It was fun revisiting this TV series from the 1980's to relive my addiction to the show. Hard to believe that I would bother with such a shallow program based on ruthless business, the lust for money, adulterous relationships and family treason; not to mention acting and script writing that was so appalling.
Now, many years later after watching many fine TV shows on Masterpiece Theatre, the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and great movies on TCM, Dynasty seems like cheap fodder for viewers who never experienced great cinema; only a weekly fix of escapist entertainment.
I think that assessment is too easy a way to judge shows like Dynasty and that other1980's soap opera, Dallas.
We can become much too pretentious about our viewing pleasures and overlook what was happening in our culture in the 1980's. Baby boomers were raising families and abandoning their idealism in the race to get ahead, bring up gifted children and make money. Thus the attraction of those who embrace money and reject family loyalty as the boomers were finding life more at odds with their lost idealism. Add to that the desire for a dose of the reality they were encountering in their own lives.
All this tells us that television mirrors what is going on in our own world and what we make of it. The Carrington-Colby rivalry with the two protagonists personified by Blake Carrington and Alexis Colby was the new normal in a world that had gone from the early idealism of the boomers to to their bumping into the reality of life in a flawed world.
Now, many years later after watching many fine TV shows on Masterpiece Theatre, the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and great movies on TCM, Dynasty seems like cheap fodder for viewers who never experienced great cinema; only a weekly fix of escapist entertainment.
I think that assessment is too easy a way to judge shows like Dynasty and that other1980's soap opera, Dallas.
We can become much too pretentious about our viewing pleasures and overlook what was happening in our culture in the 1980's. Baby boomers were raising families and abandoning their idealism in the race to get ahead, bring up gifted children and make money. Thus the attraction of those who embrace money and reject family loyalty as the boomers were finding life more at odds with their lost idealism. Add to that the desire for a dose of the reality they were encountering in their own lives.
All this tells us that television mirrors what is going on in our own world and what we make of it. The Carrington-Colby rivalry with the two protagonists personified by Blake Carrington and Alexis Colby was the new normal in a world that had gone from the early idealism of the boomers to to their bumping into the reality of life in a flawed world.