When Knots Landing First Landed - Season 1 (Knots Landing - The Complete First Season (DVD))

Member Name: anonymili

Product:	Knots Landing - The Complete First Season (DVD)
Date:	06/11/09 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brought back some great memories of late 70s/early 80s

Disadvantages: Some might find it too dated

"My name is anonymili and I'm a soapaholic."

There I've said it (although I know I've said it elsewhere before). During the 80s and 90s I watched several American soaps religiously without fail including Dallas and its spinoff series Knots Landing. For some strange reason even though Dallas was more mainstream and more popular I loved Knots Landing from the very first time I saw it and was hooked for the 14 years that the show ran for. The show ran from 1979 to 1993.

Apologies in advance for this extremely long review! Don't say you weren't warned!


WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?

A handful of couples live in a cul-de-sac in Knots Landing, California where Gary and Valene Ewing move after remarrying after many years of being apart to start a new life. They become firm friends with their neighbours Sid and Karen Fairgate who have 3 children and soon Gary gets a job working for Sid at his car dealership. Kenny and Ginger, newlyweds, also live on the close as well as Richard & Laura Avery with their young son Jason.


WHAT ABOUT THE CHARACTERS?

Gary Ewing was the middle brother of JR & Bobby Ewing, fictional characters made famous by the TV serial Dallas. Gary didn't appear very often in Dallas but Knots Landing became his home and he was always one of the main characters of the show. Gary was an alcoholic and was referred to as the black sheep of the Ewing family although he was always considered the favourite of his mother Miss Ellie. He was seen as having severe issues living up to the Ewing name so when he moved to Knots Landing he needed to make a name for himself and starting afresh it seemed high likely that he would succeed as he was genuinely a nice character. Gary and Valene had got together at the ages of 17 and 15 respectively, then split up, had their daughter Lucy and then got back together 17 years later, so when they enter Knots Landing Gary was supposed to be around 34 years old. Gary was played by Ted Shackelford who I had a bit of a crush on all those years ago as I considered him to be quite a hunk.

Gary's wife Valene was a fairly uneducated "Texas gal" who Gary had got pregnant in her teens with their daughter Lucy (who was a regular character on Dallas). Valene was a simple woman in her tastes and needs from life but there was absolutely no doubting her love and commitment to her husband. Valene was played superbly by the fabulous Joan Van Ark. Throughout the series Valene was a character I alternated between really liking and intensely disliking as I found her quite enchanting at times and extremely dippy at other times!

Sid Fairgate owns a car dealership which also services and repairs vehicles. He takes Gary on to work for him unaware of the fact that Gary is an alcoholic. Sid is a well respected man in the community and he is the perfect father and husband. He has an ex-wife and teenage daughter from his first marriage who appear briefly during this season. Sid was played by Don Murray; he was definitely a likeable character, a gentle caring family man with a strong sense of ethics, even though he was a car salesman...

Karen Fairgate doesn't work for a living in season 1 but she is heavily involved in various women's rights campaigns and is extremely passionate about her work. She has her husband's support and is portrayed to be the perfect wife and mother. The Fairgates come across a bit like The Brady Bunch. Karen was played very ably by Michelle Lee and really she's a character I should have liked as I could identify with many of her personality traits but often I found her rather condescending (and I would think "Oh God; is that how I come across to people?")!

Kenny is a record producer. He's a bit of a Casanova type and is cheating on his beautiful and devoted wife with a singer. He is not portrayed as a very ethical man but he does genuinely seem to love his wife, he just can't seem to help cheating on her. Kenny was played by James Houghton who was quite attractive but even all those years ago I couldn't bring myself to have a crush on a character who was so self-absorbed. To be quite honest, seeing him in this season I realised that he was actually one of the poorer actors in the show which probably shows why he had such short lived acting roles on other shows such as The Colbys and The Young and The Restless.

Ginger is a kindergarten teacher. She is a gentle young woman who adores her husband but is not overly keen on his being out late all of the time due to various "business parties" and she suspects deep down that he is being unfaithful to her but doesn't really confront him. Ginger was one of my favourite characters in Knots Landing in the early years although she wasn't really one of the really key characters. Ginger & Kenny didn't get a lot of airtime but on reflection it was probably due to their acting skills not being up there with the leads in the show. Ginger was played by Kim Lankford.

Richard Avery is a lawyer. He's been in his company for nearly 10 years and hasn't got anywhere in the way of promotion. He comes across as someone who will do the least possible and hope to gain the most from it. He is what we call a real male chauvinist who expects his wife to be at home all day cooking and cleaning for him and it's evident also that he's not very faithful to her wife either. Richard was played by John Pleshette who I feel excelled in the role as I really wanted to knock him out as he was such an egomaniac - I always feel to bring that level of dislike to a character usually means the actor is doing a great job!

Laura Avery is a devoted wife who is somewhat of a doormat. She is constantly put down by her husband both in private and in public and has very low self esteem. Laura was played by the very delicate looking and ladylike Constance McCashin and it was nice to see her character grow within herself as the series developed. By the end of the season 1 we were to see marked changes in her personality which I felt were all for the better although she went through some awful traumas which contributed to these changes which is not something one would wish on anyone.


WERE THE STORYLINES CREDIBLE?

Some of the storylines might seem a little dated now but I do feel the show at the start of the series tried to get across some meaningful storylines to make its audience think. It wasn't particularly a sexy steamy show and I do believe it was meant to be targetted at a family audience. I was watching this from the age of 12 or 13 with my mum and I doubt she'd have let me watch it if she felt it was too raunchy. It had less scandalous storylines than Dallas did which I also used to watch every week with my mum and had more of a family feel to it as the characters all lived in a cul-de-sac and most of them had children of varying ages from naughty toddlers to terrible teens.

I especially liked the way the writers dealt with the storyline (over 2 episodes) about Gary's alcoholism, BOTTOM OF THE BOTTLE 1 & 2, I found it compelling viewing and even though it didn't make much sense to me when I watched it as a child (as I couldn't even remember watching it back then) it was quite an eye-opener to see it as a "grown-up" and really appreciate what the background was to Gary's drinking problem and how it was dealt with.

I enjoyed the episode WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN where we first meet Lilimae Clements (Valene's mother played by Julie Harris) who abandoned her when she was young. I felt the issue of how an adult feels when a parents who left them to fend for themselves when they were too young to cope alone was dealt with very sensitively and this lays the foundation for their future relationship (Lilimae becomes more of a regular character in later seasons). Julie Harris was lovely in the role and the on screen chemistry with Van Ark was fantastic.

Another episode that stood out for me was HOME IS FOR HEALING in which Lucy comes to stay with her parents Gary and Valene from Dallas and lots of misunderstandings take place as Lucy runs riot. Knowing Lucy from the show Dallas it was interesting to see her crossover for an episode to Knots Landing and what she feels about her parents remarrying after so many years apart and the fact that she wasn't told about it till quite some time afterwards. Lucy had a lot of resentment towards her mother for feeling she was abandoned and even though her uncle JR had literally kidnapped her from Valene and told her never to try to get Lucy back; deep down Lucy felt that Valene could have done more to get her back, so this episode sees more of a clash with her mother than with Gary.

The episode I least liked from this season was LAND OF THE FREE in which a motorcycle gang comes to Knots Landing and runs riot. It was quite unrealistic and I didn't believe that they got away with the behaviour that they did for most of the episode. It was overall a very far-fetched episode and I found it hard to sit through it to the end.

All in all I wouldn't rate this as my favourite season of Knots Landing but it was a good introduction season to the characters and it was really "real". Some of the later season became quite far-fetched with their storylines with major characters involved in gangster activity, conspiracy, kidnappings which weren't resolved for years, etc. And of course if you ever were a fan of Knots Landing you'd know about Abby Cunningham (who later had several other surnames) - she wasn't in season 1 and for a female soap villain to be missing from a show who could give Dallas and Dynasty bitches a real run for their money was a real shame. But bring on season 2 where Abby moves into the cul-de-sac...


ANY OTHER BUSINESS

I remember when I watched the show all those years ago, I quite enjoyed the theme music and this was not the case at the start of the episodes. I found the repetitive trumpet beat quite grating and found myself skipping the credits to avoid listening to the music. You can see the pilot episode credits here with an intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRCPD1oyQKE&fea ture=PlayList&p= 6B2495BB105AF7DE&playnext=1&playnext_from= PL&index=36 - do you recognise the music? (NB: you'll need to remove the space from the url to get it to work)

You might also notice that most of the houses have swimming pools - you had to be fairly affluent to live in this neighbourhood!

When I first purchased this boxset season 2 had not be released but it's now available due to public demand.


DVD EXTRAS

There are 5 DVDs in this set and each episode runs for about 45-48 minutes. What I found rather annoying about this boxset was that you have to scroll through 4 pages of languages before you get to "United Kingdom" for each DVD which really wasn't fun!

There is audio commentary by Ted Shackleford and Joan Van Ark on the pilot episode which I found quite amusing. The characters seem to have such a great relationship off screen that they tease each other mercilessly during the audio commentary and make amusing comments about the scenes such as when someone's cutting plants in the garden how there were inconsistencies in the scene. They talk about how old fashioned the cars look and Joan reminds Ted that it WAS way back in 1979. When the scene of Gary and Valene first arriving in Knots Landing is shown, the stars dissolve into laughter at the fact that Valene is wearing a summer dress and a pair or winter gloves!

One of the extras on the DVD with the final two episodes of the season is a reunion between Ted Shackelford and Joan Van Ark. They're sitting on one of the front lawn in the cul-de-sac on the original set. They rib each other good-naturedly and there's even a bit when Shackleford becomes a bit weepy when reminiscing about the good old days. I wasn't 100% sure if he was really emotional but it didn't seem faked.

The DVD had the usual extras such as:

* Play
* Episodes
* Features (only on 1st and last DVD in the set)
* Languages (English or German spoken only) and (English or German) Subtitles and (English or German) for the Hearing Impaired

I found the subtitles to be of good quality throughout this season. Sometimes when you watch a show with subtitles on, it's strange how they say something on the screen and the subtitles say something different but that wasn't the case with Knots Landing. Even the laughter comes up on the screen as "hahaha" or (cast member name) "giggles".


OVERALL

I'm more than happy to give this boxset a strong 4 out of 5 stars. It's not my favourite DVD set but it's staying in my permanent collection. At just under £10 I think it's a reasonable price for 13 episodes and the extras included. Maybe I'll lend it to my mum to remind her of us watching and enjoying this show over 20 years ago together every week.


TECHNICAL

DVD release date: 2007
No of discs: 5
Certification: 12
Run time: 666 minutes
Created by: David Jacobs


NB and off topic: I'm not at all soapaholic these days so I guess I lied in my opening sentence! I've even managed to wean myself off Eastenders which I watched religiously for 20 odd years and now only watch it very randomly!

Summary: A great piece of nostalgic for fans of US soaps