I've been watching since last year on DVD and I was pleasantly surprised to find a show that aged so well. The character of Fallon Carrington in season 1 is perhaps the best ever written for an actress on TV, and Pamela Sue Martin did a great job. The spoiled rich girl with her horse, and the expensive vintage car she's messing up without caring, and her Dad's entire basketball team that she is taking to bed. All the while we could see she would make a fiery company president, and that Blake's heritage would be going to new heights with her at the helm, but because she did not get her Father's recognition, she took it out on those around her like a She-Wolf of the SS. All of the early episodes of Season 1 up to where Blake goes to trial had Fallon as the one to watch.
But things went downhill from there. According to Esther Shapiro, they actually listened to what viewers wanted, and gave them the show they asked for. Apparently people said they loved the show but Fallon was nasty. Hell, they watched to see the nasty girl tear into the others. Imagine people saying, DALLAS is a great show, but J.R.Ewing is such a bad guy, change it! And, horrors! the entire Carrington saga was changed, shoddily so, with Season 2 unrecognizable almost. Fallon lost her claws, and by Season 3 she's dumped at La Mirage with that tennis instructor/Tom Selleck-wannabe courting her. Boring. What a waste. And Alexis. What did the people see in Alexis? That old witch? And she was a style icon of her time. While both she and Krystle are dressed up so extravagantly they look overblown and downright silly. The only good thing about Season 2 is, of course, Heather Locklear, who is a long way off from being Amanda Woodward in MELROSE PLACE, a show that at least understood the allure of the vixen, and didn't try to hide them to please viewers who were just ashamed to admit how they enjoyed that tigress. But after Fallon takes a nose-dive, there is Sammy Jo Carrington who brings life into what is otherwise quite dull.
Okay, I'm currently watching Season 3 towards the last quarter, so there could still be surprises, but those first episodes were the best.
But things went downhill from there. According to Esther Shapiro, they actually listened to what viewers wanted, and gave them the show they asked for. Apparently people said they loved the show but Fallon was nasty. Hell, they watched to see the nasty girl tear into the others. Imagine people saying, DALLAS is a great show, but J.R.Ewing is such a bad guy, change it! And, horrors! the entire Carrington saga was changed, shoddily so, with Season 2 unrecognizable almost. Fallon lost her claws, and by Season 3 she's dumped at La Mirage with that tennis instructor/Tom Selleck-wannabe courting her. Boring. What a waste. And Alexis. What did the people see in Alexis? That old witch? And she was a style icon of her time. While both she and Krystle are dressed up so extravagantly they look overblown and downright silly. The only good thing about Season 2 is, of course, Heather Locklear, who is a long way off from being Amanda Woodward in MELROSE PLACE, a show that at least understood the allure of the vixen, and didn't try to hide them to please viewers who were just ashamed to admit how they enjoyed that tigress. But after Fallon takes a nose-dive, there is Sammy Jo Carrington who brings life into what is otherwise quite dull.
Okay, I'm currently watching Season 3 towards the last quarter, so there could still be surprises, but those first episodes were the best.