Eldergays, tell me about the serial dramas of the 1980s - Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Knots Landing

None of them were quite the same in their first few episodes or first season, if we written that.

After that, they were all the same.

^ LOL... I was trying to say "if well written." Oh, irony...

They were all a bit different. Dallas started the trend. It was a great show and had eight very good seasons. Larry Hagman as J.R. created one of the greatest characters on television. J.R. was the man America loved to hate. It mixed business with personal relationships that all revolved around the Ewing family, with the Barnes family as their nemesis. Bobby Ewing, J.R.'s brother, married Pam Barnes and forced the families together. J.R.'s scheming became a national obsession culminating in the Who Shot J.R? storyline. Bobby and Pam were the heart of the show. Once Bobby was killed off, something went out of the show. Even when Patrick Duffy came back after a one year absence, the show was never the same.

Falcon Crest focused on Angela Channing as the matriarch of the Gioberti/Channing family who were wine producers. Angela was a schemer as well. Robert Foxworth was her nephew Chase Gioberti and Susan Sullivan played his wife Maggie. It was good for the first 2-3 seasons. This was one show I never stuck with.

Dynasty was about the Carrington family. Blake Carrington played by John Forsythe was the patriarch. He married his secretary Krystle played by Linda Evans. The first season was actually pretty good. Al Corley played Blake's gay son Stephen with such pathos. Pamela Sue Martin played Stephen's nympho sister. The first season's stories were a contrast between the middle class Blaisdels played by Bo Hopkins as Matthew and Pamela Bellwood as his mentally unstable wife Claudia. Matthew and Krystle had an affair in the past when Claudia as at a mental institution. The way it was written, Krystle was still in love with Matthew but did resist him and stayed faithful to Blake. After Season 1, the Blaisdels were gone and enter Alexis Carrington, Blakes scheming ex-wife played by Joan Collins. She and Krystle become rivals and Joan really injected a lot of life into the show. It was good for about 3-4 seasons until all these secret children started coming out of the woodwork.

Dallas was great, but my favorite was Knots Landing. Gary Ewing (Ted Shackelford), the middle brother between Bobby and J.R. on Dallas, got a spinoff where he and his wife Val (Joan Van Ark) move to California. They live in a cul-de-sac and the stories revolve around the Ewings and their neighbors. Val becomes instant friends with Karen Fairgate (Michelle Lee), who is married to Sid Fairgate (Don Murray). The stories in the first season were mainly one-off stories involving the cul-de-sac residents. In the second season, Donna Mills joined the cast as Sid's manipulative sister Abby. These shows always need a villain, and boy did Abby deliver. In Season 3, Abby has an affair with Gary and Val leaves him at the end of the season when she finds out. My young gayling self was so upset they broke up Gary and Val. I was always rooting for them to get back together. The producers would dangle potential reconciliations all the time, but my hopes were always dashed. Gary married Abby but they eventually got divorced. It was more of a middle to upper middle class show but eventually it became about money and business, too. But Knots was very good about story telling and stayed truer to its characters than the other shows. It also lasted the longest and had the longest run in quality.

Thank you, R3. Very informative!

They were quite popular. Television was what people did at home for entertainment prior to the internet.

Are you fucking kidding? Knots Landing was Shakespeare compared to the others.

Stealth soap thread

No, R7, I've never spent a minute of my life watching soaps.

This won't mean anything to many, but this was epic for many of us soap-loving "Eldergays".

I love being 53 and considered ancient.

That was excellent r3! Knots was my favorite for the reasons you well stated.

The Golden Girls was better

Well of course, R11. Everyone knows that.

Eldergays, did anyone thing that guy shown after JR was a hot daddy back in the day?

Knots was always the unsung show that had an adoring fan base but was never the ratings juggernaut that Dallas and Dynasty were. One of the actors joked that the network forgot they were even on. They were left alone. The show was never the same after Donna Mills left, but Knots was truly stellar with unbelievably good plot lines like Val’s Stolen Babies, Jill’s Descent into Madness, Olivia’s Drug Addiction, Abby buries Peter, Laura’s Death, and on and on. The absolute best.

This is one of those recurring DL topics that I will never get tired of.

Why don't you shut the fuck up OP and watch them all yourself on TVLand or the web........... I assure you they are all out there in all their glory.

Thanks for coming to the thread and be our sunshine for today, r16.

I concur with R3. Knots was divine.

Before these nighttime soaps, most dramas wrapped their storylines weekly. The whole “who shot JR “ was the first cliffhanger of its kind. Everyone did it after that. And there was no internet of course, so no one ever had a spoiler ahead. It was all a lot of fun.

I wish these type of soaps came back. I'm banking on one of the streaming services to either create or bring back a weekly soap. Not sure new Dynasty was a serious attempt to accomplish that. They didn't even try to write good stories. That whole thing felt like a major write-off project. I guess This is Us was an attempt to be a genuine weekly soap. Too much of a sob fest for me though. And then something like Succession on the other end of the spectrum. -- Maybe I already got what I was asking for.

If they tried to reboot Dallas one more time - but with better writing, I wouldn't object.

r19 is correct. Even on shows that had a form of continuing stories -- particularly if it was set in the past and had to have the characters react to and sometimes even participate in historical events, such as The Waltons -- each episode was self-contained, with that episode's issues resolved within the hour. Dallas completely upended that, and the success of the other prime-time soaps influenced many of our modern acclaimed series -- shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad couldn't have existed without Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, and Knots Landing showing the way.

Dallas was the #1 show in the country for the 1980-81, 1981-82, and 1983-84 seasons; it was #2 for 1982-83, beneath 60 Minutes at #1; this was also the first year that Dynasty, at #5, and Falcon Crest, at #8, move into the top 10. The prime time soap reached its peak in the 1984-85 season, the only year that all 4 programs were in the top 10: Dynasty at #1, Dallas at #2, Knots Landing at #9, Falcon Crest at #10. The ratings began to crater the following year, with Dallas falling to #6, Dynasty to #7, Knots to #17, and Falcon Crest to #24. By the 1987-88 season, none were in the top 10.

You've already had countless threads rehashing all of this old bullshit TV, OP.

What more can ancient gays tell you?

There seems to be a lot of heart for rebooting classics like Dallas and Knots, but at this point… what is the point? I don’t want to see these beloved characters in their 80s. Also, Dallas without JR is absolutely pointless. Sometimes it’s better to let things just be. However, I wouldn’t turn down Knots being added to a premium streamer!

Bump

"Melrose Place" was Aaron Spelling's attempt to bring the lives-loves-and-lusts formula to a younger Gen X audience. The first season was deadly earnest and, frankly, deadly dull in spots.

Aaron stepped in and had Heather Locklear come in for a few episodes. She proved so popular she hung around until the end (still with the "Special Guest Star" credit). He also dumped a couple of characters and tweaked others, especially Michael who went from young doctor and devoted husband to a real cad and villain.

But it really took off in Season 3 when the show embraced storylines that would have been outrageous on daytime soaps. Michael and Sydney played their evil roles with a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor. It was fun for a few years but then quality really fell off. Jamie Luner came in near the end and gave it a shot of adrenalin (much like Stephanie Beacham in Dynasty Season 9) but it already was over.

The "who shot J.R.?" cliffhanger on "Dallas" was the talk of the summer of 1980.

R25 Beverly Hills 90210 did the same thing I recently watched season 5 and I can't believe how over the top soap operatic the show was

Compared to the issues oriented, self contained first season

Dylan McKay almost died 3 times this season alone, first when he went into a coma when his car went over a cliff, then when he rescued his kidnapped might or might not be long lost half sister Erica from Kevin and Suzanne who stole his $8 million dollar inheritance in season 4, and the. When he was trying to find the man who killed his father, he was taken by goons on a helicopter and dangled mid air

Today it's called "retconning," but back then producers would just switch up characters on a dime for whatever reason.

Dominique Devereaux started as an International Woman of Mystery whom no one knew before morphing into a world-famous European musical star. Then the world-famous musical star somehow became the lounge entertainment in a local Denver hotel. And, of course, she was Blake Carrington's sister.

I forget how they wrote off Dominique.

They had huge differences in tone.

"Dallas" was made for straight people, and set the standard for the others. It was very well acted by some of the players (Larry Hagman, Barbara bel geddes, and surprisingly Linda Gray were all superb), and the weaker actors (Victoria Principal) were at least pretty. For the first few years it was genuinely very good.

"Dynasty" was much trashier and glitzier, especially after the first season when they brought in Joan Collins as Alexis. After that the show became very campy, with crazy storylines. None of the actors were very good as actors but they were sometimes intensely likeable, like Pamela Sue Martin. It mostly became a showcase for glitzy Nolan Miller fashion.

"Falcon Crest" had a lot of trouble finding the right tone--until they created the mystery of who killed Carlo Agretti. They also went campy pretty quickly, which was hard not to do when Jane Wyman was playing the lead villain (she's got a great dry wit). Of the four it was probably the weakest and most uncertain in tone, though they did find great former movie stars to guest-star in it: Kim Novak, Lana Turner, Mel Ferrer, etc.

"Knots Landing" was very odd--it originally was supposed to be a middle-class Seventies soap opera only peripherally related to "Dallas" (although Lucy as val and Gary's daughter appeared in a few early episodes, she almost never was mentioned again, although Gary's relations to the Ewings was brought up repeatedly). It was very quiet in many ways the first season, with mostly self-contained episodes--then the 2nd season it became more berserk, and they brought in some fine actors, like Julie Harris and Alec Baldwin. they also brought in Donna Mills and William Devane who wound up being much better than anyone expected. the tone was still very wobbly, because when Jock died Gary became very wealthy (so the middle class focus went out), but surprisingly it worked very well nonetheless. But unlike the other four shows it did not have memorable theme music.

"The Colbys," which you did not mention, was mostly ridiculous. Perfectly good actors like Barbara Stanwyck and Ricardo Montalban were wasted, and much weaker actors like Katharine Ross had nothing to do. It had a great theme song, and Maxwell Caulfield's fine ass looked incredibly hot in polo jodhpurs. Stephanie Beacham was the only one who managed to give enjoyable performances (when this show was cancelled, the producers very wisely brought her character to punch up the final days of "Dynasty").

Some of you are like soap historians. Some cool info posted here. Nip Tuck is the geatest nightime soap of all time. Any campy nighttime drama or soap to come after should bow down to it's existence.

In the 1980s, greed became a virtue.

[quote]"Dynasty" was much trashier and glitzier, especially after the first season when they brought in Joan Collins as Alexis. After that the show became very campy, with crazy storylines. None of the actors were very good as actors but they were sometimes intensely likeable, like Pamela Sue Martin. It mostly became a showcase for glitzy Nolan Miller fashion.

Youngergays should also know that many, many gay bars would dim the lights on Wednesdays at 9 pm to broadcast "Dynasty," the way sports bars show Sunday football. Queens would laugh, cheer, shush each other, and scream. Any scene with Steven Carrington or Alexis had our rapt attention. The show was a big driver of business on what would normally be a slow night in bars.

[quote]"Back in 1981, I was really kind of a young, innocent person. And 'Dynasty' was a great way of getting a sense of my community and my tribe," said Joe Olivier, who watched the show regularly soon after coming out as gay while attending college in New Orleans. KQED spoke with the 60-year-old at Filoli's "Dynasty"-themed party earlier this month. "The Bourbon Pub down in the French Quarter had big-screen TVs. Everyone was there. It was packed. And they started the show and everyone was hooting and hollering." "We watched 'Dynasty' in bars, and cheered the show on as if it were a football game," said David Schively, 59, of San Jose.

There was nothing to compare to the pageantry and splendor of “Fresno,” starring Carol Burnett, Teri Garr, and a perpetually shirtless Gregory Harrison.

90210 followed the same trajectory as Knots Landing, episodic self contained episodes in the first season focusing on two people moving to southern California qnd trying to fit in with new classmates (90210) and neighbors (Knots)

Seasons 2 and 3 have that delicate mixture of self contained episodes and serialized soapy stories

Seasons 4 to the end, both shows become full on nighttime soaps

IMO, Knots Landing stayed good the longest precisely because it was the least entwined with that glitzy '80s ethos. It was always the down-to-earth, character-driven show of the bunch. Even when Gary got rich and bought a ranch, and they brought on Devane as Greg and had plots involving corporate intrigue at The Sumner Group, it kept its relatability and its social conscience. The various writing regimes did pretty well with "issue" plots. Olivia Cunningham's teen drug-addiction story is a good example. It never turned into mawkish afterschool-special theatrics. It was a well-told story that took its time and played out realistically, and the characters involved behaved the way a long-time viewer would expect them to behave.

I even liked the four seasons after Donna Mills left, except for one notably terrible half-season at the start of 1991-92, when there were new writers who clearly just didn't get the show. But it turned out to be a surprisingly easy fix. Those writers got replaced, some storylines no one cared about quickly ended, and Bruce Greenwood (an excellent actor who was the only Paige love interest ever NOT to have chemistry with Nicollette Sheridan) went full psycho villain, which turned out to be a better use of him. That story also gave TV viewers an early encounter with spooky Marcia Cross, playing a sort of proto-Kimberly, an ex of Greenwood's.

r29, great descriptions except for the one you did for KNOTS. I’m being biased because it’s my all time favorite prime time soap but you’re not giving it the credit it deserves. It’s my favorite for ALL the reasons stated well by r35. It also had for me the one of the best TV female friendships in Karen MacKenzie and Valene Ewing.

[quote]By the 1987-88 season, none were in the top 10.

Actually, it was by the 1986-1987 season that none of them made the Top 10. The finishes were Dallas #11, Falcon Crest #23, Dynasty #24, Knots Landing #26.

R37, what about The Colbys, you jerk! 🖕

Dallas may have lost some momentum in 1986-87 from the way they brought Duffy/Bobby back (the famous "All of last season was Pam's dream" revelation). Also, NBC had made the bold move to put Miami Vice in competition with it. Both Dallas and Miami Vice had been top ten shows the previous season, and both suffered from the head-to-head scheduling, but Miami Vice suffered more. It had been a hot show, and that time-slot change was the beginning of its end.

Knots fell because CBS moved it back an hour, putting it in competition with Cheers in Shelley Long's final season. By the time they moved it back to the 10 slot where it had thrived, NBC's new LA Law had a foothold there. Still, both shows (KL and LAL) would survive for long runs.

[R38], The Colbys was a second hour of Dynasty in a different setting. I don't consider it a separate show.

R40, GFY!

[quote]The prime time soap reached its peak in the 1984-85 season, the only year that all 4 programs were in the top 10: Dynasty at #1, Dallas at #2, Knots Landing at #9, Falcon Crest at #10. The ratings began to crater the following year, with Dallas falling to #6, Dynasty to #7, Knots to #17, and Falcon Crest to #24.

Murder, She Wrote premiered in 1984-85 and it finished #8 and in its second season 1985-86 it finished #3.

It will never not be funny to me that Murder, She Wrote first season finished ahead of both Knots Landing and Falcon Crest, and by its second season Murder, She Wrote finished ahead of all the primetime soaps.

In fact, Murder, She Wrote finished ahead of 9 seasons of Knots Landing (1984-85 to the end 1992-93), 6 seasons of Falcon Crest (1984-95 to the end 1989-90), 6 seasons of Dallas (1985-86 to the end 1990-91), four seasons of Dynasty (1985-86 to the end 1988-89).

I would have loved to have seen the reactions of Jane Wyman, Donna Mills, Larry Hagman, Joan Collins when they realized they first got beat in the ratings by Angela Lansbury.