Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Knots Landing season 13

By the late '80s, my passion for Knots Landing had become more like an obsession. I wasn't just watching it live and taping it to VCR in case I wanted to have another look (which I invariably did); I was watching it live and taping it to two VCR's, in case one broke down. I couldn't imagine a fate worse than missing an episode of Knots.

Then Season 13 rolled around, and within a few weeks, I stopped taping it to two VCR's. Was it even necessary to tape it to one? I remember being rather shocked at how quickly my devotion faded into disinterest. It's not like Knots hadn't gone through rough spells; I mean, even then, as I looked back at the history of the show, I was able to spot a half-dozen dry patches -- some of them bone dry. But there had never been anything like the first fifteen episodes of Season 13: a perfect storm of mediocrity. New writers, none with soap experience, let alone an understanding of these particular characters -- and an outgoing team who had left them with nothing to work from, merely a set of unpromising cliffhangers and compromised characters.

It's easy to deride the first two-thirds of Season 13, in which newly-installed showrunner John Romano brings on an entirely new writing crew and, in record time, decimates the show. But my latest rewatch left me with as many questions as responses. So I reached out to James Magnuson, who was brought aboard by Romano at the start of the season, and was one of the two writers retained when creator David Jacobs famously shut down production after fifteen episodes, sacked Romano, and sent out an S.O.S. to legendary soap scribe Ann Marcus. (The other writer retained, Dallas and Falcon Crest vet Lisa Seidman, had joined near the end of the Romano regime. Marcus, Seidman and Magnuson proved such a potent team that all three stayed on for Season 14.) So Magnuson is the only one who was there at the start of Season 13, and also for the masterful late-season overhaul -- and as such, his is a voice very much worth hearing. But lest anyone fear that because I've spoken with one of the season's writers, I'm going to be any more tolerant of those early episodes, have no fear: I'm prepared to trash them.

I have to, right?

Because it's staggering how far afield they go. The law of averages suggests that if you assign a team of writers -- in particular, a team with genuine talent -- to brainstorm a season of a series they're unfamiliar with, they'll at least get a few things right. Knots Landing Season 13 deals a death-blow to the law of averages. Lack of familiarity -- and pressing deadlines -- did the writers in. For Magnuson, "I got on a plane, and four hours later, I was in a room planning story. None of us had seen much of the show, and that was a huge problem. Once I got into it, I was trying to watch previous episodes, but it's pretty hard to absorb twelve seasons." (The new writers were given neither season summaries nor character breakdowns. In an anecdote that's funny only in retrospect, Magnuson recalls that they spotted Laura Van Wormer's 1986 coffee table book, Knots Landing: The Saga of Seaview Circle, and started to study it, brainstorming story-lines, before realizing that much of it had nothing to do with the TV series.) In the end, it seems pretty clear that the new writers studied mostly the second half of Season 12, because so much of Season 13 -- the perceived obligation to do "social issues"; the depictions of Claudia as a victim (undone by family secrets), Kate as sullen and angry, Karen as "the voice of the people" (and the voice of Christmas), and Anne embroiled in screwball capers -- seems a reflection of how the characters and the show were left at the end of Season 12.

At the start of the season, it was Romano, Magnuson and Donald Marcus breaking story. On paper, this was an impressive trio: Romano was an Emmy-nominated vet of Steven Bochco's Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law (Jacobs' joke at the time was that, if he wanted to beat L.A. Law in the ratings, he'd have to raid from Bochco); Magnuson had received an NEA fellowship, written numerous plays and novels, and was then teaching writing at the University of Texas; Marcus had founded the Ark Theater Company in New York City, and served not only as its producer, but as one of its most successful playwrights. As Magnuson notes, the writing team "was sneakily high-brow, but we didn't know this kind of television." And they didn't know Knots.

It's fruitless to go episode by episode through Season 13, and point out all the errors in judgment. Let's just look at a few of the worst-handled characters and relationships.

Take Anne Matheson. Or, as the old joke goes, take Anne Matheson -- please. When reintroduced into the series in Season 11, she had a joie de vivre that was welcome in a season mired in misery. At the top of Season 12, she's reinvented as a screwball heroine, and finally, in an effort to be "relevant," the writers see to it that she loses everything and is left poverty-stricken and homeless. OK, given that there are, like, three Anne Mathesons through the course of Seasons 11 and 12, it's small wonder that the new writers can't quite figure out who she is. But she had certain constants: first and foremost, a core group of characters (Paige, Mack, Sumner and Claudia) who helped define her. So you develop a plot that eliminates that foursome from her life, then strand her with a loudmouth grifter named Benny Appleman for the first ten episodes. The boorish Benny, as Magnuson notes, is "a character out of Hill Street Blues," but he does nothing for Michelle Phillips -- and the actor who plays him, Stuart Pankin, bellows his lines twice as loud as everyone else. When Anne's screwball antics had been successful, early in Season 12, it was because she and her partner-in-crime were simultaneously struggling with an undeniable sexual attraction, a formula that owed much to the great romantic comedies of the 1930's; remove that element, and Anne's just doing "capers" -- and who cares? Benny involves her in a scheme to photograph cheating husbands, a plot that goes nowhere, then he and Anne seize upon the idea of having her pose nude for an upscale magazine, a plot that goes next to nowhere. Finally, Benny parlays Anne's newfound "exposure" into a radio gig, giving advice to the lovelorn, the most unlikely job imaginable. (The writers, apparently unaware of Anne's privileged upbringing and utter lack of empathy, don't see the irony or incongruity in her new career, or realize that there's not a single character in Knots Landing you'd be less likely to take advice from, except possibly Val's hairdresser.) And all the while, she's saddled with Benny, the beached whale. There's a scene where they go out to a fancy restaurant and a waiter places an artichoke in front of him -- and he sniffs it and stares at it and fumbles trying to eat it, like it's his first time in civilization. Ultimately he sticks a fork in it and starts eating it from the bottom, and all you're thinking is, is this a metaphor or what? Yes, please: stick a fork in it.

Kate and Claudia have it just as bad. Claudia had come aboard in Season 12 as a master manipulator, Kate as her upbeat and oblivious offspring. Midway through that season, the writers decide to upend both characters: Claudia is unnerved by the appearance of a child she gave up for adoption; Kate becomes gloomy and self-righteous. As noted, it's the latter versions of Kate and Claudia that the new writers seize upon. At the end of Season 12, Claudia sets the police on her long-lost son Steve and they shoot him when he tries to escape. As Season 13 begins, Steve is dead, and Kate tears into her mother. Claudia deflects by asking for pity ("He was my baby, and I gave him away"), but Kate is sullen and unrelenting: "He was your son, and you killed him." Thud. We get episodes of this unappealing dynamic: Claudia begging Kate to love her again, and Kate hammering her with trite and overwrought rejections: "You don't have a daughter. You have lost me, Mother." Finally, after a weak and unconvincing reconciliation, they get their own plotlines, both awful. Kate becomes consumed by a man with whom she has no spark: an oceanographer who has convinced Gary Ewing that they can save the world with tidal energy. (Tidal Energy -- a multi-million-dollar enterprise to harness water -- is actually positioned as the season's big story-line; in the season opener, Gary decides to invest his life savings, and asks Val excitedly, "Where is it gonna take us?" The answer turns out to be "absolutely nowhere," because it's a concept that sounds far-fetched even as it's being explained to us, a plot that's impossible to dramatize except peripherally, and an endeavor that's only likely to impact the core characters if it fails. Tidal Energy: the mind still boggles.) As oceanographer Joseph Berringer, Mark Soper seems incapable of energy or emotion, but it's not entirely his fault: as written, his character is an odd blend of self-interest and disinterest, and Kate's infatuation is mystifying. Meanwhile, Claudia is burdened with another long-buried family secret, this one involving her late mother, her mother's nurse, and Alex Barth, the boy who comes to town to blackmail her. For a time, Claudia replaces Valene as the character whose sole purpose is to be victimized. She barely shows up to work at the Sumner Group for the first dozen episodes; she's too busy quivering at home, fearful what the future might bring.

And then there's Paige and Sumner. Paige gets one nice scene in episode 1, when Linda is mouthing off as ever, and she puts her in her place. But from that point on, her character is all but obliterated. When she goes on a business trip, and upon her return, asks her mother to pick her up at the airport (as opposed to -- oh, I don't know -- someone she actually likes), you're aware that the writers have no idea about their rivalry, or the years of hurt and mistrust that are unlikely to be resolved overnight. As they huddle together under an umbrella, Paige calls Anne "Mom," and gushes about this man she met a day earlier. "It's love, mother," Paige insists, "You should try it sometime." (Anne counters, "Your father and I were in love," and you think: in what parallel universe was that? Was there anyone on the set the day that scene was filmed -- a cameraman, a make-up artist -- who was tempted to say, "You really need to study these characters"?) Paige giggles aloud at the sound of Pierce's name, like a smitten schoolgirl, and things don't get any better when he actually appears, because -- as with Stuart Pankin and Mark Soper -- Bruce Greenwood is a total miscast, who has no chemistry with Nicollette Sheridan. So Paige and Pierce's steamy affair gets off to a tepid start, and to prop it up, the new writers underplay the depth and complexity of Paige and Sumner's relationship -- and by this point in the run, getting these two right is crucial to the texture and continuity of the show. In one underwhelming scene, Greg becomes convinced, mistakenly, that Paige gave confidential information to Pierce and fires her. Paige throws up her hands, shrugs and leaves. As scripted, you'd think she's just another employee to him, and it's just another job to her -- as wild a misreading of the characters as occurs in Season 13. And from there Paige is reduced to Pierce's attaché, and then to the role of damsel in distress, as a crazy lady from Pierce's past arrives to warn her about his "dark side," and little by little, she comes to realize that maybe it wasn't the smartest idea to shack up with a guy she'd known for all of two days. Meanwhile, William Devane is forced to utter arguably the worst line in the show's history, following a brief interaction with Paige that gives him hope for a reconciliation: "I may not be on her bones, but I'm still on her mind." It's crass and flat, and reduces their relationship to crude sitcom humor. (It's a line credited to Rachel Cline, of whom I'll have nothing good to say.)

(As an aside, the "crazy lady from Pierce's past" is named Victoria Broyard, and she is without a doubt the most arbitrarily-drawn character in Knots creation. She is -- from episode to episode, from scene to scene -- whatever the writers need her to be: grieving widow, sultry vamp, mad stalker, avenging angel. Just when you think she might actually be the voice of reason, that everything she's been telling Paige about Pierce all along has been true, even if her tactics were a little extreme, she invites Gary Ewing to lunch and, for no reason, plants a kiss on him.)

Within a few episodes, the core characters become unrecognizable. It's not just that the writers don't know the characters: at one point -- when Benny refers to Karen MacKenzie as "Mrs. Fairgate" -- you realize they don't even know their names. Co-executive producers David Jacobs and Michael Filerman had been hands-off for years, and Jacobs has since announced that he was dealing with medical issues at the time -- but when you hire a new headwriter with no knowledge of the characters, and apparently don't check the scripts or watch the dailies, that's unforgivable. (James Stanley, who'd been script editing since Season 9, was held over as a supervising producer to make the transition smoother, even though he was heavily involved in the launch of ABC's Homefront. But clearly he and Romano didn't gel, because his one script that season, episode 2, bears none of the hallmarks of his style, and within another week, he's gone.) But Romano has to shoulder most of the blame. He had no experience with soaps, and no knowledge of Knots -- and he hired writers with those same deficiencies. Both Magnuson and Donald Marcus (who returns to the series midway through Season 14) will turn out splendid scripts under Ann Marcus, scripts that not only demonstrate prowess, but reveal an identifiable writer's style. Their talents aren't in question; they just needed someone familiar with the genre to guide them, who could provide a fertile training ground and a secure, nurturing environment -- and Romano wasn't that person. (In addition to Romano's lack of soap experience, Lisa Seidman -- when I interviewed her in 2015 -- recalled another issue. Romano was not just overseeing the writers, but "dealing with production, and often times, the writers were on their own, trying to come up with story. It was very difficult getting John to sit with us for any stretch of time.")

Magnuson, looking back on that period, is both candid and congenial, and wonderfully clear-headed. Although he concedes that the Romano era was a "painful" one that "left its scars," he still recalls the hopefulness he felt early on: when the cast members welcomed the new writers to the set, and when William Devane complimented him on a scene he wrote for Michele Lee in his first script, "Eye of the Beholder." (Magnuson is responsible for the few scenes in the first half-dozen episodes that actually work, including Karen's speech to her studio audience about the dangers of fighting violence with violence, and her visit to the home of a young boy who's died, whose father offers up a halting monologue about the challenges of raising children.) He argues, rightly, that the Romano-era failings have less to do with the writers' abilities and more to do with their unfamiliarity with the show and the genre. But he recognizes that that unfamiliarity proves fatal: "It was crazy to get thrown in on a show we'd never seen, and have to write all those episodes. We lacked the background for that show -- we were all playing catch-up." Unaware of the characters' rich, shared histories, the writers compartmentalize them; for the first seven episodes, the core characters each get someone new to play opposite, then go into their own little worlds, interacting only sporadically. Knots had always woven its story-lines so that the characters had the most potential for interaction, often in surprising ways; the top of Season 13 isolates them much more than we'd ever seen. We lose all sense of a community.

But back to Rachel Cline, because I really want to tear her work to shreds. (Is that necessary? "Not necessary," as Anne Matheson once said: "Fun.") And again, Cline is not untalented; in the years following Knots, she became a highly-regarded novelist. But her Knots work is woeful; she is, without question, the staff writer who turns out the worst episodes in the show's fourteen-year run. Cline joins as Story Editor for episode 5, and pens the next episode, "Business With Pleasure." Her grasp of domestic drama is spotty at best, but that's a problem that infests the entire Romano crew. They don't seem to understand what distinguishes it: why exactly a genre best remembered as two women talking across the kitchen table became so addictive. During the Romano era, "domestic drama" actually comes to mean people talking about household items. Here's an exchange between Mack and Karen, from "Business With Pleasure":

Mack: The coffee is cold.
Karen: Pop it in the microwave for a second.
Mack: Oh, I don't like that.
Karen: The microwave? Why not?
Mack: Radiation. I feel like I'm drinking those little rays.
Karen: That's crazy. Did you read that somewhere?
Mack: No, I think that. What I did read is that they can be very dangerous for you if you're wearing a pacemaker.
Karen: You don't have a pacemaker.
Mack: What if we have a guest? What if somebody drops by who has a pacemaker? Think about it.

Better yet, let's not think about it. It's like a scene from the great soap parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (you can hear Louise Lasser doing Mack's lines) -- except this isn't intended as parody. Later, Mack and Karen have a lengthy conversation about who should take Claudia her mail; a few episodes after that, they have a spat because Karen mixed two boxes of cereal together in his bowl. (There was a little left at the bottom of one of the boxes, and she didn't want to waste it.) The brilliance of Knots Landing -- as with the best domestic dramas -- is that the mundane tasks were always a backdrop (and more often than not, an outlet) for issues of real importance. If Val planted herself in front of her house and started vigorously cleaning the windows, it wasn’t about the windows; it was about distracting herself from thinking about whatever was going on between her husband and Abby. If Karen started to fret that her clothes no longer fit — and Val helped her stretch a sweater that felt tight — it wasn't about the sweater: it was about Karen having been away from her family and returning to find so much changed, and drowning in her own insecurities. If Mack started to squabble with Karen about trivial matters -- like what color the living room should be painted, and which way the toilet paper should come off the roll -- it wasn't about paint chips and toilet paper; it was about Mack having a midlife crisis. (As I mentioned in my Season 6 essay, that season's headwriter, Richard Gollance, would always ask, "What is the scene about?" There had to be something simmering subtextually that the actors could play.) Romano and his scribes seem to think that domestic drama means writing about "ordinary" things -- recycling and carpooling -- with nothing going on beneath the surface. For them, soap opera begins and ends with two women sitting around the kitchen table talking.

I'm jumping ahead, but it would be remiss of me to bring up domestic drama and not discuss "Holiday on Ice" (Cline's second script): the Christmas Eve party at the MacKenzies that's a series low point. ("Holiday on Ice" was, for a long time, the lowest-rated Knots Landing episode at tv.com, although that's probably because I voted about thirty-seven times.) It starts with a montage set to The Messiah, in which the cast trims the tree, watches football, samples the food -- without one interaction that feels specific to these characters. It's as if all the season's plotlines vanish because it's Christmas. (Yes, because families always leave their baggage at the door at holiday gatherings.) We get Bobby spraining his ankle, and a fight between Meg and Betsy about Meg's missing front teeth. And a football game on the front lawn that could be any people on the face of the planet, that seems to be pridefully announcing, "See: they're just like everyone else!" -- as if genericism is a virtue. And then there's a power outage, and as they wait for the electricity to return, Karen coerces everybody into singing Christmas carols while holding flashlights. Joan Van Ark and Nicollette Sheridan duet on "Jingle Bells," and when they get to "laughing all the way," the forced gaiety as the two of them shout "Ha ha ha!" is painful. Meanwhile, Jason, Mack, Gary and Pierce argue over the proper pronunciation of "Wenceslas," before Michele Lee launches into a rendition of Barry Manilow's "Because It's Christmas" to a prerecorded track of herself. And she doesn't just sing it; she wails it. (When she gets to the part about how "tonight belongs to all the children," she points to Meg and the twins, in case we were uncertain which ones the children were.) As the camera pans from one set of gritted teeth to the next, you haven't seen a cast so united in their hatred of music since Lilimae pulled out the autoharp.

Beyond the writing team's inability to script domestic drama, they're equally stymied by the salacious aspect of soap-opera writing. The characters, over the first fifteen episodes, don't necessary have a lot of sex -- they just talk about it a lot, and with the unlikeliest people. Val has a scene in which she obsesses over whether Kate and Joseph are doing the deed -- although she's never been that close to Kate, and barely knows Joseph. (She tries to draw Gary into the conversation, and he's visibly, reasonably horrified.) Then Karen gets to have a talk with Frank about how his new girlfriend Debbie (her Open Mike assistant) wants more than just a physical relationship, as if that's something Karen and Frank would ever discuss. In "Business With Pleasure," Paige lures Greg's assistant Mort into a closet (so she can lock him in and steal some Sumner Group files) by telling him she left her underwear in there. (Her underwear. In the closet.) There's an "ick" factor to the Romano-era episodes, and nothing is worse than Kate wondering why Joseph seems unresponsive -- not realizing it's because he was born without emotions -- and grilling her Uncle Greg about what turns him on in bed. He squirms visibly in his seat, but his discomfort doesn't alleviate our own. "Do you like women to touch you?", she asks her uncle, in what should be a low point in taste for the series. But it's not, because an episode or two later, Greg quizzes Claudia on why she's so anxious that Joseph leave town -- and when she responds, "Because my daughter deserves somebody wonderful," Greg replies, "Yeah, but I'm her uncle." When was the last time the show indulged in a good incest joke? -- oh wait, that's right: never. It's so perverse that Kathleen Noone has no idea how to respond. Neither do we.

At the time David Jacobs shut down production, in November of 1991, seven episodes had aired, which he described as "uniformly awful." They are. He then went on to characterize the following seven, which had been filmed but not yet aired, as "uniformly inconsistent." At the time, it seemed disingenuous -- he could hardly call the next set of episodes "lousy" and expect us to tune in, so they had to be "inconsistent." It turns out that "inconsistent" is pretty close to the truth. Episode 8, Magnuson's "House of Cards," is a bottle episode in which Mack, Karen, Jason and Meg are held hostage in their home by Linda's killer, Brian Johnson; it's the first episode of the season that's even marginally successful. It temporarily liberates us from the mischaracterizatons of Claudia, Kate, Anne and Paige, and the tedium of Gary and Sumner's "fight for control of tidal energy" -- and because Magnuson can focus on a handful of characters whose personalities he understands, he gets to show what he can do. (Giving credit where it's due, the transformation of Brian Johnston from sexual adventurer to dangerous fugitive -- and the acting showcase it provides Philip Brown -- is one of the team's few success stories, and Lar Park-Lincoln does desperate and defenseless quite well. Linda was not a character I was fond of, and I was not sorry to see her go, but I quite like her during her three-episode stint in Season 13.)

And from there, Donald Marcus takes the reins for two episodes and launches into a flurry of course-correcting. Magnuson recalls that it's around that time that Jacobs realized his franchise was failing, and started demanding changes. And the writers themselves were aware that certain story-lines -- Tidal Energy, in particular -- were floundering. (Magnuson concedes that they knew instantly that the chemistry between Greenwood and Sheridan wasn't there -- which begs the question, how did he get cast?) So in episodes 9 and 10, there's a clear attempt to weed out what's not working and to up the ante: first and foremost, by having Tidal Energy's first test run be a disaster, and a potential ruin to Gary. And when that happens, Pierce turns out to be unstable, and Joseph a flake. (Basically, they're revealed to be exactly how they'd unintentionally come across in the first seven episodes.) The writers start to ease off the ill-conceived new arrivals, to make room for the core characters. In episode 9, Val gets a note from Lynette, a new character whom she'd been teaching to read (that's how they'd managed to both compartmentalize and waste Valene and do a turgid look at a social issue: adult illiteracy), and that plotline is put to bed. In episode 10, they write off Benny and Debbie. In episode 11, Jason leaves town, and two episodes later, Joseph follows. Although the newfound focus on the core characters results in only a half-dozen good scenes, that's a handful more than we've had to date. As Gary considers taking out a mortgage on his ranch (to pay the additional expenses on Tidal Energy), we get some lively exchanges: between Mack and Gary, then Gary and Val, and finally Val and Karen. They discuss issues of urgency and weight, with some semblance of a backstory.

But even as the writers are revamping their story-lines, even as they restore focus, there doesn't seem to be a clear plan for moving forward. According to Magnuson, the writers would devise one set of story-lines, and then Romano would return from meeting with Jacobs and Filerman at their Burbank offices, and "the whole focus of the show would change." (It felt "like we were being whipsawed.") The first seven episodes had been characterized by sort of a bullish wrong-mindedness; episodes 11 through 15 feel tentative and half-hearted, like the writers don't dare commit to anything, as if they're questioning every move they're making. (Mack and Karen spend three episodes agonizing that Greg wants to tell Meg that he's her father -- then decide that, oh, maybe he doesn't.) After a few episodes where the exchanges seemed to be getting sharper, everything gets fuzzy and flat again. Gary losing the ranch -- and having to watch it be auctioned off -- should be heartbreaking, but we don't get one decent payoff; Karen's decision to quit her TV show is relegated to a throwaway scene. And the show remains hobbled by the writers' limited familiarity with the characters' backstories. Yes, having Anne and Sumner get involved in episode 11 is better than stranding her with Benny, watching him hawk inflatable Anne Matheson dolls (yes, that happens), but as scripted, their coupling has no consequences; Paige doesn't get to weigh in, nor does Claudia, nor Kate. And when Val moves back into her old home on Seaview Circle, there's the potential for a scene of huge emotional impact -- if, say, she were to wander from room to room, recalling and reacting to scenes from her past. Instead, she flashes back to the pilot, when Richard welcomed her to the cul-de-sac, and then has a moment of déjà vu when Alex shows up at the front door. Alex: Claudia's blackmailer, who will never interact with Valene again, and who is, at this point, a completely irrelevant character. And you think, my God: the writers still don't know the series or the genre well enough to do flashbacks effectively.

And here's where the story of Season 13 gets weird. By episode 14 or so, Magnuson remembers, Romano had already been let go, "so no one was running the show -- we were just writing it." It was by that point a rudderless ship, one that quickly started to take on water. And into an environment already "fraught and vexed" came a command from on high: "David Jacobs had met [1984 Olympic gymnast] Mary Lou Retton, and wanted us to put her in the show. So we were scratching our heads trying to think, 'How in the world are we going to do this?'" They ultimately decide to give Meg a talent for gymnastics, which proves as dull as it sounds. But the Retton anecdote begs a couple of questions. First, how insane is Jacobs' gesture? (Your show is in turmoil, so you offer a cameo to a former Olympic gold medalist?) And second, how starved for story-lines must the writing staff have been that they don't just devote a few scenes to it, but three episodes? Three. (Laura's funeral only got two.) By this point, the plotting has lost any sense of flow or purpose, and the placement of scenes feels random, like they're just trying to take the filmed footage and fill 46 minutes as best they can. (Magnuson describes an atmosphere so desperate, "we were bouncing off the walls.") In "Torrents of Winter," Gary's about to lose his ranch, and he's howling at Pierce over his betrayal -- and the next scene is Karen waking up Mack in the middle of the night because she's decided to let Meg take more gymnastic lessons; the show hasn't seen such an insane juxtaposition of scenes since we flip-flopped between Mary Frances's funeral and Meg's new goldfish. In "Letting Go," the A-plot finds Gary going back to work at the ranch he just lost (even though everyone, including the audience, knows it's a lousy idea), then deciding it's a lousy idea; the B-plot has Frank thinking he won the lottery, then realizing, no, he didn't. The story-lines -- both big and small -- seem hellbent on going nowhere, eerily appropriate for a writing staff feeling cut off at the knees.

With Knots Landing in the direst straits of its thirteen-year run, Jacobs shut down production after episode 15 and implored soap giant Ann Marcus, who hadn't been with the series since Season 3, to come back and save it. In her autobiography, Whistling Girl, Marcus reveals that she was given one week to study all the episodes she could, immerse herself in backstory, and come up with a bible to take them through the remainder of the season. She met the deadline without breaking a sweat. (Seidman: "Ann arrived at the first meeting -- with David Jacobs, Michael Filerman, Jim Magnuson and myself -- with the game-plan already in place. I remember how impressed I was by her story sense." Magnuson: "It was remarkable what she did.") Let's remind ourselves where the series had left off: in the most recent episode, Gary had gone back to work, then quit; Meg had met Mary Lou Retton; and Frank hadn't won the lottery. (In the unfilmed sixteenth episode, Marcus recalls that one of the key plotlines was about carpooling.) So given her starting point, let's not shy away from hyperbole here: what Marcus accomplished is one of the greatest salvage jobs in the history of television. Within a few scenes, she restores interest; within a few episodes, she restores greatness. And further, she reboots the characters and story-lines without undoing the structure already in place -- i.e., without resorting to a "Dallas dream season." It's amazing, really, how much she manages in the first episode alone.

First off, just two scenes in, we get the best-remembered plot: Val's commission to write a tell-all book about Greg Sumner. (Of course Marcus would turn to Val's writing career; she was the one who masterminded A Family in Texas back in Season 3.) It's an inspired idea that involves pretty much all the characters in one "umbrella" story-line -- plus it restores Val's drive and dignity, which we haven't seen in almost three years. Marcus basically reboots Val's character to how she'd left her in Season 3. Midway through Season 4, under new producer Peter Dunne and his writing team, Valene had regressed into a woman who couldn't let go of the past; it made the three leading ladies (Karen, Val and Abby) archetypal -- what one critic once referred as "earth, wind and fire" -- but it also trapped Valene in the role of professional victim. But once Abby left, and that trio was dismantled, Val's victim status was no longer needed for balance; why prolong it? (And besides, Marcus never wrote weak women.) As Valene launches into research for the Sumner bio, her enthusiasm and single-mindedness bring to mind the vigor with which she pursued the publication of A Family in Texas. Early on, Val is out to dinner with Gary, Mack and Karen, all of whom are expressing reservations about the Sumner bio (including the very real consideration that Meg is going to be exposed and scrutinized), but Val refuses to be cowed: "I cannot believe that we're all so afraid of this man. We have let him bully us and bankrupt us. He has threatened people's lives -- he even took our ranch away from us -- and still, after all that, I'm not allowed to simply tell the truth and write about him?" Welcome back, Sweetpea.

With Val's book commissioned, Marcus goes to work on Claudia and Kate, two characters who've never been written consistently or effectively; she pretty much rebuilds them from the ground up. Claudia first. Marcus had been in the soap world for decades; she knew what Kathleen Noone was capable of -- and she certainly didn't need to be cowering in a corner, at the mercy of some sleazeball kid. Within a few scenes, Claudia turns the tables on Alex, her tormentor, and asserts her authority -- and the blackmail plot, which had been draining the life from the series for half a year, is eliminated instantly when she comes clean to Greg about her "dark secret" (she euthanized Ava Gardner's character -- good for her), and he gets it and gets over it. And then she's back to work, and Marcus doesn't strand her over at the Foundation, where she'd spent the latter half of Season 12; she brings her right into the action. From her decades doing soaps, Marcus understands how to showcase characters -- and in particular, how to do so with Claudia. Don't bring her on as a master manipulator, or as a victim -- don't lead with her worst qualities. Noone is a formidable actress: show her character at her strongest -- show what she has to offer the series. And then you can show how her priorities and her vulnerabilities trip her up. It's a plan that will continue well into Season 14. (And that's not to say that Marcus doesn't find a use for Alex; transformed from a slimy blackmailer into a wannabe go-getter, forever in over his head, he lands a job at the Sumner Group -- and with Sumner, Paige, Claudia, Alex and Mort working there, we get a nice workplace rhythm going again.)

And then Marcus takes aim at Kate. There's a knock at the door, and in walks an old chum from Kate's pro tennis circuit, Vanessa Hunt (Felicity Waterman, in skirts the size of dish cloths). And suddenly the sullen ingenue who had been such a drag on the first two-thirds of the season is gone. Vanessa does exactly what the arrival of Anne Matheson did in Season 11 -- she restores a little irreverence to a season that had been taking itself so damn seriously. As Kate and Vanessa do calisthenics on the floor and dish old boyfriends (including Joseph, quickly relegated to a forgettable footnote in Kate's personal life), you feel a new Kate emerge, one with both a sense of humor and a sense of self-awareness. And at the same time, as Vanessa takes advantage of her old friend, moving into her apartment and moving in on her turf, we get a flustered, self-deprecating side of Kate that looks particularly good on Stacy Galina. As Alex and Kate head out on their first date, Alex stops to admire Vanessa's obvious attributes (Vanessa manages to be clad in nothing but a towel) and tells Kate, "Good-looking girl." And Kate, feeling her own self-esteem dwindle, mutters, "Yah, she's OK..." Kate had been so solemn and sanctimonious for a year; now, suddenly, she's fun, easily frazzled and occasionally insecure -- qualities we can relate to. (Once Marcus gives her a nurturing nature, at the top of Season 14, the character feels fully formed.)

That's all in the first episode: three characters transformed, and promising story-lines launched. Onto the next episode, as the cold open reignites the tension between the Matheson women. Anne tries to hurry Sumner out of her apartment before Paige arrives for a breakfast date (to thank her for giving Kate a job at her radio station, which happened while we weren't looking). But no such luck. Paige shows up while Greg's still dressing, and the three regard each other uncomfortably before he makes his exit. (He kisses Anne on the cheek, then blows a kiss Paige's way: shameless as ever.) Anne asks Paige, with delicious double meaning, "You don't mind if we go out? -- I mean, to pick up some juice and croissants. I just got a really late start." Paige keeps her emotions in check: "So I noticed" -- and Anne, terribly pleased with herself, smiles, "I noticed you noticed." (Lisa Seidman, who wrote that episode, would write most of the Paige-Anne scenes the following season. She had the touch.) And the triangle is back on, with a fresh dynamic.

After the title sequence, Sumner gets wind of Valene's new book and dismisses it as "the funniest thing I've heard since Gary Ewing decided to save the world with tidal energy." (Tidal Energy has already been relegated to a punchline.) And pretty much everything starts clicking: the Sumner bio, which results in a slew of great scenes, including a rare one between Joan Van Ark and Bill Devane, in which he undermines their first interview by blowing smoke in her face; the quadrangle with Alex, Claudia, Kate and Vanessa; and the increasingly awkward triangle of Anne, Greg and Paige. As opposed to the chaotic and ultimately oppressive nature of the Romano era, Magnuson remembers this period as "orderly" and "fun," the careful interweaving of story-lines "a little bit like putting cranberries and popcorn on a thread for Christmas ornaments." And Seidman -- who's since enjoyed an astounding career in the industry, including lengthy stints as associate headwriter of Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless -- also remembers an angst-free atmosphere, one both calmed and enlivened by Marcus's steady hand: "Jim, Ann and I would meet and discuss each episode in broad strokes. I've always said Ann's taught me more about structure and story-telling and character than anyone else in the business."

CBS had Winter Olympics coverage that season, which meant that, a mere two weeks into the "new" episodes, Knots was going to be taking a three-week hiatus; Marcus understood that the show needed to go out with a bang -- and it does. Pierce aims a rifle at Sumner, Paige and Anne; he fires -- and we go to a who-got-shot cliffhanger, where the possible victims are three of the leads. It's exactly what's needed -- and the production team pulls out all the stops: the "next on Knots Landing" montage is a full 55 seconds -- no dialogue, just stark images to reel in the viewer. In two episodes, Knots has regained its must-watch status, and it wasn't just audiences who took notice; critics saw it too. At Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker cheered the cliff-hanger as "classic Knots," and asked, "So how has the revising of Knots been faring?" His answer: "Not badly at all. Who’d have thought, at the start of this drab season, that Knots ’92 would include such amusing suspense, or the promise of good old weekly coffee-jag sessions at Karen’s house, or the spectacle of Val and Greg on the verge of doing the wild thing?"

Get ready, 'cause it's only getting better. The first episode of the Marcus makeover (Magnuson's "Baths and Showers") was good; the second (Seidman's "Denials") was better. The third, associate producer Joel Okmin's "Dedicated to the One I Love," is a classic: the best episode since "The Unknown" over a year earlier. After the first half of the season had so compartmentalized the core characters, "Dedicated" pulls them all into one story-line. It's Paige who's been shot, and that leaves everyone raw and running scared, especially Sumner (the bullet was meant for him), who lashes out at Claudia for trying to console him, then at Val for daring to psychoanalyze him:

Sumner: Doing a little research, Valene? This should be great for the book. Chapter 12: They Shoot Moguls, Don't They?
Val: I'm really sorry about Paige.
Sumner: Are you genuinely sorry, or are you just trying to soften me up so I'll confess all my sins?
Val: I know you want everyone to think that you're a horrible man: that you have no emotions and that you don't ever hurt. But sometimes I get the feeling that you hurt even more than everybody else. Am I right? (She turns to leave.)
Sumner: Valene, think you know all about me, huh? (With an angry leer) Maybe should we should get to know each a little better...

Meanwhile, Karen offers support to Anne, who's sitting alone in the waiting room:

Karen: I brought you some tea. The warmth... it'll help.
Anne: Thanks.
Karen: Gets to be a long night, doesn't it? This... limbo. Worst thing in the world.
Anne (resentful): What do you know? You haven't got a clue.
Karen: I went through this with my first husband. I know exactly what you're going through.

Her posture stiffens, and she walks away, sorry she made the effort. (Karen got the life Anne wanted -- twice; after all this time, Anne is still not over it.) Unbowed, Karen returns home, where Gary has made her some tea. They're both exhausted, and she's numb with worry. The lines come haltingly, in short spurts -- and in between, there are knowing and appreciative looks.

Gary: OK, I've heard how Paige is, and how Mack is. Now I wanna know about you.
Karen: Me?
Gary: Yeah.
Karen: I'm fine.
Gary: Karen?
Karen (after a pause): Sid was a long time ago. I laid his ghost to rest.
Gary: Yeah, I know, but sometimes ghosts come back, and if this one didn't, fine -- but if it did, I want you to know I'm here.
Karen: It was the same thing: the spine. I told Mack that Paige was strong, I even convinced myself what happened to Sid... wouldn't happen to her.
Gary: And it won't. They know so much more now. There's so much more they can do.
Karen: You're right. I know.
Gary: But that doesn't make the fear go away, does it?
Karen (smiling): It's late.

Gary, the most unreliable man in Knots Landing, has always been there for Karen: when Abby conned her out of her inheritance, when the bullet was lodged in her spine, when her producer came after her. And yet, as much as Karen welcomes Gary's company, she's not ready to let him see how scared she is -- and so, as much as Gary wants to console her, he finds himself falling back on the usual platitudes. It's a lovely scene about the value and the limitations of friendship. (They're seated at the kitchen table. That's how you write a kitchen-table scene.)

Later, in the hospital cafeteria, Anne and Mack have what might be their first real heart-to-heart. Mack, of course, starts by going off on Greg:

Mack: I'll never understand what you and Paige see in him. He's nothing but a self-indulgent, self-righteous jerk.
Anne: That jerk used to be your best friend, remember?
Mack: "Was" being the operative word.
Anne (sighing): Well, I can't speak for Paige, but I like him. And there haven't been too many knights in shining armor breaking down my door recently, you know?
Mack: But Greg Sumner?
Anne: I've done a lot worse.
Mack: I hope that doesn't include me.

And right on cue, "Dedicated to the One I Love" starts to play overhead. But the sound of "their song" doesn't rekindle warm memories of their one summer together, as it did in Season 8; it prompts them to become rueful and self-critical. It forces them to reexamine all the mistakes they've made since.

Anne: I'm sorry about the way things turned out.
Mack: It wasn't your fault. Your parents...
Anne: I should have stood up to them.
Mack: It wouldn't have made a difference.
Anne: I was a lousy mom.
Mack: Anne, you were young. You did the best you could.
Anne: I should've spent more time with her. There were nannies, friends. Later on there were boarding schools. She has every reason in the world to resent me -- and to punish me.

And ultimately, in a rare moment of selflessness, Anne realizes she can't continue to hurt her daughter by dating Greg. She has to draw a line in the sand. (Marcus is shrewd: she knows the triangle has more story potential, but not yet. She'll resume it later in the season -- when the stakes are much higher.)

Sumner: I just spoke with my guardian angel.
Anne: What did your guardian angel say?
Sumner: My guardian angel said that Paige is going to be OK.
Anne: My guardian angel won't even talk to me.
Sumner: Why is that?
Anne: Disapproves.
Sumner: Of us?
(She nods, and he smiles with understanding.)
Anne: It's been fun, Greg, but I can't do this anymore.

Not a lot happens in "Dedicated," yet everything happens. Once again we're getting character-driven scenes that the actors can sink their teeth into. Marcus has already gone to work on Val and Claudia and Kate; this episode digs deep into the others: Karen and Gary, Anne and Mack and Greg. And the new kids on the block. There's a lot of Alex, and a lot of Vanessa, and they were only introduced six and two episodes ago, respectively. But they're used shrewdly: in an episode charged with regret, they provide the counterpoint. If youth knew; if age could. As Anne and Sumner are haunted by every decision that led them to this moment, their assistants are taking advantage of their newfound status by recklessly ignoring all the rules. (Vanessa uses Anne's absence from her radio show to do her first on-air piece, then she and Alex have sex on Sumner's desk. Of course they do; what could be more forbidden or riskier than that?) They provide the perfect contrast to the three adults waiting anxiously at the hospital, who've been so ravaged by time.

The sense of helplessness that permeates "Dedicated to the One I Love" carries over into the next episode. Sumner keeps watch at Paige's bedside, as she struggles with paralysis that may or may not be temporary:

Sumner: We're gonna lick this thing. All I know is you're going to be walking again -- not to mention skiing, and maybe a little croquet.
Paige: Your money doesn't fix everything.
Sumner: Oh yeah? Tell me one thing my money doesn't fix.
Paige: Laura.
(His face falls, then he recovers -- and then it falls again.)
Sumner: Sometimes you play a little rough, babe.
Paige: Your money didn't save her, and it's not going to save me.
Sumner: Hey, everything's gonna be all right. Did I ever tell you my Stalin joke?
Paige: Greg, please...
Sumner: One night Stalin decides to stay late...
Paige: You have to turn everything into a joke.
Sumner: You have to turn it into something.
Paige: Then turn it into something. I dare you. Tell me you love me.

Which of course he can't, even though he does. (For the record, the two great life-lessons I've learned from four decades of Knots viewing are "Never worry about anything that's replaceable" and, when facing illness or tragedy, "You have to turn it into something." Oh, and given the choice between money and power, pick power, because "in the end, power is much more fun" -- although that one seems unlikely to be relevant to my life anytime soon.)

I haven't yet mentioned the transformation that Pierce undergoes in the final seven episodes -- but it's no less remarkable than the makeovers that Val, Claudia and Kate receive. When David Jacobs previewed the new story-lines in January of '92, he noted that "Pierce works better for us as a villain." Marcus understands that he doesn't just work better as a villain; he works better as a fruitcake. As the Marcus episodes start to air, Pierce's hair gets shaggier, his eyes begin to bulge out of their sockets, and that smooth smile widens into an eerie smirk. (This is where the casting of the actor finally works.) And then, with Paige in the hospital, Marcus takes an anecdote from Pierce's past -- one that it doesn't seem like the Romano writers had any intention of following up on (it was just a means of casting doubt on his character) -- and turns it into a story-line. In "Sea of Love," Pierce kidnaps Paige and they sail away on his yacht; his only objective, he says, is to have "one clean moment with you." And Marcus takes this incident from Pierce's past -- a pregnant girlfriend named Margaret that he may have taken out to sea and killed -- and runs with it. Bit by bit, crazed Pierce starts to believe that Paige is Margaret -- he's buying her Margaret's favorite perfume, and insisting she take her seasick pills (Paige doesn't suffer from seasickness, but Margaret did), and then he's talking about the baby they're expecting. And Paige, horrified, realizes that not only were the rumors true about Pierce's role in Margaret's death, but that history is about to repeat itself. Marcus actually follows through on Romano's plotlines better than he ever did; she makes unresolved, seemingly unpromising threads pay off.

The first five episodes of the Marcus makeover are all about re-engaging the audience; the final two look to Season 14. You can see Marcus determining how she wants the characters positioned in the season ahead. As we reach the final episodes, Anne and Paige resume their combativeness and competitiveness. Claudia begins to assume more responsibilities at the Sumner Group (subbing for an absentee Greg), while forging a deal with Vanessa to break up Kate and Alex. And Val becomes embroiled with a new character, Mary Robeson, who claims to have some relation to Sumner's late wife Laura, and seems uncomfortably interested in their daughter Meg. (Mary is played by Maree Cheatham, whom Marcus knew well from her time headwriting Days of Our Lives; Marcus wrote her the part, and she's marvelous: a force to be reckoned with, more than able to hold her own against Joan Van Ark and Bill Devane.) These are all stories that are intriguing in and of themselves, but that will bear fruit, beautifully, the following season.

But the most resonant story is reserved for Sumner. At the end of "Sea of Love," he and Mack had boarded Pierce's boat and saved Paige, but once they got back to shore, Greg had disappeared. When we see him next, he's in his office at the Sumner Group, sprawled on his sofa, crumpling papers and tossing them into the trashcan. Claudia enters looking for a contract the board of directors is preparing to sign -- it's the papers in his hand. She tries to impress upon him the seriousness of the deal they're finalizing, the revenue it'll bring in and the jobs it'll create, but he's in his own world: "You know, we can live on acorns. The squirrels have proven that. I'm gonna go commune with a squirrel." And when we see him next, he's at Laura's grave, placing a single red rose on her headstone: "I got the message, Red. I'll get back to you."

After all the promises that Greg made to Paige at the hospital ("we're gonna lick this thing"), he's now ignoring and avoiding her, and no one understands why. Karen drives out to the ranch to see where his head is at; even Anne tries to talk sense into him -- but he brushes them both off. Finally, Paige tracks him down; she finds him in his living room playing the video Laura left for him before she died: "All I know is, I really want to see you again... and that I want to be with you again." He reveals to Paige that while he was saving her, he saw his wife: "I saw Laura in the water. When I was drowning, I saw this white light, and behind this white light was my wife. And she held up her hand, and she said, 'Go back.' She said, 'You shouldn't be here now' -- she just told me to go back." Paige tries to reassure him: "And now you're back, just like she wanted." And Greg admits, "I'm not sure I want to be back. I'm not sure I don't want to be with Laura."

Since Laura died, Greg has been second-guessing every decision, pulling back from every relationship that might have meant something to him -- and masking his uncertainty and pain with false bravado. His recent brush with death has left him tired of the act, tired of the effort -- and more conflicted than ever. Since losing Laura, has anything he's done truly mattered? And so, in the following episode (the season finale), Mack, Karen, Paige and Claudia are summoned to Greg's office, where he announces he's quitting. He's giving away the company: a third to Paige, a third to Claudia, and a third to Meg, with the understanding that Karen and Mack will act as her trustees. It's a riotous shake-up of the series' status quo, one ripe with possibilities, and as always with Marcus, it's a moment that feels firmly rooted in character. Headwriters Bernard Lechowick and Lynn Latham had created the high-rise Sumner Group in Season 10, in an effort to ape L.A. Law; the following season, they'd made it an ever-more-focal backdrop. But it's Marcus who figures out how to make the Sumner Group more than just a setting; she turns it into an actual story-line -- ultimately, by early in Season 14, giving all the characters a stake in its success. And it begins here, with Sumner handing over the reins of the company. Add in a great cliff-hanger with Anne, a sturdy if predictable one with Paige, and the ultimate unveiling of Mary Robeson's backstory, which is slowly realized through the episode's final half-hour, and you've got yourself a splendid season finale.

The end of Season 13 finds the show riding a wave of creativity and confidence. (Magnuson, looking back on a roller coaster of a year that took him from the depths of degradation to the heights of exhilaration, summarizes it, with gratified exhaustion, as "a wild ride.") It's astounding to think that, a dozen episodes earlier, Anne was relegated to scenes with Benny; Gary, Joseph and Pierce were trying to save the world with Tidal Energy, with Paige and Kate cheerleading from the sidelines; and Sumner's big story-line was arranging a meeting between Meg and Mary Lou Retton. Now, energy and inspiration restored, Knots is once again addictive: well worth watching live and taping to two VCRs (well, if you're slightly daffy). Looking back, it's unsurprising that the first fifteen episodes of Season 13 are as awful as they are; it's not even that surprising, given Marcus's talents, that she rights the ship. What's most remarkable is how quickly she does it, and with how little fuss. Marcus salvages a show that seemed on its last legs, and reveals that reports of its imminent death were greatly exaggerated. And thank heavens, she agrees to stay on for another season. The end of Season 13, for all its felicities, is ultimately about cleaning up someone else's mess; Season 14 is about letting Marcus tell exactly the stories she wants to tell. It's been eight years since the show had a headwriter so committed to the integrity of the characters and so consistent in their story-telling. In some ways, the best is yet to come.


Want more Knots? Check out my posts on Season 1, which establishes the characters and struggles to set the tone; Season 2, which pretty much mucks up everything; Season 3, in which the show finally masters the challenges inherent in its premise; Season 4, a shrewd and ultimately successful reinvention; Season 5, the show's annus mirabilis; Season 6, one of the series' best story-lines, and perhaps its greatest acting showcase; Season 7, in which Dallas scribe David Paulsen, newly installed as headwriter, shows an astonishing lack of affinity for the characters; Season 8, in which the characters return, but the plotting goes haywire; Season 9, in which the show once again gets back to basics, after a couple unrecognizable years; Season 10, the year the ratings rose; Season 11, in which the show jumps the tracks -- then jumps back; Season 12, a shot of pure adrenaline that soon fades; and Season 14, in which Ann Marcus, who'd guided the series during a critical time in its history, gives it a glorious send-off.

34 comments:

  1. What can be said that hasn't been said by pretty much every Knots fan regarding Season 13? Especially when you put it all so eloquently and with such delicious maliciousness (tip of the hat to Fred Barton for that rhyme haha).

    When I rewatched Season 13 fairly recently, I actually found the season to be dull and empty...not to mention a certain steely cold feeling seemed to permeate the atmosphere.

    You just sort of sit there and wonder: "Why?". I actually would love the thought of sitting in on those writers meetings and hearing who even suggested the idea of Tidal Energy....or that Val should be teaching a young woman how to read...or that Anne should have talk show on the radio.

    There is hardly any life in the show for 15 freaking episodes and it isn't until episode 16 when, in a teaser that I am convinced was designed to help give viewers a nod that some changes were afoot, a guy drags Pierce into a stairwell and beats him up courtesy of Greg...to me, it felt like the Marcus regime saying "Okay, Pierce sucks and so much of what happened so far has sucked....now let's get to work".

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    1. I love your idea of the cold open to episode 16 -- when Pierce is beaten up -- being Ann Marcus's way of assuring viewers, "You know all those plots and characters from the first fifteen episodes? This is what we think of them."

      Glad you enjoyed the essay. I was trying to not just dismiss the first fifteen episodes as crap, but to ask, why are they so crappy? The first time I watched -- lo, those many decades ago -- I just figured, "Boy, these new writers stink." But of course, I know better now. So it was illuminating to talk to Jim Magnuson: to hear how unprepared they were at the start of the season (and how quickly they had to get to work, not knowing the characters or the genre), and to learn the reasons for those awful final five episodes, with Meg's gymnastics and Frank's lottery ticket.

      Sadly, Magnuson didn't remember who came up with the idea for Tidal Energy -- he thought it was Romano, but wasn't certain, so I didn't include it in my essay. But he might have been being kind, and not wanted to pin the blame on a friend.

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  2. I never even watched Knot's Landing but found this genuinely fascinating reading. Well done TK.

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    1. I am so flattered and appreciative that you took the time to read it, and so pleased you found it enjoyable. Knots was a passion of mine for years -- obviously, it still is. It aired from 1979 to 1993; it was around during the whole time I was in my 20's, as I was going from job to job, from apartment to apartment, from city to city. Knots was the constant. It's been lovely to revisit it. I never expected to write up every frigging season, but as you know from my Classic Who write-ups (and my insane Classic Countdown last sumer), I'm a compulsive completionist!

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  3. Another brilliant article as usual Tommy!

    I last watched Season 13 what must be almost 10 years ago now, and I completely agree that it was, on the whole, awful!

    What did surprise me though is that, for me, the show started to go rotten during the latter half of season twelve. Thirteen for me seemed more like a continuation of aimlessness and lack of care for the characters. And actually, after suffering through the last half of season twelve, there was something refreshing about how the Tidal Energy plot starting bringing characters together in one story line, something that hadn't really happened in years. Of course, the plot itself was awful, and went absolutely nowhere.

    There was something I do remember liking about Gary and Paige working together, I can't quite remember what it was. Perhaps, it simply was a new character pairing rather than anything more substantial.

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    1. It's fun to hear you describe the decline in the second half of Season 12, as it's something I've long maintained myself. As you'll see when I get to Season 12, I find the first thirteen episodes uneven but entertaining, and then I see the writers so focused on launching Homefront that they practically phone in the rest of the season. I didn't get a chance to mention it in this write-up, but I've often felt that, when I first watched the show, I soured so fast on Season 13 because the second half of Season 12 had already worn me down. You sort of go from 14 episodes of Lechowick and Latham not caring to 15 episodes of Romano doing everything wrong; it's the most miserable 1-2 punch.

      I too quite like Gary and Paige sharing a story-line. (I'm pleased again when, in Season 14, she gets Gary the job building the sports complex.) But of course, part of the problem in Season 13 (and again, this is just something I didn't have the space to address here) is that, once she's working at Tidal Energy, she doesn't really work at Tidal Energy. She becomes embroiled with Victoria and digging into Pierce's past, and Romano lets the men run the company. I had a whole paragraph devoted to Romano's patriarchal point of view (much like Paulsen's in Season 7), where the men are strong and the women are devoted -- but it ended up on the chopping block. But I was really bothered when I first watched Season 13 how Romano reduced the women to love interests, victims and cheerleaders; I remember even being appalled by the scene where Gary takes Bobby to work, to show him what his daddy does for a living -- and leaves Betsy at home.

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    2. I have just rewatched almost all of Season 13, so I wanted to expand on some of my feelings towards the journey of this season after watching it for the first time in so many years.

      It is truly unbelievable how terribly they go wrong. Nothing convinces, as the writers are writing for ‘moments’, rather than crafting the story itself. Now for Knots, a soap opera crafted by character arcs and slow builds, this is a problem.

      Now some of these moments do land, but they land randomly, and then they go nowhere. Take Karen visiting the young boy’s room. The boy’s father tells her that he knows she is there because she wants to be forgiven for being a part of his death. It’s a well-written, powerful scene. But that’s all it will ever be. It’s surrounded by 45 minutes of absolutely nothing. Arc wise - well there isn’t an arc, nothing builds up to that moment, and after episode 3, once Karen is not charged with any crime, the story ends (because why explore the emotional journey or repercussions for Karen when the mechanics of the storyline is over).

      Another nice moment is Anne standing up for herself on Karen’s (now a suddenly Oprah like show filmed in front of an audience) - it’s clever, it gives Anne a quiet sense of topical dignity, and Karen is put in her place in a delicate way, which can be gratifying! However, again, it’s just a moment in a story that unfortunately has nothing to do with Anne’s personal growth, looking at herself in another light, wondering how she ended up in this situation in the first place and growing from the ashes. It’s, well, as you put it, capers.

      Things start to change for me, significantly, from ‘And the Walls Came Tumbling Down’. It feels like from this episode we have Jacobs’ guiding hand. I don’t know if you can share any more insight around this period but it seems it is around the time that Jacobs realised there was a significant problem so it seems to track. An example is that the focus of Tidal Energy shifts slightly from plot to character, Val and Gary share some powerful scenes about his ‘obsession’ with Tidal Energy and this aspect of his personality, and Val suddenly grows a backbone and an actual opinion. The scene where Gary tells Val he went to an AA meeting is a touching moment, the first meaningful moment they’ve shared since reuniting a year earlier.

      The next episode ‘The Torrents of Winter’ is a fantastic episode because it blows the Tidal Energy plot up. In doing so, it raises the stakes hugely, showing the consequences of Tidal Energy’s failure while blowing up several relationships the show has spent 13 episodes crafting. It is hugely satisfying to watch actually, particularly when you consider that not a single plot line in the past 15 or so episodes has had anywhere near as much payoff as this one.

      The next two episodes have zero plot as a consequence of the showrunner being phased out and the show becomes fully rudderless. However, I still prefer them over the early season because I feel Jacobs’ hand. The weight put on Gary losing the ranch feels appropriate, and the moment where he loses it at auction is heartbreaking. The following episode is filled (i.e. padded) with sweet scenes between the core characters as Val and Gary move back to the cul-de-sac. I will take this over Benny Appleman any day.

      Everything you’ve said about Marcus coming into the show I agree with so I won’t touch on much. However, the episode for me that really cements her return, is “Dedicated to the one I Love”. It humanises Anne for the first time ever, it’s filled with pain, regret, history and weight and it makes you fall in love with almost all the characters again. Yes this period is not flawless, for example Vanessa’s introduction is done with a heavy hand, but you see that these are simply consequences of where the show was taken, and there are now some moving pieces and relationships to establish before payoffs and characters can really be explored. Thankfully, we get a final season to do just that.

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    3. It’s interesting that things really start to change for you around “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down” — and how fascinating to hear you describe “Torrents” as “fantastic.” I regard your opinions so highly, it makes me want to do a rewatch — and man, that tells you just how highly I value your opinions that I’m willing to rewatch Season 13! :) I’m quite sure that I rewatched Season 13 in full just before I wrote it up (I refer in the essay to “my latest rewatch”), but obviously, I thought the Romano eps “peaked” (if you can use that word for the Romano era) a few episodes earlier, and I’ve always been underwhelmed by the “selling off the ranch” episode. But Lord, you’re right, even the padding is better than watching Benny. I would rather watch Frank not win the lottery than watch Benny. I’d rather see Jean Hackney return, and the informant priest...

      James Magnuson was wonderful to talk to, but his memory of events 25 years in the past was understandably sketchy. I gleaned from him that it was around episode 9 that Jacobs and the writers realized the show was failing, and certainly you can see the instant course corrections, as characters are redeveloped or jettisoned. But you might well be right that Jacobs’ guiding hand didn’t really return till right after Christmas. (I’d love to think he had no hand in “Holiday on Ice.”) I really am going to rewatch those post-Christmas eps again, and try to see them through your eyes.

      You’ll never get a bad word from me about Vanessa Hunt. I freely admit she’s more “functional” than fully developed, but man, is she useful, and I love how Marcus totally morphs her early in Season 14 (and basically rewrites her backstory, knowing we won’t care) so that she’ll serve *that* season’s plots effectively. It’s actually a little startling in hindsight that a character conceived as a confidante and foil for Kate Whittaker ends up being a confidante and foil for Nick Schillace, but Marcus manages it (just as she manages to change Mary Robeson’s backstory seemingly a half-dozen times until she arrives at the one that will be the most useful, knowing that — as long as she’s tied to our dear departed Laura — we won’t mind).

      And it’s interesting: although I don’t find many missteps in Season 13 once Marcus takes over, you are quite correct that there are elements of those final seven episodes that are, as you put it, “consequences of where the show [had been] taken.” Had Marcus decided to do a Dallas-style wipeout of the previous year, she could have avoided them, but of course, she understood so fully that that is *not* what Knots was about, and that she needed the right the show quickly, but in a way that was never jarring or untrue to character. Nearly three decades later, I find her accomplishment no less startling. Who’d have believed, at the time, that a mere three episodes after “Letting Go,” we’d get "Dedicated to the One I Love"? After the torturous second half of Season 12, and the trauma of early Season 13, who'd have thought that we would, as you so beautifully put it, "fall in love with almost all the characters again”?

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    4. I always appreciate your responses to my responses Tommy, thank you! I am a huge fan of your recaps, and your insight have helped me look at each season in a whole different light, and even help put into words what I was feeling, but could never put my finger on, so thank you!

      Yes, it would be really interesting to see what you think of those middle episodes pre- "Baths and Showers" - I found the show found a brief pulse of energy and almost enthusiasm in dismantling the Tidal Energy plot in a very character focused way - and I think it is the episode "The Torrents of Winter" (but I could be wrong). Of course it's clear to almost everyone that this was not sustained and once the show chewed through that particular plot it was completely aimless until Ann came on board.

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    5. I always try to respond to comments, and especially to yours, because you inevitably give *me* Insights I hadn’t considered. I haven’t done the rewatch of the episodes we discussed yet — life has intervened —- but I did want to mention something. We talked about Jacobs’ involvement in Season 13 — at what point he really started to assert himself during the Romano run. And the presumption being that whenever Jacobs asserted himself, things must have gotten better. Which, given how bad things were, is a reasonable assumption. But I will confess, of all the creative people involved in Knots, Jacobs is the one I have the most trouble getting a read on. I’ve talked to so many people connected with the series — some on the record, many off — and the stories paint a very complex portrait of Jacobs. By all accounts, he was resistant to the changes implemented in Season 4 (and in fact, oversaw “Block Party” simply to reassert a version of the show he thought was “better”), yet when the “new Knots” took off in Season 5, he was the one who came up with one of the more outrageous ideas: the “Gary is murdered” bluff. We know he wasn’t a fan of the “Val's twins are stolen” plot, even though it’s probably the show’s best remembered story-line. He was smart enough to bring in Ann Marcus twice, but from her autobiography (well worth reading, if you haven’t), it’s clear he picked apart her story-lines unnecessarily, to the detriment of the show. He seems to me someone whose heart was often in the right place, but he was battling a lot of demons and character failings and unwise loyalties.

      As opposed to Filerman, who was by all accounts a mean-spirited, manipulative, passive-aggressive monster. FYI, I skipped over the issue of “why did Alec Baldwin leave” when talking about Season 7, but now in retrospect, I don’t know why I bothered whitewashing it. I heard from several sources that Filerman wanted another actor for the role of Joshua, but that Alec Baldwin came in and blew everyone (else) away. Filerman was so angry that he proceeded to take out his rage on Baldwin, belittling him in front of his colleagues, and assuring that his character became so irredeemable that he had to be written off the show. All because he didn’t get his own way when it came to casting (which I suspect meant “casting couch” where Filerman was concerned.) That was Filerman in a nutshell.

      Anyway, I’m rambling. Here’s the one reason I was saying all this. James Magnuson only remembered one thing specifically that Jacobs came up with in Season 13 (aside from, of course, “use Mary Lou Retton”). It’s the scene near the end of the season where Claudia and Mr. Burton walk in on Alex and Vanessa making out on Claudia’s couch. It’s a very funny scene, made particularly funny by Claudia’s nonplussed response, and the way she transfers any awkwardness away from herself and Mr. Burton and onto Alex and Vanessa, in effect cementing her role as a force to be reckoned with. According to Magnuson, that scene was Jacobs’. Very tiny, but a nice reminder that — for all the mistakes he made along the way — he could still find his way back to the heart of his character-driven drama on the cul-de-sac.

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    6. That is so insightful Tommy, thank you for sharing those tidbits! I love that even almost 30 years since the show came off the air, I am still learning new things about it!

      Block Party certainly has Jacobs' flavour, so that absolutely comes as no surprise. What does is how perhaps tone-deaf it seems just being placed in the middle of Season 4. Based on everything I've read and heard from others, I tend to think of Jacobs as more of an executive rather than a writer, one that was perhaps commercially astute in terms of how to produce Knots (either through becoming more like DALLAS in S4, L.A. LAW in S10 as examples), but without necessarily having the skill-set in how to do it and still stay faithful to the vision of his show. I came to that conclusion really, not through fact, but as a way to explain how Knots can shift so wildly in tone and quality throughout its 14 years. That's why it's interesting that he oversaw BLOCK PARTY, half way through the very season he hired and tasked Dunne with heightening the stories. Maybe he's just a guy that was torn between his heart and his head, and never figured out how to bridge the gap.

      Filerman's insight is fascinating in relation to Baldwin. Again, I hate to say this because it has no basis in reality, but I kind of figured that Alec's short run was in part due to his personality, ego, and the stories he has shared himself of drug-fuelled days filming KL. Perhaps that also helped solidify his demise.

      And Tommy, can you believe I haven't read Ann's autobiography!? Do not fear though, I have just ordered it now. I'm excited for it to arrive!

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    7. Oh, I'm so delighted that you'll be reading 'Whistling Girl.' The 'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman' chapter alone makes it a must-read. I'm afraid her recollections of Season 3 are dim (to be expected, given her age when she wrote the book, and the decades that had elapsed since that season aired), but her memories of Season 14 and *especially* Back to the Cul-de-Sac are wonderful. And again, very revealing about Jacobs and Filerman: the times they got involved, and the times they chose not to -- and the times they got involved when they *shouldn't* have gotten involved! And a lot of the power plays that they indulged in. She pulls no punches! :)

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  4. Season 12 is one of the more bizarre seasons for me. I certainly agree that as the season went on it was apparent how tired L&L were with the show and that there was a certain spark that was lacking...however, there were times that it was entertaining and definitely an improvement over season 11....but I should probably wait until the actual essay is posted to go further ;-)

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    1. Someday, I need to start writing again about things OTHER than Knots Landing -- but the Knots essays are so much fun! I suspect I'll have Seasons 10 and 2 up next month, and then Seasons 12 and 5 early in 2018. So we shall have many discussions about Season 12 at that time, I'm sure!

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  5. Season 13 proves that you need at least one person familiar with the soap format to be on the writing staff, as well as, someone that has watched the show. It seemed like the start of the season was trying to morph the show into what dramas were like in the early 90s without maintaining the foundation of the show.

    I will say that the last 7 episodes of the season prove that you can quickly fix a show without causing viewer whiplash. And what's ironic is that Laura (a character that L & L couldn't get a handle on) gets so much focus after her death.

    And I kind of liked the Val teaching the waitress to read story, only because it did play to the character's tendency to help those in need.. it just didn't have any long term potential. With that said, it was a huge step up from that strange brain story she did in season 12. Plus, her and Gary fighting about him mortgaging the ranch for some weird venture.. harkens back to their fights in season 3 over his going overboard on the Methadone venture. Gary, being impulsive, and Val being the cautious voice of reason. Still I liked that Val became focused on her writing career and not letting anyone deter her just like the Val of season 1 through 4 before becoming 'Poor Val' in season 5 through 12.

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    1. As much as I love doing these Knots write-ups, I think I get even greater pleasure hearing the comments from other fans. So funny that you bring up that scene between Val and Gary, where she tries to talk some sense into him before he mortgages the ranch. I originally had a whole paragraph about that exchange, but cut it because the essay was getting longer than Ulysses. But I too love that Val tries to instill some practicality into Gary's plans (just as she had in Season 3), but he sees it (as ever) as her not believing in his abilities. You're right: it feels very true to the characters, and very true to their shared history.

      I too love Val's drive and determination once her writing career resumes. I love that long walk she takes from her house to Claudia's, to do an interview about the book, and Karen and Mack and Gary stare at her, both impressed and a little terrified by her single-mindedness. It really is a return to the "old" Val of the first four seasons -- even the forcefulness in her stride reminds me of that famous walk from her house to Abby's, to confront her about her affair with Gary. I do wish somebody -- Seidman or Magnuson -- had recalled what they intended to do with Val if Van Ark hadn't left the show; it would be fascinating to see where they took her.

      And yes, I'd take "teaching Lynette to read" over "Val's brain virus" any day. I think I'd take pretty much anything over Val's brain virus. I would take Benny over the brain virus...

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    2. Also, I think killing off Linda Fairgate at the start of the season was short-sighted. In fact, the show had to bring in Vanessa to kind of fill the function that Linda could have provided. She could have been the one to be sleeping with Alex at the office, and could have played an interesting part in the Sumner Group office dynamics when Greg left a third of his company to Paige, Claudia, and Karen/Mack (for Meg).

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    3. I suspect I'll give Linda a lot of attention when I write up Season 12; for all sorts of reasons (but in particular the pleasure the writers seemed to get in watching her walk all over Michael, for two whole seasons), I wasn't fond of her. But I love your observation about Vanessa essentially filling the same function as Linda. I see what you're saying, and it had never occurred to me. For me, part of Linda's problem is that, by the end of her run, she's become irredeemable, having run roughshod over so many characters we care about. That said, if she'd still been around at the end of Season 13, it would have been fascinating to see if Ann Marcus -- as she did with Anne and Claudia -- could have zeroed in on the qualities that made her sympathetic (and not just the requisite "one scene with her mother at the airport to explain her behavior"), and made her viable and appealing again.

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  6. Oh, unlucky season 13. I've always thought, because the internet has taught me that anything and everything has fans, there must have been *someone* out there in late 1991 who was all "You're all crazy! Benny Appleman is great! And that story about the illiterate waitress...Joan should get an Emmy nomination! And Pierce is the best Paige love interest ever!"

    But in general, this was the season that put devotion to the test. As you say, there had been down periods in the past, but never anything like this. That fall, more compelling prime-time drama was to be found in Senate Judiary Committee hearings.


    It's remarkable that the writers came up this empty not only with the characters and actors they had inherited but with such talented newcomers as Bruce Greenwood and Marcia Cross. Someone must have been paying attention, though, as Cross's Victoria is an early model of her spooky Kimberly on Melrose Place.


    This series was appointment television for me and my family in the '80s and the early '90s, and when I read this summary (just as I felt the last time I went through the whole series in syndication), I can't believe we didn't bail, and watched every one of those terrible episodes before it got good again two-thirds of the way through. There's that aforementioned devotion.

    I found your blog through one of those happy internet accidents. I was researching something about an actor who recurred in one of the middle seasons, and this was one of the hits for his name. Really well done season overviews. This is the kind of in-depth, detailed critical writing that is fairly easy to find about important 21st-century series (The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones); I was not expecting to find it about Knots, which is such an overlooked show. That was true even when it was on the air. It was always overshadowed, either by the glitzier prime-time soaps or by one of its own time-slot competitors.

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    1. So glad your search led you here, Todd, and I can't tell you how flattered I am by your response to my essays. I never expected, when I first penned my Season 3 essay back in 2012, that I'd (apparently) end up writing up all 14 seasons. But as I note at the top of this post, Knots was, for me, a passion bordering on an obsession -- but of course, when I was first watching, there was no forum where I could discuss the show with other fans, nor (heaven knows) an outlet where I could put thoughts to paper. So this has been a lovely opportunity to do so, some 25+ years later.

      Yes, indeed, how different it all might have been if the show had aired today, in the age of social media. As every character and plotline -- no matter how awful -- have their fans, we'd no doubt see Benny Appleman Tumblr pages, and Twitter handles like @PierceFanForever and @JeanHackneyLives.

      You mention your amazement that we all stuck it out for the first 15 episodes of Season 13. But of course, Jacobs alerted us after seven episodes that he knew the show was in trouble, and was shutting down production. That kind of public "mea culpa" was so rare for 1991, but it was a canny move on his part, and I think it made all the difference in terms of our willingness to stick it out: we knew changes were forthcoming. If we'd gone 15 episodes being left in the dark, wondering if this was as good as the show would ever get again, I suspect many of us would have bailed.

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  7. It is sad that the terrible 13th season killed knots. It only lasted one more season.

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  8. I agree with TV reviews about season 13. The middle episodes were somewhat better than the first 10. I know you dont agree Tommy.

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  9. Hi Tommy! I found your insight blog while I rewatched & some seasons watched for the 1st time last January. I found myself reading your blog after each season as a “companion piece” to my viewing. It’s odd that my 1st comment to you would be about the dreadful season 13, but I also can’t believe anyone other than me rewatched it!

    I agree with everything you wrote except that L&L left it stranded alongside the road. If anything the season 12 cliffhangers were easily resolved in a more interesting way (anything but what we were given) & a gift to new EP & writers who knew the show while clearing the slate to create new stories.

    1. The Jason crash could have played out as it did or he could have fallen in with a bad crowd. Either way, I always wonder why no writing regime explored jealousy btwn Paige & Mack & even Paige, Meg & Jason considering he was now raising two other children & wasn’t a part of her childhood. It seemed in character & obvious to explore.

    2. Anne would have swallowed her pride & bunked with the MacKenzie’s, causing discord & tension in the household or stayed with Greg thereby creating story with the Anne/Greg/Paige triangle.

    3. Steve should have been wounded. Claudia could have been humanized earlier building a relationship with him albeit strained after she caused him to be shot. Instead, there’s no ramifications & Claudia was never redeemable in my eyes, not even under the greatness of Marcus.

    4. L&L seemingly planned one of their trademark “clever” stories with Paige/Brian/Linda. Who knows where they would have taken it? Eventually a sex tape would have been found & only a blonde from behind could be seen in it so Paige is implicated when he’s found dead & Linda is really the one in the sex tape, which is discovered BEFORE it’s revealed that Brian died from auto erotic asphyxiation. Sumner throws Linda out & moves Anne in. I would kill off Linda for you in the process as another clever twist, but they would stay dead unlike characters in season 8. Even the trite, painful set up for that story L&L gave us could have been fixable instead of a throat slashing maniac who holds people hostage again in Seaview Circle, counting the shower, Richard’s nervous breakdown, etc.

    The story & threads were there for the new team, unlike when Marcus returned to rescue us from the Romano era. Yes, she absolutely performed a miracle. In her 1st episode, you know someone not only knows KL, but loves it & the characters. Characters suddenly had depth again, some characters seemingly for the first time. It’s stunning she made all the threads she was left with, not only work, but make sense.

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    1. Sean, welcome to my blog, and I’m so glad you left a comment. I hope you’ll feel free to leave comments anywhere else you’d like; your Knots insights are wonderful. And I’m so sorry that the comment apparently took 24 hours to be published. Blogger seems to be glitching like crazy these days. People can’t sign in, or they leave messages that don’t show up or get deleted. Driving me nuts.

      What a fabulous point you make about the end of Season 12; I really did overstate things by suggesting that the Season 12 cliffhangers were unsalvageable. You are quite right. There absolutely could’ve been effective ways out of them -- that is, from a new writing team that understood the show and how to write soaps. Now you’ve got me imagining what might’ve happened if Ann Marcus had taken over right at the top of Season 13, and had those cliffhangers to deal with. How might she, as you said, have used Steve’s shooting to (finally) characterize Claudia? The idea of Anne moving in with Mack and Karen is a great one, and Lord knows it’s the very sort of thing Marcus did in Season 13: having Anne and Mack seem to grow closer, to Karen’s concern — which was just a tease, but an effective way of utilizing Michele Lee until Marcus had a story-line ready for her. I still think the second half of Season 12 is disastrous in both the storytelling and the way it decimates so many of the characters, and I think it was that that I was responding to when I described the car on the side of the road, stalled and stripped, but you’re absolutely right: those particular cliffhangers could have been resolved *so* much better.

      I had never thought about it before, because the first episode of Season 13 I really don’t mind is the bottle episode where Brian Johnston holds the MacKenzies hostage, but you’re so right: did we really need another hostage situation on Seaview Circle?

      Needless to say, your last paragraph made me very happy. When I first started posting on the Knots Forum — and this would be 15 years ago or so — I don’t think there was a real appreciation for, as you put it, the “miracle“ that Ann Marcus performs. But as so many here have agreed, including yourself, that’s just what it is. It’s so true what you say: “Characters suddenly had depth again, some characters seemingly for the first time.” It’s interesting that you felt Claudia “was never redeemable in my eyes, not even under the greatness of Marcus.” “Redeemable“ is such a specific word, and I’m trying to decide whether I agree with you or not. I find her fascinating under Marcus, and I think Kathleen Noone turns in remarkable performances at the end of Season 13 and especially into Season 14. But I do ask myself, in light of what you said: do we ever get to a point where we really feel genuine sympathy for her, as, for example, we feel genuine sympathy for Abby when Gary throws her off the ranch in Season 5, despite how she’s conned and swindled him? I think given how malicious and malevolent Claudia starts out, it’s very hard to get the audience to forget all that. But I do think she becomes vividly multidimensional by Season 14 (both perpetrator and victim, which is a tricky tightrope to walk), and I do think the scene in Nick’s restaurant — after Kate has been injured, when Claudia comes to realize how she’s been used (to Nick: “You were the bait”) — comes closest to getting you to feel genuine sympathy for Claudia. It’s certainly a stunning piece of playing by Noone. I can’t say “your heart goes out to Claudia,“ but I think Noone makes the most of the moment.

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    2. P.S. Not so odd, to my mind, that your first comment should be about the dreadful Season 13; believe me, lots of other people are rewatching, or at least, looking to read more about it. My two most popular Knots essays are Season 3 (simply, I suspect, because it's been up the longest) and Season 5 (understandably, as it was the most-watched season). But on an average week, which essay gets the most pageviews? Season 13. I think it's like one of those car crashes where you can't look away. :)

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    3. I watched this with fresh eyes recently, and, for me, it’s not the worst Knots season. Even if you’re just taking the first 15 without the rebuild it’s not the worst Knots season. Bottom half, sure, but not worst for me.

      Stranding Anne with Benny is a very bizarre choice and it doesn’t work, but, as filler, we’ve seen far more offensive material.

      Season 13 is *the* season for Gary/Val shippers. There are more romantic Gary/Val moments than any other season. It is perhaps the only season where they have a functioning marriage to each other?

      The Lynnette learning to read storyline is kinda random, but I don’t really mind it. You can practically hear people with their tv remotes in hand stating incredulously, “Knots Landing?! That’s still on?!” And I don’t mind the writers leaning into that a bit.

      I don’t hate Tidal Energy and I don’t get why everyone else does. It’s totally realistic and true to character that Gary would rush in to this. It’s an umbrella plot that harkens us back to Knots’ glory days. And its failure accomplishes the crucial task of getting Gary and Val out of the ranch and back on the cul-de-sac.

      Once they fully commit to it, Pierce is great as a villain/creeper, but the seeds were there from the start.

      The season 12 cliffhanger is just a wild one and very of its time, and the way season 13 resolves it is remarkably tone deaf from at 2024 point of view- but I actually kind of love how 1991 it all is?

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    4. Are you the same person who just left an anonymous comment at Season 14? I was about to respond there, and look forward to responding here as well, but I just wanted to request: please, if you choose to post anonymously, at least put your first name at the end of your comment (even a fake first name), so I know to whom I'm speaking. I get so many anonymous posts now, I don't know if I'm speaking to someone new, or continuing a conversation with someone who's left multiple comments -- and it gets so confusing! Thanks!

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  10. Yes, sorry about that.

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    1. And you can call me Shaq btw - shaq

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    2. A great pleasure to meet you, Shaq! It’s funny: I’m obviously very hard on Season 13, but I too don’t think it’s the worst season! And your comment about Tidal Energy is particularly interesting to me. I will freely confess that after finishing my first draft of the essay – and maybe it wasn’t just the first draft, maybe it was the next-to-last draft – I realized I had nowhere mentioned Tidal Energy. When I did my rewatch, it wasn’t one of the things that most irked me, or even stuck most in my mind. But I felt I couldn’t write an essay on Season 13 and *not* reference it, so as you can see above, I sort of stuck it in parenthetically. And I did make three points about why I felt it didn’t work, which I stand by. But you are absolutely right: it’s rooted in backstory, and exactly the kind of project that Gary Ewing – the middle child hellbent on proving himself – would be drawn to. It’s a natural successor to the methanol business, and the “city of the future” that Gary believed he was building in Empire Valley. And I guess in some way, just as I look at the methanol business as the show’s greatest MacGuffin – a plot where you don’t care about the actual project, but merely about the purpose it serves, which is to bring Abby and Gary together — you could make the same case for Tidal Energy: that it’s not really about saving the world with the power of water, but about Gary – having failed to prove himself so many times – getting so reckless, he risks and loses the vast fortune he had inherited. That said, I would say you *could* make that case for it, if it weren’t stranded with such boring characters along the way: Pierce before he becomes an effective nut job; Joseph, so charisma- and chemistry-free. Perhaps with a better guest cast, I might’ve taken to the story-line more and focused more – as I do to some extent – on the good scenes it allows between the core characters. That said, I really do kind of love how Marcus reduces Tidal Energy to a punchline once she takes over. Not just – as I reference above – Sumner referring to Val’s biography as “the funniest thing I’ve heard since Gary Ewing tried to save the world with tidal energy.” But even a full season later, when Paige, hoping to help Bill and Cliff get their sports complex off the ground, suggests hiring Gary as project manager, and Billy asks who Gary Ewing is, and Claudia – who just happens to be passing by Paige’s office — suggests, “Why don’t you ask his employees at Tidal Energy?” — and then play-acting that she’d momentarily forgotten the outcome of that story, elaborates, “Oh, that’s right: Tidal Energy went bankrupt, didn’t it?“ I think I’d argue, in retrospect, that it becomes a much better running gag than it ever was a story-line. :)

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  11. I saw a link that you had posted a while back on another website to this article, and I must thank you for it. You see, although this might sound extremely strange given for someone who was born in 1995, after the show had already ended, Knots Landing is my second favorite TV series of all time (behind China Beach). I have the whole series on DVD, and quite eagerly devoured the whole series ... until Season 13.

    Now while true that the series really didn't blossom fully into the force that it was until Season 3 (although Season 2 is quite interesting), and even though some years were inconsistent (the Mexico plot in 9 is quite bad), it was beautifully written, the acting was superb, and it was so addictive that you could not wait to see what happened next. I have to admit I cut Season 12 more leeway, the Val's brain injury plot was odd at best, but the show's character writing was so often very incisive.

    But then you get to 13, and as you say, the show just implodes to a horrifying degree, far eclipsing the previous record holder at instant destruction (that would have been the back half of season 6 on Falcon Crest, where everything goes wrong after the main part of the Kim Novak plot, which I loved, concludes. They brought her back for 4 episodes after that, but it couldn't make up for what had transpired to the main characters). I knew that Latham and Lechowick had left to do Homefront (a show that I also tracked down online and loved), and that new writers came in. In addition to Romano not knowing the show, why did Jacobs feel he should be hired given that Romano was fresh off Cop Rock, which was truly infamous in those days? (In all actuality though, it was bad choreography that made Cop Rock into a laughing stock)

    The only character that the new writers seemed to have a grasp on at the start was Anne (although she had the misfortune of playing opposite Benny, who was irritating), and in one scene after another, the characters I had loved were acting in ways not at all like themselves. It was so hard to make it through the first eight episodes that season because a show that was so full of life suddenly felt grim, malnourished, and nonsensical. Plus, the new characters were horribly written and more than likely completely unplayable if performers who have proven themselves since like Marcia Cross and Halle Berry could do nothing with them.

    I do feel as though the last 7 episodes of the first fifteen are considerably better than the 8 that went before. The show isn't up to its old standards, but it at least has some scenes that make sense, the whole Tidal Energy plot is mercifully jettisoned, and the show is on a bit of a more even keel. Sure the lottery plot doesn't work, I wish Jason hadn't left, and some of the writing is still painful. But the scenes of Gary selling the ranch, and some of the other scenes involving the regulars were so markedly improved that it felt like a breath of fresh air. I could conceivably look at some of them again, whereas I can't bear the prospect of looking at the first eight ever again.

    But you're right, Ann Marcus did something truly extraordinary and did it brilliantly. She turned the ship around and that last year was exceptional (even if I wish that Joan Van Ark had never left for that sitcom that never materialized). CBS actually was interested in giving it a 15th and even 16th season, but Lorimar effectively ended the show because the network wasn't giving them a big enough budget to continue, which was a real shame, because Marcus's work was so good that it should have gone on longer.

    I guess the biggest tragedy of season 13 is the what-if had Marcus been hired at the very start of the season instead of after the damage had happened. I honestly think that if she had been hired at the start of the season, it would have likely continued to 1994 or 1995, rather than ending in 1993 like it did. I would have loved to see more episodes, so I could have spent more times with those wonderful characters.

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    1. Taran, I’m so glad you found your way here, and so delighted you left a comment. I really do need to give those final seven episodes of the first 15 another watch; I promised my friend Mickey that I would do so years ago, as he argued that they were a good deal better than what came before them. I will make a point of doing so in the near future.

      And it makes my heart very happy what you say about Ann Marcus. Amusingly, I was saying just the same thing to a friend the other day: how nice it would’ve been if, when Lechowick and Latham left, David Jacobs had had the good sense to bring Marcus back, instead of “raiding from Bochco”. I had no idea CBS was interested in seeing the show continue beyond Season 14 – although I obviously knew about the budgetary cuts they were demanding of Lorimar – and Marcus no doubt had plenty more storylines to tell.

      It’s funny: I loved writing these Knots essays, and I’ve been so gratified to see that they keep getting pageviews year after year after year. I won’t pretend that they’re anything more than just my opinions, so I don’t know that I’ve “changed anyone’s mind” on anything – nor is that my intent. But the one thing I think maybe I have accomplished is getting some fans to gain a greater appreciation for what Marcus accomplished on the show — not just once, but twice. I’ve had people write and say that they really were unaware that the show’s success in finding its tone and pace in Season 3, and the ship righting itself late in Season 13, were due to the same writer, and realizing that they’d never given Marcus her due. That’s really been lovely to see. I had such regard for her — I’ve always been so grateful for the talent and enthusiasm and clarity she brought to Knots — and I feel like perhaps I’ve been able to help solidify her Knots legacy a little bit. At least I hope so. :)

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    2. Now, I won't say that the last 7 of the Romano term are great (After all, they include your bête noir, "Holiday on Ice"... which does however touch briefly on some of the other issues of the early half of the season with Karen and Mack upset about Jason's departure, Gary and Val's gloominess about losing the ranch, and Paige finally breaking off from Pierce. Of course you have to fast forward through some extremely bad material to get to those parts but.... ). But they are respectable given the eight that came before, and I do think that the idea of getting cast members to direct two of these episodes: William Devane on "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down" and Joan Van Ark on "Letting Go", the last episode of the Romano era, do give the episodes more substance and more connection to the rest of the show than the scripts would have themselves. Indeed, considering that Letting Go has the Retton cameo and the lottery plot, its remarkable just what a good job Van Ark is able to do in directing a subpar script, because her familiarity with Gary's character helps mine elements to his material that the writers didn't provide themselves.

      Pretty much the only other thing about the early Romano era that worked (and I am sorry I didn't mention it yesterday) were some very interesting, if only briefly seen, camera compositions. In the season opener, I loved the noir lighting in the episode's final moments as Linda gets into Brian's car, and in the scene a few episodes later where Pierce originally tells Paige about his dead girlfriend, the darkness juxtaposed by the static, fuzzy TV is nicely handled. And there was an avant-garde nightmare imagry I think at the beginning of "Home Again Home Again" which was visually intriguing. I just wish they had spent more time focusing on the scripts as they did with these images!

      But it is definitely clear that the Marcus episodes are much better, with some of the freshest material seen on the show in quite some time.

      And by the way, I do think that your article on one of the show's other truly troubled points, Season 8, did indeed change my mind on some issues. I too had some big issues with that season, and I think you voiced much of what I was thinking but could not contextualize. I am preparing a pretty lengthy comment about that season, mostly agreeing with you but raising a few very minor points, that should be up tomorrow afternoon.

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    3. Actually I was able to get that Season 8 comment up tonight. It's over there.

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