It was FALCON CREST which initially had the most pronounced atmosphere. there was no sense of location, geographic or otherwise, to DYNASTY (especially after Seasons 1 & 2, when they'd at least made a nominal effort). For one thing, early-FC was the most earth-bound, the most organic, of the bunch DALLAS had its earthy moments, shooting on location six weeks every summer to obtain as much Texas-based footage as possible for the year, with a fair amount of chatter, mostly from Miss Ellie, about the hallowed nature of Southfork Ranch KNOTS LANDING had the beach right there, but literally countless shows over the decades have filmed in southern California DYNASTY, of course, filmed inside a closet - with room for everyone but Steven. But in their key seasons, FALCON CREST possessed an element even the others didn't quite. That had a lot to do with why they worked (for a while) and why they lasted well-passed the point the producers seemed to drop the ball in terms of their narratives. But what was it?Īll the four successful nighttime soaps of the '80s were particularly well-cast.
Yet during the first few seasons of FALCON CREST, the series just seemed to have had.
Subsequent seasons just didn't work: Season 5 was too drab and cluttered (and could've used a new murder mystery), Season 6 felt at first like a renaissance for the show before turning to excessive campiness by the end of that year, a shlocky vibe which devoured Season 7 CBS demanded that producers "fix" the show after the S7 droop in the ratings, but Season 8's attempt to go straight again just resulted in a greater decline in the Nielsen numbers as the show no longer seemed to know how to tell a serious tale without becoming boring and while some argue that the writing improved during Season 9 after another internal staff shake-up, the show no longer looked nor felt like FALCON CREST, be it good or bad. Someone close to the show also once stated that FALCON CREST was the most harassed Top 10 show in the history of television, referring to constant interference from executives, not just at Lorimar but also at CBS (among other things, the network demanded that the Nazi treasure plot be immediately dropped just 10 episodes before the end of Season 4, that year's main storyline, forcing the writers to cobble together enough fractured narrative to complete the season - this point being where I see FC derailing permanently). And DYNASTY seemed to commit suicide early on, an innate '80s-style insecurity and neurotic rigidity quickly cancelling out its immense potential.īut FALCON CREST was murdered, or at least mortally wounded, after about Season 3 or 4, due in large part to a Lorimar executive demanding the show's brain and de facto show-runner, Robert McCullough (and his writers, Stern & Black) be fired at the close of S3, studio politics the apparent culprit. KNOTS only succumbed to daytime-TV-itis in its last couple of seasons in terms of the incoming youthful cast, while maintaining story quality nearly all the way.
Now, why would I "care the least" about FALCON CREST? Even though DALLAS slid in its last few seasons, it had provided nearly a decade of good-to-excellent seasons, so its eventual decline can be chalked up to the usual creative fatigue associated with a series running a long time. Was it those elaborate mancaves, set back against the orange mountains surrounding the valley, that the Channings and the Giobertis lived in? I have also said that while I loved DALLAS the most, had the most aspirations for DYNASTY but was most disappointed by it, respected KNOTS the most for its intelligence and relative consistency, I cared the least about FALCON CREST yet felt somehow the closest to it.
I, myself, who never dreams nocturnally of the soaps, has nevertheless dreamed off-and-on since the early-'80s about the Falcon Crest foyer, and for decades had no idea why. And a few years ago, JfL started a thread on it (wiped out by the 9/11 site crash of 2016). Likewise, her ex-husband, Douglas Channing, described the place as having a mesmerizing effect on all of them, even himself.
Even Angela made the comment very early on in the series that there's just something about Falcon Crest which pulls you back in.