That new Dallas revival show on TNT isn't half bad. I am quite enjoying all the scheming and backstabbing that goes on in it's "battle for Southfork" style season. While it may not be able to top the cliffhanger amazingness of Who Shot JR? or match the sheer bonkersoity of Bobby Ewing coming back from the dead in the shower (it was all a horrible dream Pam, including your marriage to Mark Grayson), it's fine and dandy for the timebeing. However, all this makes me do is yearn for a Dynasty revival even more. Imagine RuPaul playing Dominique Deveraux?! Fabulous. Anyway, here are several reasons why Dynasty remains better than Dallas...
- Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan ~ I'm pretty sure there has yet to be a better bitch on tv than the one played by Joan Collins. Whether it's her constant barbed putdowns to wishy washy drip Krystle or her boardroom shenanigans (so brilliant they were quoted by Bette Midler in Big Business), she did with over the top style, ferocity and massive, massive hair. Amaze.
- The changing guard of Carrington Children ~ When the show started, it was just Fallon and Steven. Steven then got blown up on a oil rig and came back as a different actor. Fallon had a car crash, lost her memory, had a personality transplant and came back as Emma Sams. A couple of seasons in, Blake and Alexis remembered they had a kidnapped child called Adam, who later turned up (but years later turned out wasn't Adam at all, but they adopted him anyway) and then a fourth child miraculously materialised in the shape of Amanda. She too was played by two different actresses, but wisely written out in season 7 in the throwaway line "oh she's gone to England". Brillz.
- The Moldavian Wedding ~ talking of Amanda (and I suppose we must), one of Dynasty's most audacious moments came when Amanda married Prince Michael of made up country Moldavia. There was a political commotion in the country which meant rebels stormed the royal wedding and the season ended with all the guests lying on the floor gunned down. Miraculously, only Ali McGraw (she never lives) and Steven's gay lover died!
- The shocking coninkydinks ~ When Blake belatedly remembered that he had a brother, Ben (to be fair, he'd forgotten he had a son Adam so perhaps he was suffering from major memory loss), he suddenly and amazingly turned up the next episode. No such delays when, 2 seasons later, Ben confided in Blake that he had been married for over 20 years and had a grown up daughter... she turned up the same episode, bumped into Adam Carrington quite by chance at an airport in Australia, then turned out to know Dex Dexter and Michael Culane (the chauffer who had boinked both original Fallon and replacement Amanda!) And yet no-one ever knew! The preposterous nature of the show was something I loved about it!
- The rubbish spin off ~ Knots Landing went for ages didn't it? It even survived when it chose to ignore that Bobby wasn't dead and the past season should have been part of Pam's dream, ergo Bobby remains dead in the Knots Landing canon! The Colbys was probably just a year or two too late yet it still surpassed KL. There was the Jeff-Fallon-Miles love triangle, the Miss Ellie type matriarch, the sweet-viciousness of Sable Colby, Tracy Scoggins limbering up for a year of over-acting as Cat in The New Adventures of Superman and the odd Dynasty crossover. Of course it all came to an end when Fallon got onto a spaceship - a storyline mentioned when the characters returned to Dynasty: "It smelt like cinnamon" claims Fallon. "Perhaps the aliens were baking" retorts a trying to be understanding Jeff...
- The sickening parties ~ remember when JR would just throw a barbecue on the Southfork ranch? None of that in the world of Dynasty! It was an Oil Baron's Ball almost every episode with opulent gowns, gorgeous party venues and oodles of caviar. Frankly I don't think Alexis would have had it any other way. A barbecue indeed!!
- THE CAT FIGHTS ~ there was nothing more satisfying than a Dynasty catfight. While the Sammy-Jo~Fallon ones were generally quite good, the Alexis~Krystle ones were solid gold. The best was during the reunion show where Alexis is running some grotty clothing store, Krystle turns up, Alexis boasts of her sexual prowess with Blake (lets face it, Krystle probably just lies there) and they end up throwing sparkles at each other. YOU CRAZY COW! (Note how their bodies get stunt man large half way through the fight. Tremendulent!
And Lauren, Jeff and Fallon's daughter.
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