so deep. From a creative or narrative standpoint, today's shows don't hold a candle to shows like "Family" or the MTM dramas from the late '70's and '80's.

23 hours ago, DaytimeFan said:

Dallas [is] also the primetime soap where the male characters were generally more important than the female characters.

That's another issue I've always had with DALLAS: the women never are as important to the show and its' producers as the men are (except when Peter Dunne is producing, and then it's all dismissed as Pamela's dream). As someone who believes TV is, at heart, a women's medium, I find that level of misogyny to be very reductive, for lack of a better word.

I've tried naming one FC storyline that I enjoyed from beginning to end...and I can't. For me, most FC stories either began well enough but soon went off the rails, or they started off badly and just got worse. If I watch the show at all, it's because of Jane Wyman, who had the good fortune to play an antagonist who, IMO, had more layers to her than either J.R. Ewing or Alexis Carrington Colby.

22 hours ago, te. said:

Falcon Crest [...] season 9 is so bizarre you have to watch it.

You're not kidding, lol! I stayed up last night to watch some of it, in fact, and...words just fail me big time, it's so incredible. Like, am I nuts, or did Genele just show up to where Frank THINKS he's gonna dig up her sister/his wife's remains, and Genele's still in her NEGLIGEE - IN THE WOODS, Y'ALL! AND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! - as she teases Frank about where she actually buried poor Renee!? SAY WHAT!?!?!?!?

Yeah, FC's last season ain't great TV, but it's great TRAINWRECK TV.

22 hours ago, te. said:

in season 7 [of MP] Peter Dunne from Knots comes in and reshapes the show and you wish there would've been a season 8.

Peter Dunne was very good at taking storylines that might've gone off the rails on other shows and basing them in character. Very rarely do I watch his stuff on KL or DALLAS and feel like I don't understand what the characters are doing or why.

22 hours ago, soapfan770 said:

the final season [of FC] is definitely a completely different season and feels like a different season of another TV show.

I still think FC made a big mistake in not doing more with Emma suddenly gaining control of the vineyards. Emma had always been the one trying to appeal to Angela's better angels. But, what if Emma surprises even herself, not only by being competent enough to run the vineyards, but by proving she had inherited her mother's deviousness as well; playing Richard, Michael Sharpe and Lance against each other as each tries to take Falcon Crest from her? Even Angela would've been like, "Gee, I didn't know the girl had it in her!"

21 hours ago, kalbir said:

Putting the CBS primetime soaps in CBS daytime terms, Dallas and Falcon Crest were family/business conflict-based more like the Bell shows and Knots Landing was community-based more like the P&G shows.

Excellent analogy, @kalbir ! And I agree with everything else you wrote. Including about Savage Angela Lansbury, lol.

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Khan

20 hours ago, YRBB said:

DYNASTY's Seasons 4 and 5 (and to a lesser extent, Season 3) have very little narrative logic and become worse and worse. BUT the star power of the show had viewers mesmerized.

The problem with DYNASTY, IMO, is that there comes a point in the show's run when the producers don't even PRETEND to tell stories anymore. It's just hours and hours of beautiful women and fey, young men tossing verbal grenades at each other in Nolan Miller originals. IOW, it's strictly for the drag queens.

20 hours ago, All My Shadows said:

If you really want to fill out the set, throw in Flamingo Road where appropriate.

We should warn @vote4llama , though, that FR gets very weird toward the end. Like, Dr. John "Walk on Guilded Splinters" weird, lol.

DALLAS, I think, appeals to anyone who loves epic storytelling, such as the Arthurian legends, or Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Characters on DALLAS aren't so much characters as they are archetypes. If you want to enjoy the show, you have to go into it with that mindset, or else you won't understand its' appeal.

17 hours ago, vote4llama said:

Wow!! Thank you so much to all of you!

You're welcome - and good luck if you ever get around to watching FC. I, myself, have tried so many times to watch it all the way through. I never make it.

53 minutes ago, Khan said:

That's where the trend of serializing primetime shows started, but I believe what kicked it into high gear and made it fashionable for the rest of the television was "Cheers." People were OBSESSED with Sam and Diane and whether or not they would get back together - even though S2 made it clear that the two together would never be anything but a total disaster - to the point where creators/EP's Glen and Les Charles have apologized for just about every other show on TV becoming serialized, lol.

The whole "Ewings vs. Barnes" legacy always appealed to me. What didn't appeal to me, though, was how DALLAS ultimately was reduced to "J.R. vs. The Rest of the Free World," with J.R. coming out on top. Every. Single. Year. To me, that gets old (just as Blake and Alexis' constant fighting on DYNASTY always gets old).

Yes. Jacobs' initial pitch to CBS was "Scenes from a Marriage" x 4. Michael Filerman, on the other hand, wanted to do "No Down Payment," a forgotten 1957 pot-boiler starring Joanne Woodward and Tony Randall that, if you watch it, bears a lot of similarities to early KL. As Jacobs often said, "I wanted to produce art, [MF] wanted to produce trash; and together, we made television."

Same here. I love "Family." That show could cut so deep. From a creative or narrative standpoint, today's shows don't hold a candle to shows like "Family" or the MTM dramas from the late '70's and '80's.

That's another issue I've always had with DALLAS: the women never are as important to the show and its' producers as the men are (except when Peter Dunne is producing, and then it's all dismissed as Pamela's dream). As someone who believes TV is, at heart, a women's medium, I find that level of misogyny to be very reductive, for lack of a better word.

I've tried naming one FC storyline that I enjoyed from beginning to end...and I can't. For me, most FC stories either began well enough but soon went off the rails, or they started off badly and just got worse. If I watch the show at all, it's because of Jane Wyman, who had the good fortune to play an antagonist who, IMO, had more layers to her than either J.R. Ewing or Alexis Carrington Colby.

You're not kidding, lol! I stayed up last night to watch some of it, in fact, and...words just fail me big time, it's so incredible. Like, am I nuts, or did Genele just show up to where Frank THINKS he's gonna dig up her sister/his wife's remains, and Genele's still in her NEGLIGEE - IN THE WOODS, Y'ALL! AND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! - as she teases Frank about where she actually buried poor Renee!? SAY WHAT!?!?!?!?

Yeah, FC's last season ain't great TV, but it's great TRAINWRECK TV.

Peter Dunne was very good at taking storylines that might've gone off the rails on other shows and basing them in character. Very rarely do I watch his stuff on KL or DALLAS and feel like I don't understand what the characters are doing or why.

I still think FC made a big mistake in not doing more with Emma suddenly gaining control of the vineyards. Emma had always been the one trying to appeal to Angela's better angels. But, what if Emma surprises even herself, not only by being competent enough to run the vineyards, but by proving she had inherited her mother's deviousness as well; playing Richard, Michael Sharpe and Lance against each other as each tries to take Falcon Crest from her? Even Angela would've been like, "Gee, I didn't know the girl had it in her!"

I don't see anything wrong with one soap being male oriented, you had to have something for the men. The women could watch the other three soaps that were geared toward them. As a gay guy, I much preferred Dallas. though I did enjoy the sociological elements of Knots Landing.

At the same time, Knots Landing definitely had some strong male characters that made the show memorable. Greg Sumner was my mom's favorite character and she was a major Greg/Laura stan as well as a Ben/Val stan too boot. My dad was a Karen/Mack fan while he tolerated Abby/Val and got a kick out of Laura.

Paper Dolls was a good short-lived soap that sadly appealed to fans that weren't Nielson viewers. I remember Morgan Fairchild saying that she met a lot of college students that had Paper Dolls watch parties every week and that they were bummed it was canceled. The soap does seem more teen/young adult oriented and it came on during a period where networks didn't really focus on that demo (which is why Fox became such a thing in the late 80s/early 90s because they tapped into that demo).

Male appeal was important to the networks as well, although they recognized the bulk of the viewers were female.

Knots admitted losing Don Murray as the strong male lead was a mistake and Kevin Dobson was brought on to strengthen that side of things.

It would be interesting to see the demos for KL and Hill St Blues as they fought it out Thurs @ 10.

I wouldn't know how to choose because they all brought something special and unique in their own ways in terms of entertainment, even the short-lived primetimers. Here's one that I was really looking forward to getting to know better. 2000 Malibu Road. It was an Aaron Spelling CBS summer show which only ran for like eight episodes if I recall. It was quite good and ended on a rather disturbing and bizarre cliffhanger.

2 hours ago, Khan said:

Excellent analogy, @kalbir ! And I agree with everything else you wrote. Including about Savage Angela Lansbury, lol.

Thanks @Khan

49 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Male appeal was important to the networks as well, although they recognized the bulk of the viewers were female.

Knots admitted losing Don Murray as the strong male lead was a mistake and Kevin Dobson was brought on to strengthen that side of things.

It would be interesting to see the demos for KL and Hill St Blues as they fought it out Thurs @ 10.

Dallas had the heart and roots of a western and I think that played a part in it having the biggest male audience of the 1980s big four.

Knots Landing brought on Kevin Dobson and William Devane to get the male audience away from Hill Street Blues and it worked.

Falcon Crest added elements more suited to Miami Vice because if you can't beat the new hotness might as well join it. Case in point, Apollonia arc was an attempt to get the Miami Vice demographic but that didn't work.