Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Knots Landing season 8

If you've never watched Knots Landing Season 8, here's the season in a nutshell. Paige is dead! No, not really. Anne is dead! No, not really. Sylvia is dead! No, not really. Jill is dead! No, not really. Sumner's dead! No, not really. Ben is dead! No, not really. The headwriters trot out the same twist over and over, never recognizing that by the second or third time, it's like the proverbial boy crying wolf, and we cease to believe a word they say. But fortunately, beyond that one tired device, Season 8 is full of felicities: sturdy plots for the veterans, skilled acting turns by the newcomers, balanced plotting, and down-to-earth, character-driven story-lines.

No, not really.

Season 8 is a misfire of epic proportions, in which Bernard Lechowick and Lynn Latham, newly installed as headwriters, work so hard to be clever, they lose sight of everything else. Knots was being moved up an hour that season, to a 9 PM timeslot where it would square off against ABC's Dynasty spin-off, The Colbys, and NBC's formidable sitcoms Cheers and Night Court, so there was very much a sense that the show had something to prove. And indeed Season 8 is a show that tries very hard; it just tries all the wrong things, and so unsubtly that the effort shows. It underuses the characters that viewers care about most, shifts far too much emphasis to newer ones who lack the requisite empathy or acting chops, and worst of all, clings pridefully to all its bad choices. You keep expecting course corrections that never come; in fact, in some cases, the writers don't even allow for course corrections, boxing themselves in with reveals that can't be undone. There's no way you could argue that Season 8 is worse than the fifteen episodes John Romano massacres at the top of Season 13. But that's a new showrunner and new writers coming onto a series with which they had little familiarity. Knots Landing Season 8 still has its creator, co-executive producer and producer very much involved, and headwriters who'd been scripting for over a year. And yet it not only goes off on impossibly bad tangents, it refuses to cut its losses. It's the most tone-deaf season.

The odd thing is, if you were placing wagers, you'd swear ten minutes into the first episode that the show was righting itself. Season 7 had been a chilly affair, masterminded by one of the Dallas writers, David Paulsen, who had limited understanding of the characters and seemingly no regard for the affection between them that had always distinguished Knots from its sister soaps. As Season 8 starts, the characters you loved come back. The writers restore the warmth: stressing Mack's devotion to his wife Karen (whom he'd demeaned through much of the previous season) and re-establishing the bond between Val and Ben, which had unaccountably come undone. Val and Ben even get a chance to verbally shed their Season 7 personas. She insists in the first episode, "I don't know what happened to [the woman I used to be] -- I don't know where she is," admitting how badly she'd been mischaracterized, and he brushes off his recent, out-of-character affair by insisting, "I've been stupid." (As an obliteration of a year of bad story-lines, it's only a touch more subtle than Bobby Ewing, that same month, assuring Pam, "None of that ever happened.")

More to the point, you sense, as Season 8 commences, that even the characters who find themselves at odds -- like Abby and Gary Ewing, then in the midst of a messy divorce -- genuinely like one another. Season 8 asserts, as Knots always did, that people can have differences without being at each other's throats. There's a lightness of touch, a playfulness, that feels inviting and familiar. (It doesn't hurt that Travilla is no longer doing the costuming, after two seasons of overdressing the cast in Dynasty cast-offs. On Dynasty, the look was consistent with the camp tone; on Knots, which kept it real, it made the ladies look stiff, matronly and foolish.) In Season 7, Abby had been hunting for a way to dispose of her husband's mistress, Jill Bennett; in Season 8, as Gary decides to run for State Senate, Abby assumes the role of political wife, instantly gaining the upper hand. When she starts turning on the charm at the end of one of his campaign speeches -- schmoozing the crowd with "Hello!" and "I'm Mrs. Ewing" and "Thank you for coming," gleefully putting Jill in her place -- it beats any over-the-top catfight that Season 7, no doubt, would have put them through. And when Gary, filming a political ad, breaks into gales of laughter because he can't get the copy right, you think, "Oh my God, Ted Shackelford is so frigging charming." And you think, "I love these people." You think what you're supposed to think while watching Knots.

So after a season in which they seemed lost, the core characters instantly return home in Season 8. What a shame the new headwriters have no idea what to do with them. What a shame they apparently feel they're not interesting enough to carry their own show, so they subordinate them to a character of their own making. Her name is Paige Matheson, and she is played by a model turned actress named Nicollette Sheridan, who is handed the meatiest plots of the season, but has neither the instincts nor the skill to pull off a fraction of what's required of her. But somehow, that fact seems to go unnoticed by the powers-that-be, who keep expanding her role and praising her to the high heavens. They set her up with a cover story in TV Guide, where her role is described thusly: "It’s the kind of coy, wait-until-next-week role that can either expand or shrink, depending on how she’s doing and how the audience is responding. So far, so good." And producer Lawrence Kasha is quick to commend her: “Obviously, we’re writing her up, or else she’d be on the train to nowhere.” Somewhere, in some alternate universe, there is a far better version of Season 8 where the train to nowhere pulled into Knots Landing and there was a ticket with Sheridan's name on it.

Sheridan, it must be noted, will ultimately become a fine actress, able to hold her own against the show's most formidable veterans. But in Season 8, her first full season, she still can't say one line convincingly, or master even the most straightforward statements. "It must be awful for you," she tells her step-brother Michael, whose mother Karen has been kidnapped, but as delivered, the tone feels gently mocking. Referencing Mack's whirlwind romance with her mother Anne, she admits, "I think about it all the time," sounding mostly distracted. When Sheridan's meant to come off as vulnerable, she seems whiny; when she's written as a victim, she seems like she's playing the victim. Seven episodes in, Michael, who's growing infatuated, describes his relationship with Paige as "more than sexy" (trust me: it's much, much less), but you don't have a clue what she thinks about him, because Sheridan is still incapable of honing in on an emotion.

Horrifyingly, The Nicollette Sheridan Hour doesn't just feature her in the role of Paige Matheson; she also plays her own mother Anne in flashbacks. Ponder on that: while breaking story for Season 8, at least five people of talent and discernment said, "Let's take an unproven ingenue, whose first and only prior acting credit was ABC's short-lived Paper Dolls (which basically brought that network to its knees in 1984), and give her a dual role." One would like to believe that there was something in the drinking water at Lorimar in the summer of 1986, but the Dallas and Falcon Crest writers both turned out sensational story-lines that season, so Knots has no excuse -- particularly since Sheridan had already appeared in a few episodes at the end of Season 7, so the Knots scripters knew exactly how limited her talents were. But the creative team, ignoring all evidence, decides to further enlarge Sheridan's role by telling a chunk of their season in flashback (because really, there's nothing more riveting than twenty-year-old exposition), traveling back in time to when Mack and Greg Sumner were college chums, and Mack had his great romance with society deb Anne Matheson. Who? Well, to understand fully who Anne Matheson is, you need to engage in your own flashback, to a scene from Season 4, when Mack -- who's stepped out on Karen when she thought they were building a committed relationship -- admits to her that he got scared, because he's never been in love with anyone before. It's a wonderful -- and memorable -- scene, and it helps answer the question of who Anne Matheson is.

She's a retcon.

So in plotting out Season 8, you give Mack a daughter he never knew he had, from a woman that viewers have been assured never existed -- both roles played by the same no-talent. And then you flash back to Mack's summer of love a few times each episode, and show us how the romance began, happened and fell apart. The flashbacks are in a baffling order, and they intrude at the strangest times. Mack will be agonizing over Karen's disappearance, and suddenly he'll have a flashback about Anne. Or Karen will hand him something, and instead of taking it, he'll go into a reverie. Some of the flashbacks don't seem to be anyone's in particular; they're just thrown up on the screen, filtered in brown, like newsreel footage, and they keep stopping the story dead in its tracks. The first flashback we're shown is Mack and Anne's break-up, so after that one, you feel you're pretty much up-to-speed -- but they continue throughout the season, and they're stultifying. They don't reveal aspects of Mack and Greg's friendship, or how their personalities were forged: things that viewers might actually care about. They're solely concerned with Mack's romance with a woman who, until the season began, didn't exist. And they weigh down a season that -- due to its new timeslot and competition -- needs to be light on its feet, at its most involving and invigorating. The flashbacks were actually promoted at the time as one of the season's big hooks, but it's a hook with no bait on it.

While Mack is engaging in retconned memories, his wife Karen has been kidnapped. In 2017, as I write this, it probably doesn't sound like such an awful idea: giving the show's leading lady a plotline where she's abducted, and can really show her acting chops. But this was 1986, a year after Dynasty did much the same thing, to critical mockery, audience apathy, and sliding ratings. If you want to know why Knots Landing's ratings fell 30% at the start of Season 8, don't blame the new timeslot. Don't blame the Colbys competition. Blame the kidnapping of Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie, because I was there watching in 1986, as were my friends, and we were aghast. "Let's take a story that was the ruin of a higher-rated serial, and do it up right!" Except they don't. Because with Karen's disappearance, Lechowick and Latham are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They can't have all the characters stop what they're doing, as they should, to fret about and hunt for Karen, because that would grind the show to a halt. But at the same time, they can't have the characters not talk about her. So they give her cursory mentions that seem odd and insincere, and Karen's kidnapping -- which should be focal -- ends up seeming strangely disconnected and a little surreal. It's been weeks our time since Karen disappeared -- really more like months, since the story-line's been going on since the previous spring, and now it's October -- but Abby's still posturing to Gary that Karen is off somewhere "licking her wounds" over a business setback, as if that's remotely consistent with her character. Meanwhile, Laura, one of her closest friends, offers up this nugget, in terms of Karen's disappearance: "I just try not to think about it." Fair-weather friend much?

As it turns out, Karen's kidnapper -- an old friend of Mack and Greg's who, again, never existed until this season -- has peculiar reasons for kidnapping her, which Lechowick and Latham strain to make convincing, and once he's grabbed her, he's so sloppy about covering his tracks, he might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says "I'm With Karen." In a move the writing team will resort to often during their tenure on Knots, they have a character comment on the absurdity of a story-line, as an effort to preempt the audience from doing so. (It's Val in Season 11, thrust into a hurried marriage with Danny for plot purposes, telling Karen repeatedly, "I can't believe how fast this is happening.") We'll make note of them as the season goes along, but here's the first instance: Greg tells the kidnapper, "You're more stupid than I thought, and that's pretty stupid." He's written stupid so that he'll bungle things up and reveal his identity; it's sloppy writing, but Lechowick and Latham hope that by having a character reflect on it, we'll forgive it. Ultimately, Sumner is dragged into the Karen kidnapping story when he learns who the culprit is, but says nothing. Why doesn't he just turn him in? So that Lechowick and Latham can keep the story in play for another five episodes: so Greg can get in deeper and deeper, until Mack is convinced he masterminded the kidnapping. (Why would he have Karen abducted? It's never made clear, because there's no reason he would.) Greg's involvement in Karen's kidnapping, which is nonexistent but comes under suspicion, is pretty much how Joshua's death was handled in Season 7: a straightforward scenario stretched into an imagined whodunnit. You watch, and you're aghast that the writers are making the same mistake again.

Back to Paige for a minute, because I've already spent more time on Karen, Mack and Greg than the entire season does. As Kasha notes, they keep "writing her up," and by the second block, they move past developing her and create a mystery around her: cutting to a shot of her grave and leaving the viewer to wonder if this young woman is truly Paige Matheson. It's an awful idea, because what the writers don't seem to understand is that if this woman is an impostor, then the storyline is even less compelling. It wasn't all that interesting that Mack had a daughter, but someone pretending to be the daughter Mack never knew he had? -- then really, who cares? (Falcon Crest, that same season, could get away with roughly the same idea -- someone impersonating a key character's daughter -- but that someone was played by Kim Novak.) And when Paige, confronted with the evidence of her death, counters that she faked it, the writers still won't let it go, raising the question of whether she went on the lam after a car accident, as she insists, or a boating accident, as reported in the newspapers -- as if the more questions that swirl around Paige, the more fascinating she becomes.

Mostly, you keep wondering what the veterans must be thinking, confronted with this novice -- but the way the season is set up, the rest of the cast (all infinitely more talented and experienced) have to continually praise her or treat her with kid gloves. Until Karen takes the gloves off, and then we get one of the season's few good scenes. Lechowick and Latham by now are up to their second "dead, but not really" moment, as it turns out that Anne, who Paige assured us had passed away, is really alive. And Karen gets wind, and tears into Paige, saying pretty much everything you yourself have wanted to say all season. Paige arrives at the MacKenzie house, and Karen comes down the staircase, cornering her like a trapped animal: "You had to know we'd find out. About you. You had to know we'd find out about your mother. Didn't you think it was gonna happen? What were you doing? Were you just waiting for all hell to break loose?" And with no pause between sentences, Karen picks up the ugliest red tchotchke ever, and plows on: "What color is this? Because if you say it's red, it must be blue. Was the sun shining today? -- 'cause if you say the sun was shining, it must've rained." And finally, slowing down the pace, zeroing in on her target: "I don't know who you are. I only know I don't believe one word you say."

Great acting: that's how it's done.

And Sheridan stands there with virtually no expression on her face.

While the showrunners are giving Sheridan a welcome second only to Cleopatra's arrival in Rome, we get introduced to another character, Jean Hackney, who I guess -- if we're keeping the Egyptian similes going for a second -- would be Knots' equivalent of the Ten Plagues. As with Mack's retconned romance, Ben Gibson gets his own rewrite. The freewheeling journalist turned dedicated family man has a secret past: he used to dabble in espionage. And he's blackmailed into returning to the fold by one Jean Hackney, who runs a lingerie shop as a cover, and has a penchant for leopard-print kerchiefs: two reasons -- quite apart from the implausibility of her story-line -- not to take her seriously. "I don't do this spy stuff anymore -- I never really did," Ben informs her early on, in a writer's Freudian slip that gives lie to the whole story-line. But from episode 1, Ben is dragged back into espionage work, something as foreign to Knots Landing's roots and strengths as -- well, as most of the previous season's story-lines.

And ironically, it's a plotline for Doug Sheehan that does nothing for Doug Sheehan. Sheehan was one of the most successful bits of casting in Knots history. Having established in Season 4 that Val would always be in love with Gary, the writers needed someone to take her mind off him in Season 5 -- and Sheehan fit the bill perfectly. He had charm, and they had chemistry. (You want to see what the wrong choice would have been like in the role, check out Jon Cypher in Season 4: a solid actor who does nothing for Joan Van Ark, except give her one of her worst moments on the show, when she cries out that she loves him, and you don't believe it for a second.) Ben was always there, with his self-deprecating "aw shucks" manner, ready to tickle the ivories or blow on a bagpipe: whatever it took to bring a little joy into Valene's life. (His sense of decency and sense of humor had been among Season 7's few saving graces.) So in Season 8, you give him a plotline that calls for none of those qualities: that reduces him to an automaton taking orders: mostly angry, sometimes edgy, and always fearful. And because it's a "secret mission," Sheehan is pretty much cut off from the rest of the cast, with no opportunities to show his aforementioned charm and humor.

In fact, Ben's story-line isn't ultimately about Ben at all. It's about Jean Hackney, mystery woman. In any other season, her character would have been fleshed out a little; evil characters on Knots typically had at least one scene where their motives became clear, if not sympathetic. But as with so much of Season 8, Jean is designed as a "mystery" -- her plans aren't to be revealed until it's time, late in the season: after Lechowick and Latham have milked her story-line for as many surprises as they can. Till then, she's there simply to give Ben marching orders, by making threats against his wife and children. (If this were sci-fi, she could just as easily have been played by a computer bank: you know, like the kind Gary stumbled upon in Empire Valley. Or a robot. Somewhere, in yet another alternate universe, there's a far better version of Season 8 where Jean Hackney is played by a robot.) So how do they make her into a more intriguing character? Since they won't reveal her motivations, they increase her airtime. She turns up at Val's home, posing as a kooky old friend of Ben's from college. A few episodes later, assuming yet another persona, she fakes an auto accident that she blames on Sumner, and tries to flirt her way into his bed. Some of this might be palatable if Hackney were played by an actress of both command and comic prowess, who could seem at once menacing and mercurial: whose machinations you found, despite yourself, quite enjoying. But Wendy Fulton is a competent actress who has neither fire nor flair. I'm not saying the role of Jean Hackney is a good one -- I believe it's an ill-conceived mess -- but if they're going to throw so much story-line to her, Fulton was exactly the wrong actress to cast.

At the end of the first story block, Hackney reveals, to a colleague and to the viewer, her ultimate plan: she's going to force Ben to kill Greg Sumner. It's supposed to be a Big Reveal -- the whole season is designed as a series of Big Reveals -- but what it does is lock the writers into a lousy story. And the ripple effects of that story-line are unforgivable, because Ben stuck in scenes with Jean Hackney all season means that Joan Van Ark and Julie Harris are rendered plotless. Two-thirds of the way through the season, their characters will be needed to go on the lam with Ben, so they're left to tread water till then. Harris is reduced to baby-sitting -- her character is basically retconned back to Season 3. Van Ark has it worse: she gets a token story-line designed to be inconsequential enough that it can be completely abandoned once she's absorbed into Ben's plot. A studio wants to do a made-for-TV movie based on her first novel. The studio is called Ramilar, an in-joke for viewers who know that Knots is produced by Lorimar, and it's Lechowick and Latham engaging in the sort of juvenile self-referentialism that will come to stain their time on the show. It's a throwaway plot, indulging in every showbiz cliche, including the big Hollywood star who loves the part but wants it entirely rewritten -- and it's a giant waste of Joan Van Ark's talents. Van Ark soldiers through, but it's humiliating to think about and painful to watch. We're sorry: we've given your onscreen husband his own awful plotline; we don't have one left for you.

Two of the season's main story-lines are The Mystery of Paige Matheson and The Deception of Jean Hackney. The third: The Trials of Peter Hollister, the man masquerading as Greg's half-brother, who learns, over the course of Season 8, that it's hard to juggle seventeen story-lines. Peter, played by Hunt Block, was introduced in Season 7 as a man eager for revenge on Galveston Industries, for poisoning the water where his family lived and killing his parents. He has some charismatic moments that season -- in fact, he's one of the best things about it -- because he's used sparingly, and when he does appear (and this is one good thing you can say about Paulsen, who loved his alpha males) he's used strongly. In one scene in a pool, seducing Abby Ewing, he looks and seems like a power player.

In Season 8, they writers decide, as with Paige, to make him focal. But as with Ben, they lose track of what made the character appealing. When he's focused on payback, Block is dynamic. But in Season 8, Greg insists Peter run for State Senate, a job he doesn't want, with responsibilities that aren't interesting. (There's one episode where Abby and Greg fight about what committee he should sit on. And we care why?) He has no passion for politics, and meanwhile, he's having to indulge the whims of his phony mother, kowtow to his half-brother, and sexually satisfy his patron. (And the chemistry between Block and Donna Mills, as Abby, too often seems forced. There's a horrible scene early in the season that's supposed to be sensual and just looks silly, with close-ups of Abby and Peter's eyes and lips and bare shoulders and feet, as they're undressing for lovemaking. If you need to work at it that hard, it's not working.) He spends the final third of the season forced to court Abby's sixteen-year-old daughter Olivia, because she has incriminating evidence on him.

In Season 8, Peter spends his time trying to endure or extricate himself from situations that annoy him; he's never in command of his own story-lines. Some Knots actors were extremely good at making discomfort, even powerlessness, compelling. Michele Lee excelled at that: in fact, she spends most of Seasons 8 and 11 effectively reacting to events out of her control. (Her single best moment in Season 8 might be when she's disparaging the changes Abby has made at Lotus Point and inadvertently insults her son Eric, who notes defensively that one of those changes was his. As he walks away, Lee flashes a look that's at once shaken, sorrowful and self-righteous.) Other actors, like Donna Mills and Hunt Block, were at their least impressive being purely reactive. In Season 8, Lechowick and Latham turn Peter into a character who isn't even invested in his own plotlines: a disconnect that -- like every other miscalculation -- never gets addressed or corrected.

And worse, while Block is visibly suffering through his stories, he takes precious airtime away from everyone else. Ted Shackelford told TV Guide at the time, "For anyone as relatively inexperienced to come on a continuing series and shoulder as much of the plot as Hunt has this year is really unusual. Come to think of it, the guy’s been on more than I have.” Funny, but not so funny. All roads eventually lead to Peter in Season 8; Ben even decides to write an exposé on him. And Laura (who's pretty much wasted throughout the season) gets to be the one to question this particular story-line (and hopefully beat us to the punch), when she interrupts Greg pruning a bonsai tree to inquire, "Why Peter Hollister?" (Sadly, Greg can't give her much of an answer.)

In Peter's worst plot, he's decided to kill the woman posing as his mother. Unfortunately, while he's busy giving her an overdose, she disappears. (It's the season's third "Dead? No, not really" moment.) He begs his sister Jill for some face time, and she agrees, instructing him to meet her on a deserted mountain road. "Why did we have to meet all the way out here?" Peter asks: his turn to go meta, as Lechowick and Latham comment on -- in order to justify -- the absurd setting, chosen solely because it will provide a literal cliffhanger for Jill at episode's end. (For the record, her response is that she doesn't want anyone to see them. I lived in Southern California myself for many years and can safely say that when you're looking for privacy, there are plenty of options besides "deserted mountain road.") So Jill goes over a cliff, clinging to a branch halfway down the mountain before it snaps and she plunges even further, eventually hitting the ground lifeless. (For those keeping count, it's the season's fourth "Dead? No, not really" moment.)

And the next episode begins with fifteen minutes of Peter deciding whether or not to go for help. How does he make that decision? Through flashbacks, of course. As if Mack's reminiscences have somehow been elevating the series, lifting it to new Emmy-worthy heights, we now get Peter reliving seemingly every moment he and his sister have shared in the past two years, in hyper-speed. The sum of these memories, it's suggested, will help Peter decide whether his sister is worth saving. We don't just flash back weeks and months: we revisit things we just saw. We even get two more reruns of Jill holding onto that branch before it snaps. (It starts to grow comic after a while: Teri Austin as Wile E. Coyote.) But of course, nothing in these flashbacks helps Peter decide -- there's no "new information" provided; they're just a time-killer. Ultimately, he makes the phone call that saves her -- and because she's the one person who knows his true identity, that just gives him one more thing to fret about.

There's only one thing that interests Peter in Season 8, and that's spending more time with Paige. Halfway through the season, the writers pair them. It reaps instant rewards: first, because putting those two together halves the number of scenes you have to fast-forward through. And second, because it frees up time for a few other characters to get in a story-line or two.

And so, just after the season's midpoint, we get its one truly great episode: one that, tellingly, doesn't revolve around Paige or Peter. Instead, three of the veterans -- including the youngest and the oldest -- show how it's done, as the ongoing story of Olivia's drug dependence comes to a head. The episodes leading up to it had promised something special -- Abby showing up at Gary's hotel room to ask for advice, then quietly bursting into tears, had been some of Mills' best work to date -- but still, nothing prepares you for the power of the pay-off, "No Miracle Worker." It's a series high point (one of Lechowick's best efforts), much of it a two-hander between Donna Mills and Tonya Crowe. So many memorable scenes. Abby hammering in the bathroom door to get to Olivia, who's locked her out -- and then, when she discovers her daughter flushing her drugs down the john, flinging them furiously in her face. Olivia, wired on cocaine, trying to coax her mother into giving her the car keys -- then, when that approach doesn't pan out, unleashing her fury: smashing her fist against a painting, hurling bric-a-brac to the floor. (As you watch Crowe, utterly convincing as a coked-up teenager aching for a fix, denying her addiction but eager to lay the blame at everyone else's feet, it seems even more criminal that so much of the season has been thrown to Sheridan.) It even finds a stunning moment for Julie Harris, when Abby and Lilimae learn that Olivia has put her brother in harm's way, and Lilimae grabs the phone and demands Olivia call 911. (She's arguably more powerful in that scene than in all the over-the-top thesping she's forced to do, relentlessly, in Season 7. Her fury here is unexpected; it's not where her entire season is pitched.)

"No Miracle Worker" is riveting television, Knots at its best, and then the next episode is back to awful plots that flatter no one, as Ben is coerced into planting a bug in Sumner's office, while Val has her first day on a Hollywood set. Soon it's the end of the second block, and Jean Hackney finally informs Ben that her plan all along has been for him to kill Sumner: something we've known for ten episodes. Consider what this says about Season 8. On the surface, the idea of having Jean Hackney tell us something Ben won't learn for months simply turns one Big Reveal into two. (Lechowick and Latham must have been in heaven when they came up with that idea.) But it's a move that ultimately undercuts the story-line itself, because everything Ben does after we find out his real mission, but before he himself learns it, becomes inconsequential, since we know it's filler. There are two possible takeaways. Either Lechowick and Latham didn't think the middle spate of episodes would stand on their own if we didn't know what was coming next, or they were willing to sacrifice their impact just to double the surprises. Which is worse?

What's inexcusable about the Jean Hackney story isn't how bad it is -- there are plenty of bad Knots Landing stories over its fourteen seasons, and some even stem from noble impulses: it's that the headwriters conceive a plot that's risky at best, that runs counter to the relationship-based drama at which Knots excelled, then leave themselves no way out if it doesn't work. On the contrary: as they plot the season, these are their two roadmarks: we'll learn about Hackney's plan in the final moments of the first block; Ben will find out in the final moments of the second. The entire season is structured around those two reveals, and once they hit them, there's no turning back. There's no opportunity to ask, "Is this working?" -- but then, it doesn't seem that that question ever occurs to Lechowick and Latham during Season 8. They chart their course, mapping out exactly how they're going to beat The Colbys -- and nothing will deter them from that plan. Nothing will go wrong because nothing can go wrong. In that same article about Hunt Block, the actor has one telling anecdote: “Peter’s done some pretty stupid things, like giving an inscribed locket to Olivia. When I raise questions with the producers and writers and ask, 'Why would he do this?’, there’s not much they can tell me. They’re wedded to the plot and where that’ll take the characters.” That pretty much sums up everything that goes wrong in Season 8.

It's not surprising. Lechowick and Latham had schooled under David Paulsen, who -- like his mentor, Leonard Katzman -- mapped out his seasons meticulously. And although they have an understanding of the characters that Paulsen lacked, they haven't yet cultivated the ability to be spontaneous, to check in from time to time on what's working and what isn't. (Hell, even John Romano knew enough to gut Tidal Energy after a dozen episodes.) They set up a maze of a plot to take you through Season 8 -- replete with misdirects and traps and reveals -- and they just run with it, sadly unaware that intrigue doesn't necessarily translate into interest. A little healthy self-reflection would've gone a long way toward salvaging Season 8, but the writers don't seem to second-guess their ideas, before or after they hit the screen.

In the third and final block, Mack saves Ben from having to shoot Sumner. It's the season's climactic set piece, and -- you can't make this stuff up -- it's told in flashbacks. Lechowick and Latham can't even deliver the climax they've been building to for two dozen episodes, because that would deprive them of two more misdirects. So the big confrontation between Ben and Sumner happens off-screen, so we can go through the motions of "Sumner's dead! No, not really" and "Ben's dead! No, not really." (By that point, Lechowick and Latham are like failed magicians, pulling dead rabbits out of hats.) And then the entire Jean Hackney story-line, insanely convoluted by this point, and such a sad departure from what Knots does best, is recounted by Mack to Karen, as he forces us to relive scenes that we're busy trying to forget. Mack begins his story long ago, when nefarious plans were laid by "this gang of financial wizards and thugs," because, of course, that's how any good Knots Landing story begins. Here it's Karen's chance to engage in the running meta-commentary, punctuating Mack's story with observations like "that's insane" and "I just don't believe this -- it's crazy." (Michele Lee thought Karen became "the voice of the people" in Season 12. No, it's here.) When it's all over, Ben is haunted by the experience. He's not the only one. Season 8 has felt like one long nightmare.

There's not much more to say about Season 8. Michelle Phillips turns up as present-day Anne Matheson, and although there's not a sincere, unaffected bone in her body, Mack insists to Karen that she's really "down-to-earth." That notion is borne out by nothing we're seeing, so obviously Mack is drinking the same Kool-Aid that's telling the Lorimar honchos that Sheridan can act, that Block is at his best emasculated, and that Jean Hackney is the greatest literary creation since Falstaff. Mack being played by Anne isn't the least bit convincing, and the best that can be said for it is that it's the only time in the season Lechowick and Latham actually seem to have rethought a story-line, as the intent was for the two to sleep together, but Michele Lee, rightfully, put her foot down. But because we get episodes of build-up, as Mack is sucked into Anne's orbit, and then there's no pay-off, the writers compensate by leaving us with one last Paige Matheson mystery: is Mack really her father? It's the final, riotous miscalculation in a season that thrives on them. If Mack isn't Paige's father, then what was the point of the whole season? Why did it deserve our time and attention? Why did we have to suffer through seven hundred flashbacks, and an ingenue who seemed to recite her lines phonetically?

And then, two episodes from the end, one last insult, as we discover that the investment we were forced to make in Peter this season -- as we watched him consume plot after plot -- has been for nothing; the writers had no intention of following through with his revenge on Galveston Industries or his subsequent political career. The man who arrived in Season 7 with such promise and presence turns out to be most useful to the new headwriters as a prop. It results in a cliffhanger episode that everyone rightly remembers -- a fun, off-the-wall showcase for Donna Mills, who, as in "No Miracle Worker," has to get her hands dirty to save her onscreen daughter -- but at what price? We could just as easily have gotten there 8 or 16 or 24 episodes earlier, without being force-fed Peter Hollister for a year (and an ineffectual Peter Hollister at that, a characterization that ill-served the actor). And yes, it's the last place you expect Peter's journey to go, but that's just the point: it doesn't "go" anywhere -- it just stops, reveling in its cleverness, but invalidating a season's worth of story-lines. The ignorance and arrogance of Lechowick and Latham in Season 8 is staggering; they seem to have no idea how their stories impact the audience. They see fooling the viewer as a "win," no matter the cost. They leave Season 8 by exclaiming to the viewer, "Isn't that marvelous? We just wasted your time!"


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 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; Season 13, an epic fail, and an epic save; 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.

29 comments:

  1. Thirty four paragraphs on what sounds like one of the worst seasons imaginable is pretty good going. As a prize, you win a Knots Landing season eight boxed set, complete with extended scenes, deleted scenes, and a commentary on every episode by Lechowick and Latham.

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    1. Season 8 of knots won 6 soap opera digest awards.

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    2. I freely confess that many folks like Season 8 more than I do, although interestingly, not of a lot of them have turned up to defend it here. From my perspective – which is a writing perspective, generally – it’s a failure on almost every level, and buoyed largely by the continued brilliance of the actors and our affection for the glorious characters. The 1986-87 TV season was actually the first time, and the only time, I preferred both Dallas and Falcon Crest to Knots. (As I note elsewhere, Dynasty lost me early on, when they began to embrace camp as their go-to style.) BTW, I was indeed reading Soap Opera Digest around that time, and although their opinions of course didn’t — and don’t — don’t affect my own, I will note that they crowned Falcon Crest the best primetime soap that season.

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    3. Wow, I realize you wrote this essay a few years ago, but I still feel compelled to respond. I’ve never in my life read anything or talked with anyone that was so critically harsh of Knot’s Landing. Knot’s Landing has always been lauded as the best of the Primetime soaps and rightfully so. My best friend and I love Knot’s Landing so much that we can spend hours reliving some of the show’s greatest moments. I only found out a few years back that some fans hated the Jean storyline. Our opinions of season 8 couldn’t be more different. I actually think season 8 is one of the show’s best! I love every storyline that you so vividly hate. While I agree Nicolette Sheridan was a weak actress in her debut season, there was something still charming and regal about her that pulled me in. I loved the mystery centered around her character, so when you said no one cared, that’s not true because I cared, and so did my mom and my best friend. I was a child when Knot’s originally aired and I usually had to be in bed by the time the show would air so I didn’t get to see every episode and only got to watch season 8 when it was reran on TNT years ago. I was shocked at how green Sheridan’s acting was because I was only used to the powerhouse that she would become later on.

      I have to admit; I am a huge fan of Nicolette as she went on to become my favorite character on the show. I enjoyed her seduction of Michael and his puppy dog obsession with her later on in the season. It’s one highlight of the season that my best friend and I often talk about. Some of your commentary sounds like you wanted to box the characters in and only wanted them to act as you wanted them to act. Why did Ben have to be sweet and charming all the time? While I loved Doug Sheehan and his character, Ben could be a little boring so I enjoyed the change for him in season 8. I don’t see his story as a retcon because it is impossible to know everything about a character that has lived decades of his life before showing up in Knots Landing. The death fake outs didn’t bother me because c’mon, even as a green child, I never bought that the writers were going to kill off Greg or Ben. Instead of it being a “gotcha,” it was more of a wait to see how this all plays out.

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    4. My comment continued: Reading your essays made me realize that I’ve grown because harsh criticisms of shows I love used to make me angry. However, I read this analysis and laughed at some of the commentary (not mockingly). It’s amusing to read an opinion that is so vastly different from mine. Peter Hollister was one of my favorite characters and Hunt Block still remains one of my favorite actors from Knots Landing and from his stint on Guiding Light and As The World Turns. I do agree that killing his character was a waste (Guiding Light would make this same mistake with his character years later). He is such a great talent, but it seems like the writers don’t really seem to know what to do with the characters he plays. I think it’s a case of the puppet outgrowing the puppet master. Still, the cliffhanger focused on Abby trying to hide his body is still one of my favorite Knots Landing cliffhangers. The murder mystery that came in the next season was not that interesting, so it really feels that he was wasted. Then again, maybe it had to lead to Jill’s unraveling. Perhaps Peter’s story was never about him, but a prop to move Jill’s story along.

      Maybe I’ve loved Knot’s Landing so much over the years that I’ve looked at my beloved show through rose-colored glasses? It’s definitely hard to read your harsh criticisms and believe that you’re a fan of the show that I’ve known and loved most of my life. Did I enjoy some stories more than others? Sure, (Any storyline involving Johnny during his run was not good for me. I hated the character with a passion). However, the only season of Knots Landing that I could call bad is season 13. Even after they retooled the show, it was boring until the great season 13 finale.

      Again, you seem as if you only wanted the characters to act in one way which sounds kind of one dimensional to me. As you know, there are many sides to flesh and blood people. My friends will tell you that I am comical, kind, and sensitive. However, I can also be spiteful, petty, and stubborn. While the story of Jean took Ben out of his comfort zone, his actions still stayed true to his character. I loved seeing the stress of him trying to keep Jean at bay while trying to protect his family. It was a very compelling storyline for me. I could go on and on, but I will stop before I end up with an essay of my own. Of course you’re free to your opinions (this is your blog after all). I just wanted to add to the conversation to one of the best shows to ever grace our television screens.

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    5. Occasionally, hshawn, people come here and attack me. They’re very passionate about the shows they like or dislike, and if I disagree with them, they respond viscerally. And because this isn’t a space that permits personal attacks (to be clear, I welcome – and in fact, crave – differing opinions, but not personal attacks), I delete those posts. You went off on me a couple of times – if they weren’t "attacks," they were certainly presumptions and misrepresentations – but I’m leaving your posts up, because I think they’re points worth discussing and clarifying.

      I’ve mentioned in other essays that when I was growing up, you could be a fan of a show and still disagree with a good half the things the writers did — whereas today, a lot of folks believe that being a fan of a show means unconditional surrender. I don’t agree with the “unconditional surrender” approach. You say that it’s “definitely hard to read your harsh criticisms and believe that you’re a fan of the show.” It’s hard to believe I’m a fan of the show because I don’t like Season 8? I’m curious: did you only read this essay? Have you not seen my rapturous praise for Seasons 3, 5, 6, 9 and 14, among others? Do you think I devoted years of my life to writing these essays, yet I’m not “a fan of the show”? I assure you, I didn’t do it as an exercise in masochism! LOL (You talk about hating the character of Johnny “with a passion”; by way of comparison, I love Johnny in Season 9. You find the final season “boring,” whereas I consider Season 14 one of the finest seasons. But I’d never take your brusque dismissal of the final season to suggest you’re not a fan of the show.) Twice you suggest I want the characters “to act in one way, which sounds kind of one dimensional to me.” Again, have you read any of the other essays? I don’t see how anyone could read my dissections of Karen or Gary in Season 3, or Abby and Mack and Lilimae in Season 5, or Val in Season 6, or Pat in Season 9 or Claudia in Season 14, and come away not understanding how I crave characters to be multidimensional. I simply don’t like them to be inconsistent, and Lechowick and Latham – being plot- rather than character-driven writers – were very willing to bend character to suit storyline. (I'm certainly not the only one who thought so; actors on the show complained as well.) I find that lazy, and I find it annoying.

      But here's the bottom line for me. You’re someone who loves Knots, and that’s wonderful. I love the show too. I enjoy the show more than pretty much any other show that’s aired. It was a glorious series that I continue to revisit to this day. But it went through highs and lows, like most shows, and I think some of the lows were brutally, inexcusably bad. And for me, part of what makes Knots so fascinating – and makes it worth dissecting – is that very disparity in quality, and getting to the root of it all, which I’ve tried to do here in my fourteen essays.

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  2. Where do I even begin? Season 8 is one of those years where I didn't realize how much I disliked many things about it until many years after I first saw it.

    There was a poster on the Knots Landing website whose name escapes me currently but he used to say something to the effect that the first seven years of Knots Landing were like a complete novel and then season 8 almost feels like the start of something completely different. It's hard to exactly pinpoint but I think a lot of it had to do with how season 7 just sort of fizzled out at the end. It felt like a fast moving train for so long but it became a meandering plodding beast.

    The highlights are Olivia on drugs and I do enjoy Anne which most people typically agree on but the misfires are certainly questionable. Jean Hackney is probably one of the worst storylines in the show's history, right up there with Tidal Energy or the Danny/Amanda/Gary/Val quadrangle.

    Douglas Sheehan should've just left town with Lisa Hartman (which they were sure eager to kick her to the curb as she is instantly forgotten after the misguided affair). Ben never used to be high up on my list and I do think a lot of it was how my memory was tarnished of him after watching his "exit". I also find it quite laughable that the moment he comes home from being with Cathy, he promptly finds a note from Jean Hackney....oh how you probably now wish you had become Cathy's tour manager!

    You have Peter starting off with such frequent domination and then by the end of the year, he seems to become more boring and then is promptly killed. Sylvia is randomly killed offscreen after a rather lifeless attempt at creating drama with those damned letters, and of course, Paige is EVERYWHERE!

    And then there's Phil Harbert. A kidnapping so boring and lifeless aside from a few decent moments during Karen's escape that it really felt inconsequential. By the time they kill off Phil in episode 8, you almost forget that he was even in the episode by the time you get more than half way through it. The kidnapping of Karen felt tacked on, pre-packaged, and ill conceived.

    I could probably go on and on, but it's true that this season was a misstep that was mostly corrected the following year. It also makes season 7 feel like Edward Albee at times.

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    1. You're right: it pains me to say it, but Season 8 makes Season 7 look like frigging Shakespeare. I (obviously) don't care much for Season 7, but at least it tries to tell an interesting story. Season 8 doesn't do that at all: instead, it tries to tell a story in an interesting manner, making it -- as Lechowick and Latham would so often do -- all about the writers. Sometimes, it even seems determined NOT to tell a story, as when they skip over key events, as with Sylvia's death, as you noted, or the big confrontation between Ben and Sumner. Just maddening.

      Like you, I've soured considerably on Season 8 since it first aired. Originally, I was aware that Dallas and Falcon Crest were having infinitely better seasons, and that Knots had lost its water-cooler status. (My friend Barry Moss, the great casting director, was a huge Knots fan, and he and I would often compare notes the day after an episode aired: until "No Miracle Worker," we had absolutely nothing to say to each other about Season 8.) But it didn't infuriate me as it does now. But of course, a good part of what's galling about Season 8 is the manipulation of the viewer, and you don't fully see it until the second time through.

      All that said, I do know some folks love Season 8, and I hope a few of them swing by here and leave some thoughts. I never pretend, heaven knows, that my opinions are "definitive" or "the final word"; it would be fun to hear what folks who DO respond to Season 8 find particularly satisfying.

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  3. Considering the he'll that Val went through in season 6 and 7...I could understand having her be more backgeound..but I do wish her writing took more of a dominant focus then this secret agent stuff. Oddly, the biggest fall out from this Jean Hackney plot was the breakdown of Val and Laura's friendship that carries over into the start of season 9.

    I liked that Val was calmer and not so over the top..and I wish the Lathams kept this version of Val over the victim aspect that started at the end of season 9. Two scenes stood out in season 8...the one where she's retelling a car accident she had when it was raining/snowing...and also when she had the realization that Ben wasn't coming back.

    Sadly..i think this out of character story for Ben was a way to write him out so that Gary and Val would reunite down the road. Val and Ben fit much better then Val and Gary ever did..imho. I would have rather seen them trying to work on the marriage and maybe having them decide at season end that it wasn't going to work then had him move away..but it would have been too scenes of a marriage for the Lathams.

    I liked Paige...but not in her first season.. I liked that the abby vs Paige groundwork was laid out in this season.

    I think season 8 was a transition year...shedding the old KL and embracing a new KL. Do i think the Lathams did a good job...no..but it's an interesting year..and the ground work was laid out for future story (i.e. abby earning Jill the 1st Mrs Ewing never goes away).

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    1. Hey Jayson, so glad you stopped by: it was actually you asking me, in response to another post, if I'd be writing up Season 8 that prompted me to fast-track it. I knew it was not one of my favorite seasons, but I wasn't prepared to dislike it as much as I did on my latest rewatch. So much bothered me -- the overuse of Paige, Peter and Jean Hackney, as well as the steady flow of fake-outs and flashbacks -- that I have a feeling the point I made up front got lost along the way: that I really do find the core characters engaging once again, after they seemed so chilly and unfamiliar in Season 7. As you said, it is absolutely a transitional season, and so many of its flaws are addressed and resolved in the opening episode of Season 9. I just wish Lechowick and Latham hadn't been so concerned with masterminding an "impressive" first season, and had just told some good stories, as they do -- so well -- over the next few years.

      I believe Doug Sheehan had originally signed for three years, which is why they gave him a possible write-off at the end of Season 7. And then, I guess he agreed to stay one more year, which is why they wrote him a big farewell that lasted all of Season 8. But it's a strange send-off. As you said, the Jean Hackney story, which dominates the season, ultimately has little impact on the core characters, except a brief frostiness between Laura and Val. I too loved Val and Ben; I thought they were a lovely couple, and sometimes I'm quite sorry the show got so consumed with ultimately reuniting Val and Gary that it couldn't let her move on. And yes, indeed, I much prefer this version of Val, in Season 8, to the "Poor Val," "village idiot" character she becomes by Season 11. Thank goodness the original Val gets restored, if only briefly, when Ann Marcus returns late in Season 13.

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    2. Also, the Paige character coming to the cul de sac could have been much bigger and involved more of the cast then it did. She seemed like a young Abby in season 8..or was written to be..with her seducing Michael. I think that could habe caused more problems for Mac/Karen. Also..other then one scene of Lillimae voicing that Paige didn't seem truthful..there was no other comments from the cul de sac gang like Ben, Val, or Laura. Season 3 was great because all the residents knew abby and Gary were having an affair except for Val (though Val had a feeling). I could habe seen Val try to reach out to her at first..seeing a tortured person..and quickly seeing she was more Abby then Olivia.

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    3. That would have been great. Similarly, it would have been interesting for Abby to see Paige interacting with Olivia, feel that something was "off," and come to Mack or Karen with her suspicions. I found it unconvincing that Abby would instantly welcome Paige, thinking she'd be a good influence on Olivia. Based on what? I think the writers felt that by having so many of the core characters embrace Paige, we'd embrace Nicollette -- but as you note, one of the great things about Knots Landing was that, as welcoming as people could be, they could also be deeply suspicious. (It's what makes the Williamses' story work in Season 9.) Maybe if the other actors had been allowed into Paige's story-line, she wouldn't have seemed -- as I described her in my Season 9 write-up -- like "visiting royalty."

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    4. I think you are right about the having all the core characters interact and embrace page. They were going for a reaction like season 4 had when Lisa Hartman came on the scene as Ciji Dunne and was interwoven in just about every storyline. But with Ciji is always felt genuine and it really worked in my opinion. Paige was just awkward this first season but then as the show went on Nicolette really became a very good actress.

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    5. And also it's kind of odd that Lisa's final episode the previous season was basically the first episode of Nicolette. It was almost like changing of the hot blonde guard. But really Lisa was wonderful and I never thought the show was the same after she left. I also disliked how they changed Cathy's character.

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  4. I just did a re-watch of Knots, and I am firmly not a season 8 fan. I almost hate to admit because there are things that I love about every season, but I stalled out for awhile with this one because I was bored. Exception: Abby beating down the bathroom door with a hammer was brilliance. I think season 8 ranks right up there with season 13 as one of my least favorite seasons. Where do I begin? Big Brow Jean, Spy Bean, all those flashbacks, dumb Phil being Karen's kidnapper and the almost mocking contrivance of that story. And Paige. Oh Paige. There was too much Paige all at once. I think that's the reason why Paige never grew on me. When they dialed her back and turned her into the "heroine", she never felt sincere to me. Honorable mention: The informant priest Spy Ben met with and his epic disappearance with the bus, Dumb Phil getting hit by the car and flying straight into the air and one shoe flying across the street, Sumner making a "That was gun in my pocket" joke, and Abby burying that body in her Italian high heels. Season 8 wasn't all bad :)

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    1. So good to hear from you again, Pamela. You know, in all these years, I have never done a "front to back" rewatch of Knots -- and at this point, I don't think I'd have the patience! Like you, I think Season 8 is about as bad as it gets. I was emailing with a friend the other day, doing one of those "ranking the seasons" exercises we all love to do, and I actually put Season 8 below Season 13, which is tantamount to heresy. And like most, I think the first 15 episodes of Season 13 are an abomination, but it least, when they bring in Ann Marcus to overhaul it, the season improves noticeably, and some of the plots -- like Val's Sumner bio, and the way that Laura is woven back into the story-line -- are quite good. But Season 8 just keeps going on and on with the same ghastly story-lines, way past their expiration dates.

      I didn't get to include this in my essay, but in retrospect, it's almost a miracle that Lechowick and Latham manage to course-correct (and so successfully) the moment Season 9 begins -- because, as I recall, the top of Season 9 was filmed directly after Season 8 wrapped, as there was an impending Directors Guild strike (ultimately averted), and Lorimar wanted to get a half-dozen episodes in the can ASAP. Given that they didn't have the customary "summer hiatus" to look at what had worked and what hadn't, and carefully plot their next moves, can you imagine if Lechowick and Latham had just launched into Season 9 giving us "more of the same"? We might have gotten five seasons of spy stories and informant priests...

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    2. I completely agree with you about season 8 being lower on the ranking last than season 13! I was just thinking the very same thing as I did my re-watch. Season 13 does have some stuff there.

      It's interesting to note that Latham/Lechowick gave us both seasons 8 and 9. I am, for the most part, a fan of their episodes. HOWEVER, after watching it again, I can understand why some of the actors and some of the audience may have been turned off by then (Shudder to think 5 more seasons of spy stories and informant priests). I think it's a waste that they really don't know what to do with Valene other than make her do dumb things.

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  5. I am closest to the point of view of Jayson Crady on this season: "transition year." Some of it was bad at the time and worse in retrospect (Jean Hackney), but it was necessary table-setting and deadwood-clearing, and elements of enduring value are being put in place. Even very late in the series, after Paige is shot, Anne and Mack are referencing back-story we learn this season.

    This is the season in which we learn that Karen is going to be as unhappy with her sons' choices in romantic partners as she was with her daughter's, and will be no more hands-off about it. This was not surprising information, but it would be a seam the show would mine for years. Olivia's addiction is on almost everyone's series best-of list; Crowe and Mills are both outstanding, and there is at least one great Karen/Abby scene too.

    Sheridan was, in fact, overmatched by some of what she was given at first, and by the sheer volume of it, but she was prescient casting. I doubt there was a more beautiful young woman around L.A. in that time, and she could be magnetic on screen, as anyone who saw the opening sequence of The Sure Thing knew.

    Beyond that, she was convincingly upper-crust, and that was important. Even when her emoting had not caught up to her other attributes, I believed she was well bred, well educated, a young "sophisticate." It took time for Paige to come into focus, specifically late S9, but she perfectly fulfilled what one would imagine the daughter of Mack and Anne would be. She had Anne's materalism, vanity, and flair for connivance, and Mack's stubbornness, pugnacity, and a little of his do-gooder zeal. This is what made her a great character for the second half of the series, and more than a standard young bombshell or a junior-division Abby wannabe.

    So, that is my brief for S8. The weakest season of the L&L years, and not a banner year overall, but one that served a purpose. It never threatened to drive me away. If anything had done that, it would have been the Tidal Energy period of five years later.

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    1. I so appreciate that you took the time to respond -- and that you feel differently about certain elements of the season than I do. As I've noted elsewhere, I sometimes fear that these essays get so expansive -- and that my tone gets so firm and unwavering -- that folks don't always feel "welcome" to disagree. I actually expected this essay to be by far my most controversial, as I know a lot of folks who quite like Season 8. I was surprised that the comments weren't more contrary!

      I absolutely agree that Season 8 is a transitional season. And as I mentioned to Jayson, I suspect my dislike of so many of the story-lines, and of Lechowick and Latham's "fooled you!" approach to story-telling, made me understate one of my key points: that the characters really do come home in Season 8, after vanishing in Season 7. But although I agree with you that Season 8 was (as you put it, eloquently) "necessary table-setting," I remain pretty appalled how long it takes them to SET that table. I'm pretty sure I could imagine a version of Season 8 where everything that was necessary to set up Season 9 happened in about six episodes (well, except for Laura giving birth). To me, there's so much that's expendable -- and so much that ultimately becomes expendable because of the way the stories play out. Peter's adventures in politics and Ben's "return" to the world of espionage are bad story-lines in and of themselves -- but once both characters are written off at the end of the season, those story-lines become even more pointless. If that was going to be the only outcome of consequence -- the characters are written off, paving the way for Season 9 -- all the more reason those story-lines had better be great. Or else keep them lean and get them over with fast.

      So although I agree that Season 8 was transitional, and that where they ultimately get to is splendid, I don't feel that it was a successful way of MAKING that transition. For me, Season 4 is a transitional season that's largely successful; Season 8 ultimately gets us where we need to go, but I find it an awful ride.

      Finally (sorry: this is turning into a tome!), Karen's dislike for the women her sons choose to get involved with does indeed begin here, as you note, and will become a through-line for the next five years. But I find it a weak and writer-driven one. Lechowick and Latham keep having Eric and Michael make awful choices in women, so that Karen has something to react to. I mean, Michael goes from his step-sister to his sister-in-law -- who does that? And in Season 12, all evidence to the contrary, he keeps turning a blind eye to all of Linda's lies and machinations -- and defending her and making apologies for her -- just so Karen can have even a semblance of a story-line. I don't think the continuing saga of Karen and her sons' awful choices in women is a story-line that does the writers proud.

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    2. I look forward to your getting to what I think of as Linda's big season (12), because I have a lot of conflicting feelings about her, which I'll hold back for the moment. I will only say she was one of the best-worst examples of schizoid L/L characterization that could leave actors flailing. *Especially* with characters they personally introduced. Danny W. (the talented Sam Behrens) was another example. Even at the time, when I was not such an experienced television viewer, I suspected this writing team changed course a lot, rather than having a clear idea from the outset where they wanted to go with characters.

      Getting it back to S8, I agree with what you say about transition years. It isn't too much to ask that something be good and entertaining on its own merits, especially when an audience is being asked to spend so many hours following the show. And since this was network prime-time television in the '80s, it was a lot of hours, 30 rather than the cable-modern 10 or 12. I think we only differ in that I'd call it a "B-minus" season (for Knots Landing, not vis-a-vis all television), and you'd put it a little lower.

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    3. You're quite right about how we'd grade the season. I'm harsh on it because I think it's one of the weakest Knots seasons, story-wise, but even the lesser Knots seasons more often than not boasted the complex characterizations and richly-textured performances that the show came to be known for. In retrospect, I think one of the reasons I'm particularly harsh on Season 8 is that it was the first time since Season 2 that I felt Knots was having a weaker season than its Lorimar stablemates. 1986-87 was, of course, Dallas's post-dream resurgence, where Leonard Katzman (for one season) got the show riotously back on track; and on Falcon Crest, it was the first year of Jeff Freilich's reign, with the great Knots scribe Richard Gollance heading up the writing chores. I enjoyed both those seasons much more than Knots 8. At the time, that felt so alarming and disorienting!

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  6. Does anyone else on here think that season 8 the filming looked really crummy. Almost dull and like a daytime drama. It lost it's appeal. And the opening theme was the pits how they tried to make it more calypso with that lousy saxophone playing. It just seemed like it was bad all the way around with the exception of Olivia's drug story. That was emmy worthy acting and writing. Everything else was just boring I thought.

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    1. You know, it’s funny: I spend a lot of time here talking about the scripting, because that’s where my interests and (I think) my strengths lie: in the writers’ room. I’m not a particularly “visual” person; I’m a record producer by trade, and I have a good ear and a terrible eye. So although I absolutely saw how different Season 8 looked once folks pointed it out to me, years later, I really didn’t notice it at the time. But then, I really didn’t notice how awful the season was when I first watched it either. I think I mention elsewhere that I do remember friends and I stopped *talking* about Knots that season (except, of course, for the Olivia story-line, which rightly blew us away), but I don’t remember us talking about how *bad* it was. We were more focused on how good Dallas had become again, and how interesting Falcon Crest seemed. Now, on a clearer day, Season 8 appalls me. I know it has its advocates, and honestly, Jimmy, I’ve been surprised that more of them didn’t turn up here to make the case for it — particularly since my tone is (how shall I put it?) less than reverential. But I think your estimation is accurate — “bad all the way around with the exception of Olivia's drug story“; it’s just odd that many of us didn’t notice it at the time.

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    2. I didn't realize it was as bad as it was Tommy until I rewatched it and I am shocked by how awful the writing and the storylines are. The acting is still great. Kevin Dobson did a great job with is emotional scenes when Karen went 'Missing'. But overall the storylines were the pits. Thankfully they rebounded and things got good again as the show went on. But season 8 was just hideous. Even Season 3 was better with the silly episodes like the "Haunted House" with the girls all at that creepy mansion Laura was trying to sell as a realtor. THere was something nice about the show back then. I think the consistancy of having the same characters week after week made it so good. And the stories were good even then. I love this blog thank you. Jimmy

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  7. Knots 8th season was its 5th highest ranked season. I didn't think it was as bad as you thought it was Tommy. But it wasn't one of the better years either.

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  8. I already posted yesterday on Season 13 how I eagerly I viewed the series on the DVDs until Season 13, and that it true, but I took a pause for a month ot two during the middle of Season 8, right around the time Jill fell off the cliff. It just felt like the show had difficulties that year. I wouldn't say that I thought it was quite as bad as you think it is, but there are definite issues.

    A) First and foremost, the way Paige is written shifts not only from episode to episode, but scene to scene. It makes it hard to get a read on her at all, or to understand (other than the fact they created her) why the writers are spending so much time with her. As I recall, Sheridan seemed considerably looser and energetic in the flashbacks playing Anne (opposite future Melrose Place/Desperate Housewives player Doug Savant as young Mack) than she did the rest of the season as her main character, perhaps because the Anne character was better delinated. Paige really didn't click for me until the episode in season 9 where it was revealed that she was accidentally responsible for Peter's death. It's the first time that there was genuine emotion there behind that brittle shell (although there are one or two occasions even in 8 when they try to soften her, such as the scene where she pawns her ring to get Mack a VCR). And she did blossom into a great character from 9 on, but it is hard to see that potential in this season.

    B) Karen's kidnapping is also a big issue. Presumably, it is there in part so that Paige could wreak havoc in the MacKenzie household that she could not have done otherwise (ten to one, the affair with Michael would not have happened if Karen was there to guide the household, and it also gives Paige more opportuity to butter up Mack), but even setting that aside, it makes no sense for a character to be abducted by someone we never heard of before this plot point. Plus, of course, this was only a year after Dynasty dragged doing such a plot for 12 episodes, which, combined with that show's lack of fatalities after the season 5 cliffhanger, sent the show's ratings downhill rapidly (Dynasty went from #1 to #69 in the ratings in four years, the kicker being it went from #24 to #69 in just two years). And while the Dynasty plotline was silly with its doppleganger of Krystal, that one made more sense because the plan had been orchestrated by a character the audience already knew (Sammy Jo). Here, it is just plain sloppy and out of left-field.

    C) The way that veteran cast members get sidelined. I guess I didn't realize that Joan had less screentime that year, since Valene was still in all the episodes, but perhaps it is no surprise that Julie Harris and Constance McCashin (two favorites) were written out early the next year, because both of them are missing from a lot of episodes this year. (Constance though was pregnant at the time, so, much like Pamela Bellwood on Dynasty a year earlier, it seems like her real-life pregnancy helped to terminate her employment)

    D) What they did to the theme music in the opening credits is criminally bad.

    E) Given all the death misdirections this year, its strange that Sylvia, Peter, and (most likely, given he never reappears after his exit this year) Ben all die offscreen. Perhaps the forced budget cuts that would affect season 9 started early.

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    1. F) Peter is overused, to little point often (other than the amusing scene where Gary catches him with Abby in bed), and also frankly his character is so noxious with what he does to Sylvia and Olivia and inadvertently to Jill that it makes it hard to stomach even looking at him after a while. I do think that probably laid into the idea of killing him off at the end of the season, and that it is pretty obvious that they will do so as soon as he attemts to seduce Olivia to try to get the letter which just gets destroyed anyway. Olivia was clearly underage, as was Tonya Crowe. Soapland had previously had some assignations between underage characters and adults (the pilots of Dallas and Falcon Crest), but there both times, the actresses playing the roles (Charlene Tilton and Jaime Rose) were both in their early 20s. You didn't have that comfort here. So when Peter tries to suck up to Olivia, it's queasy, the show feels that way too, and it feels like only a matter of time before they kill him off.

      G) I guess until your writeup, I never realized how many misdirections there were, although it does seem pretty obvious that they wouldn't kill off Greg despite the sound of the shot at the end of that episode, since the show was relying more and more on William Devane. We could also assume Jill would survive given that Vickie II on Falcon Crest survived something similar a few weeks earlier in the season.But all the stuff about Paige or Anne possibly being dead is hopelessly confusing, wrongheaded,and unnecessary. [Anne's lie though that Greg might be Paige's father is necessary to the plot though in the short-term: Paige never would have had the big fight with Peter if she didn't legitimately think they were related, and thus the weasel would have stayed around even longer. The irony is that his own lies got him in the end.]

      On the other hand, while definitely not a favorite or a particularly good plotline (in fact I've never seen anyone on Knots forum pages ever defend Jean Hackney), I more or less bought into the Ben as former spy plot, if only because of some of what happened with him all the way back in Season 5. Back then, he was really dropped into the plot suddenly, grabbing Valene (who doesn't know him from Adam at this point) and pushing her away from the other reporters at the courthouse. It was the most sudden entry of a major character in the show, and that, combined with his globe-trotting adventures and his temporary disappearance in the South American jungles that year (which ironically would be the way he was written out for good three years later) gave the indication that there was more to him than the low-key nice guy persona indicated. So when this all transpired, on some level it made sense. Maybe not so much sense to have built much of the season about it, but still....

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    2. Anne might not be "down-to-earth" like Mack claimed (rose colored glasses), but Michelle Phillips was a breath of fresh air to the season, adding some much needed humor as well as giving the welcome putdown of this shifty prototype of Paige. I wish the show had brought her back earlier than season 11 (and that one off guest spot in 10).

      "No Miracle Worker" is indeed a wonderful episode, and I also really like the season finale "Cement the Relationship" . And we do get the scene (I forget which episode) of Karen, Valene, and the overstretched sweater, which is a gem.

      And of course, the main veteran cast members do a wonderful job throughout the season. Unlike the later Season 13, the veterans don't feel lost.

      I do feel though that it should be noted that all the groundwork for the wonderful unhinged Jill plot of 9-10 is started in this season. Jill is relatively normal when we first meet her, but in succession this season, she has that big fall which causes her to miscarry, Abby tells her that she will never measure up in Gary's mind to Valene (this was the beginning of her bad behavior, subtle at first) and her brother gets killed.
      I guess ultimately, I find the year to be ideas decidedly humdrum, with several very bad ideas. It should have been much better, but it fell flat.

      I do think though that Latham/Lechowick though had a similar issue to Romano and company later on. I think I heard that they were more familiar with Dallas and Dynasty then they were with Knots when they started on it. I presume they decided to work at Knots since Jacobs had been hands-on with their short-lived Berringers, but maybe, perhaps, if they had studied earlier episodes more, their first season wouldn't have been filled with so many mistakes.I

      (Also, while this truly belongs on Season 10's discussion, I wouldn't entirely lay the entire blame for the dismantling of the possible Gary/Pat affair with them. I think it was due in part to Hollywood gossip. In 1986, Lorimar bought MGM's old property (where they had been filming interior scenes for Knots and Dallas for years), while MGM moved to a building across the street. It only stands to reason that many of the Lorimar and MGM execs knew each other and kept in touch, and right around the time that Pat told Karen that she had a crush on Gary, MGM was doing pre-release test screenings of The Mighty Quinn, a theatrical film which had a scene where a police inspector (Denzel Washington) interrogates a bored trophy wife (Mimi Rogers) about a murder. As the scene originally played, Rogers tried to seduce Washington by laying a kiss on him, but by all accounts, the test audiences, both black and white, despised the moment and it got cut from the film. I have reason to think that word of this got across the street and that is why this plotline on Knots never came to be)

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