A distraught woman depressed over not having a baby climbs to the roof of a building and threatens to jump. Fortunately, Bobby talks Pam down and--whoops! Wrong show!
Did you experience deja vu all over again watching this episode of DYNASTY? Yeah, because we saw it all before a season ago on DALLAS (in ep 5.5, "The Sweet Smell of Revenge," to be precise). I mean, I can see one primetime drama drawing inspiration from another, but lifting a plot wholesale? Surely the producers knew that Friday night DALLAS fans were also digging DYNASTY on Wednesdays?
As this episode unfolded and even before Claudia went all Pam Ewing I was frustrated. The retroactive continuity implant (retcon) of Blake and Alexis' first child Adam being kidnapped was a ridiculous development, as was the fact Fallon knew nothing about it. Something that big would surely have come out, whether from Cecil Colby or especially during Blake's trial.
Okay, Adam Carrington was needed as a replacement for Steven after Al Corley left the show to pursue fame as a pop singer. I get it. And since Heather Locklear traded up from playing slutty Sammy Jo to playing squeaky-clean Stacy Sheridan on T. J. HOOKER, the series needed another out-of-left-field relative to turn up and vex Joseph and upend the Carrington applecart.
But talk about spoilers! Let's put Gordon Thomson in a tuxedo juxtaposed with a champagne bottle in the opening titles starting with the third season opener "The Plea." But in that episode Thomson is living a rustic-intellectual John-Boy Walton life in Billings, Montana. Will he ever be reunited with his real parents and family? No need to guess or wonder as the inept producers punctured the suspense and gave it all away in the opening titles.
Saving graces of this episode included erstwhile B. J. AND THE BEAR regular Eric Server as the suicide counselor who tries to talk Claudia down. Joanne Linville guest starred as a Barbara Waltersesque reporter who wants to win another Pulitzer Prize writing about the Adam Carrington kidnapping. Joseph tells Blake her character, Claire Maynard, has arrived, but Bergere shares no scenes with Linville. Too bad, because it would have been a cheap thrill for the thin ranks of third season Star Trek fans to see Abraham Lincoln meet the Romulan commander in the Carrington sitting room!
But even that imagined surreal moment couldn't surpass that of Claudia pitching forward and dispatching the baby like a miniature torpedo off the roof of the Rosslyn Hotel. Cut to slow-motion shots from every conceivable angle of the "baby" falling and of the cast and gathered crowd gasping as it falls ever and inexorably downward...!
Aw, c'mon! You knew that wasn't a real baby, right? First, I can't imagine ABC's Standards and Practices allowing a baby to die on a primetime show by splattering on the roof of a police car. But the fact we never actually saw the baby was the biggest clue and giveaway. Speaking of giveaways, wasn't that a nice landlady at the hotel calling the cops before the newscast even finished announcing Claudia was being sought by police? For a woman who claimed to understand what it's like to have a husband in the slammer, she sure couldn't wait to rally the boys in blue against her supposed soul sister.
On the topic of cops, jarringly Arlen Dean Snyder (Lt. Cobb) is out and James Wainwright (Lt. Lockwood) is in--but only for this episode. Neither character appears again. It made no sense in the story to recast the police officer in charge of the investigation, so I suspected a casting department snafu.
Another bright spot was seeing veteran actor R. G. Armstrong back as cemetery caretaker Alfred Grimes. Grimes doesn't take kindly to being high hatted by Jeff Colby and rips him in a rant that leaves Jeff flummoxed. Jeff was uncharacteristically aristocratic here, so I wasn't sorry to see him get dragged down a few pegs by the wheelbarrow-pushing proletariat.
Meanwhile, Christine Belford raids the wine cellar and gets loaded in the Carrington kitchen. Who can blame her? Less than a decade ago she was second billed to George Peppard in BANACEK, and now she's just a name among many in the end credits. Fallon, pathetically blubbering about Nick and the baby she was eager to abort, finds no sympathy from convicted felon Farragut, who punctuates her harangue of the brat heiress by pitching her wine glass across the kitchen. It's been a tough episode for Jeff and Fallon!
Another veteran actor, Lloyd Bochner, makes his penultimate series appearance lying in bed under an oxygen tent. It was nice to see Jeff make his peace with Cecil and that Alexis, despite her devious and self-serving maneuverings, knows not to upset the ailing man by mentioning the kidnapping. Or maybe that was just more of Alexis' devious and self-serving maneuverings? Can't risk having Cecil die until after next episode's wedding!
My review's title, swiped from Van Halen like the rooftop plot was swiped from DALLAS, is two-pronged. Did I want Claudia to take the Nestea plunge off the roof of the Rosslyn? No! Are there dorsal fins evident in the water and Is DYNASTY readying to jump the shark? Maybe! This episode was so bad in so many ways, and I see no promising prospects in the plotlines being prepped and readied. Meanwhile I'm watching DALLAS' concurrent sixth season episodes and while the bloom is off the rose, there's promise and potential of new life with developing characters and plotlines.
Let's face it: DYNASTY's second season was turbo-boosted by James Farentino as Nick Toscanni, His energy and commanding presence is sorely missed. I'm hanging in with high hopes this series course corrects and regains cruising altitude after passing through this present period of creative turbulence.
Did you experience deja vu all over again watching this episode of DYNASTY? Yeah, because we saw it all before a season ago on DALLAS (in ep 5.5, "The Sweet Smell of Revenge," to be precise). I mean, I can see one primetime drama drawing inspiration from another, but lifting a plot wholesale? Surely the producers knew that Friday night DALLAS fans were also digging DYNASTY on Wednesdays?
As this episode unfolded and even before Claudia went all Pam Ewing I was frustrated. The retroactive continuity implant (retcon) of Blake and Alexis' first child Adam being kidnapped was a ridiculous development, as was the fact Fallon knew nothing about it. Something that big would surely have come out, whether from Cecil Colby or especially during Blake's trial.
Okay, Adam Carrington was needed as a replacement for Steven after Al Corley left the show to pursue fame as a pop singer. I get it. And since Heather Locklear traded up from playing slutty Sammy Jo to playing squeaky-clean Stacy Sheridan on T. J. HOOKER, the series needed another out-of-left-field relative to turn up and vex Joseph and upend the Carrington applecart.
But talk about spoilers! Let's put Gordon Thomson in a tuxedo juxtaposed with a champagne bottle in the opening titles starting with the third season opener "The Plea." But in that episode Thomson is living a rustic-intellectual John-Boy Walton life in Billings, Montana. Will he ever be reunited with his real parents and family? No need to guess or wonder as the inept producers punctured the suspense and gave it all away in the opening titles.
Saving graces of this episode included erstwhile B. J. AND THE BEAR regular Eric Server as the suicide counselor who tries to talk Claudia down. Joanne Linville guest starred as a Barbara Waltersesque reporter who wants to win another Pulitzer Prize writing about the Adam Carrington kidnapping. Joseph tells Blake her character, Claire Maynard, has arrived, but Bergere shares no scenes with Linville. Too bad, because it would have been a cheap thrill for the thin ranks of third season Star Trek fans to see Abraham Lincoln meet the Romulan commander in the Carrington sitting room!
But even that imagined surreal moment couldn't surpass that of Claudia pitching forward and dispatching the baby like a miniature torpedo off the roof of the Rosslyn Hotel. Cut to slow-motion shots from every conceivable angle of the "baby" falling and of the cast and gathered crowd gasping as it falls ever and inexorably downward...!
Aw, c'mon! You knew that wasn't a real baby, right? First, I can't imagine ABC's Standards and Practices allowing a baby to die on a primetime show by splattering on the roof of a police car. But the fact we never actually saw the baby was the biggest clue and giveaway. Speaking of giveaways, wasn't that a nice landlady at the hotel calling the cops before the newscast even finished announcing Claudia was being sought by police? For a woman who claimed to understand what it's like to have a husband in the slammer, she sure couldn't wait to rally the boys in blue against her supposed soul sister.
On the topic of cops, jarringly Arlen Dean Snyder (Lt. Cobb) is out and James Wainwright (Lt. Lockwood) is in--but only for this episode. Neither character appears again. It made no sense in the story to recast the police officer in charge of the investigation, so I suspected a casting department snafu.
Another bright spot was seeing veteran actor R. G. Armstrong back as cemetery caretaker Alfred Grimes. Grimes doesn't take kindly to being high hatted by Jeff Colby and rips him in a rant that leaves Jeff flummoxed. Jeff was uncharacteristically aristocratic here, so I wasn't sorry to see him get dragged down a few pegs by the wheelbarrow-pushing proletariat.
Meanwhile, Christine Belford raids the wine cellar and gets loaded in the Carrington kitchen. Who can blame her? Less than a decade ago she was second billed to George Peppard in BANACEK, and now she's just a name among many in the end credits. Fallon, pathetically blubbering about Nick and the baby she was eager to abort, finds no sympathy from convicted felon Farragut, who punctuates her harangue of the brat heiress by pitching her wine glass across the kitchen. It's been a tough episode for Jeff and Fallon!
Another veteran actor, Lloyd Bochner, makes his penultimate series appearance lying in bed under an oxygen tent. It was nice to see Jeff make his peace with Cecil and that Alexis, despite her devious and self-serving maneuverings, knows not to upset the ailing man by mentioning the kidnapping. Or maybe that was just more of Alexis' devious and self-serving maneuverings? Can't risk having Cecil die until after next episode's wedding!
My review's title, swiped from Van Halen like the rooftop plot was swiped from DALLAS, is two-pronged. Did I want Claudia to take the Nestea plunge off the roof of the Rosslyn? No! Are there dorsal fins evident in the water and Is DYNASTY readying to jump the shark? Maybe! This episode was so bad in so many ways, and I see no promising prospects in the plotlines being prepped and readied. Meanwhile I'm watching DALLAS' concurrent sixth season episodes and while the bloom is off the rose, there's promise and potential of new life with developing characters and plotlines.
Let's face it: DYNASTY's second season was turbo-boosted by James Farentino as Nick Toscanni, His energy and commanding presence is sorely missed. I'm hanging in with high hopes this series course corrects and regains cruising altitude after passing through this present period of creative turbulence.
