Knots Landing
Knots Landing is an American primetime television soap opera that aired on CBS from December 27, 1979, to May 13, 1993. A spin-off of Dallas, it was set in a fictitious coastal suburb of Los Angeles and initially centered on the lives of four married couples living on a cul-de-sac, Seaview Circle. Throughout its 14-year run, storylines included marital strife, rape, murder, kidnapping, assassinations, drug smuggling, politics, environmental issues, corporate intrigue, and criminal investigations. By the time of its conclusion, it had become the third-longest-running primetime drama on U.S. television after Gunsmoke and Bonanza [Note 1] and the last scripted primetime drama show that debuted in the 1970s to leave the air.[Note 2]
Knots Landing
- James Houghton
- Kim Lankford
- Michele Lee
- Constance McCashin
- Don Murray
- John Pleshette
- Ted Shackelford
- Joan Van Ark
- Donna Mills
- Julie Harris
- Kevin Dobson
- Claudia Lonow
- Douglas Sheehan
- William Devane
- Lisa Hartman
- Alec Baldwin
- Teri Austin
- Nicollette Sheridan
- Hunt Block
- Patrick Petersen
- Tonya Crowe
- Michelle Phillips
- Larry Riley
- Stacy Galina
- Kathleen Noone
United States
English
14
344 (list of episodes)
Michael Filerman
David Jacobs
60 minutes
- Roundelay Productions
(1979–1982)
(seasons 1–3) - Roundelay-MF Productions (1982–1993)
(seasons 4–14) - Lorimar Productions
(1979–1986)
(seasons 1–7) - Lorimar-Telepictures
(1986–1988)
(seasons 8–9) - Lorimar Television
(1988–1993)
(seasons 10–14)
December 27, 1979 –
May 13, 1993
Knots Landing was created by David Jacobs (one-time writer of Family and later producer of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) in conjunction with producer Michael Filerman (who would also later co-produce Falcon Crest). Although a spin-off of Dallas, the concept predates that series, and was rebuffed by CBS in 1977, as the network wanted something more "saga-like". Jacobs then created Dallas, which the network accepted and premiered in 1978. After Dallas became a hit, Jacobs was then able to adapt Knots Landing as a spin-off series by way of incorporating the characters of Gary and Valene Ewing who were first introduced in Dallas. The series was largely inspired by a 1957 movie No Down Payment and also by the 1973 Ingmar Bergman television miniseries Scenes from a Marriage.
Though initially not as popular in the ratings as Dallas, Knots Landing ultimately outlasted it and garnered much critical acclaim. There were 344 episodes spanning 14 seasons of Knots Landing from 1979 to 1993. In 1997, much of the cast reunited for a two-part miniseries titled Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac. In 2005, they reunited again for the non-fiction special Knots Landing Reunion: Together Again in which the cast reminisced about their time on the show. Dallas itself was revived in 2012, with Gary and Valene Ewing appearing in its second season. During nearly the entire run of the original series, Knots Landing occupied the same timeslot: Thursday nights at 10:00 p.m. For a while, it was moved to the 9:00 p.m. timeslot when Falcon Crest was moved to Thursday nights for its final season. When Falcon Crest ended its run, Knots Landing was moved back to its 10:00 p.m. timeslot and stayed there until it ended its run.
Backstory[edit]
Gary Ewing (Ted Shackelford) was the middle son and black sheep of the Ewing family from Dallas. His father Jock (Jim Davis) and elder brother J. R. (Larry Hagman) had never treated him as an equal, and viewed him as a weak link. At 17, Gary ran away from home and met 15-year-old waitress Valene Clements (Joan Van Ark) and quickly married her, producing a daughter, Lucy (Charlene Tilton). The family arrived to Southfork Ranch, the Ewing homestead, and found that Gary had risen in his family's estimations: Jock liked Valene and was proud to be a grandfather, and Gary's mother Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes) was thrilled to have him home. At his parents' insistence, J. R. started including him in dealings at Ewing Oil, but J. R. landed him with failing business deals and made it appear that Gary was at fault. These pressures forced Gary into alcoholism and, unable to cope with disappointing his family, he fled Southfork, leaving Valene and Lucy behind. Without Gary in his way, J. R. persecuted Valene until she left the ranch, and Texas, with infant Lucy. She headed to Tennessee to find her mother, Lilimae Clements (Julie Harris), but Lilimae turned her away. Shortly afterward J. R. found her, taking Lucy back to Southfork to be raised by "true Ewings" and threatening Valene with a warning against returning to Texas.
Years later, youngest Ewing brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) and his wife Pamela (Victoria Principal) found Gary working as a waiter in Las Vegas, and they convinced him to return home and visit Miss Ellie. At the same time, Lucy discovered that Valene had returned to Dallas and was working as a waitress in a diner, and began meeting with her in secret to avoid J. R.'s wrath. Lucy then engineered a meeting between her parents, which led to them reconciling and moving into Southfork together. J. R., upset and jealous that his parents were now lauding Gary's new start, saddled him with a failing company, the pressures of which led to him choosing to leave Southfork before he relapsed into drinking again. J. R. then forced Valene off the ranch again without letting her say goodbye to Lucy; instead, J. R. made out that Valene had abandoned her again, and taken a $5000 payoff from him. During these episodes on Dallas the part of Gary Ewing was originally portrayed by David Ackroyd.
A year later, Valene appeared at Lucy's college hoping for a reconciliation. Still thinking Valene had run out on her, Lucy rebuffed her. However, with help from Bobby, Lucy and Valene reconciled again and they maintained their relationship. Shortly afterwards, Valene revealed to Miss Ellie that she and Gary were still writing to each other. Gary returned to Dallas and mended his relationship with Jock, before marrying Valene for a second time. After they announced that they were planning to move to California, Miss Ellie bought them a new-build house as a wedding present.
Knots Landing is officially spun off from Dallas in the third-season episode "Return Engagements".
Behind the scenes[edit]
Knots Landing was created by David Jacobs, whose original concept was a show based on "family issues and examining relationships at the middle class level".[2] CBS initially turned down this idea, as they wanted something more "glitzy" to put on the air, with wealthier characters, which would become Dallas.[2] Once that show became a success after the initial run as a five-episode miniseries, the producers decided to expand the roles of certain characters. They introduced Lucy Ewing's (Charlene Tilton) parents, who had not been shown on-screen until that point,[3] in the two-part episode "The Reunion". After the success of Dallas, Jacobs presented his initial idea again and created Knots Landing, with some alterations of his original script.[2] In an interview, Jacobs explained: " Well, that's pretty good, but you know-and then he pulled out the pages that we'd left for them a few years ago on Knots Landing, or a year before on Knots, and he said, 'Is there any way we can make this a spin-off?' I just took one of the couples and made it, you know, Val and Gary who had already been created on the parent series and putting them into the mix, but when you have four couples and you change one, you sort of have to change the dynamic all the way around. However, once I wrote the script, remarkably little changed from the script and the pilot as you would see it."[4]
Gary Ewing was originally played by David Ackroyd on Dallas, but Ackroyd was unable to sign on for Knots Landing, and Ted Shackelford assumed the role.[5] Joan Van Ark continued to play Val Ewing for the spin-off. Initially, it was presumed that Tilton would also be joining Knots Landing (and have Lucy move in with her parents to the Seaview Circle cul-de-sac), but the network decided to keep her on Dallas in order to keep the two shows separate. She did, however, make a guest appearance in the first-season episode "Home is for Healing".[6]
The actors on Knots Landing had more input than actors on other 1980s primetime soaps. In 1987, the writers wanted Mack (Kevin Dobson) to have an extramarital affair with Anne (Michelle Phillips). Michele Lee, who played Mack's wife Karen, protested this to Jacobs, saying, "There has to be one stable couple on the show."[7] The extramarital affair storyline was nixed, and Michelle Phillips, who had been signed to a contract, was written out for a couple of seasons before returning in 1990. When she did return, Anne did not pursue Mack. William Devane, who played Greg Sumner, re-wrote most of his character's dialogue, to the point where, in co-star Michele Lee's words, "most people (on set) were (probably) frightened of him".[8] The Gary/Val/Abby triangle that provided story throughout the mid-1980s was suggested by Ted Shackelford and Joan Van Ark in 1980, and the producers hesitated for a year and a half before going through with it in 1982.[7] The famous 1984 storyline where Valene's babies got kidnapped was originally envisioned as one of scheming Abby's plots. Donna Mills, who played Abby, acknowledged that her character was evil but did not think she was that evil. Fearing the audience would never forgive her character for kidnapping another woman's babies, she asked the writers to make the kidnappings a result of Abby's actions, but only by accident, and the writers complied. Bruce Campbell, who appeared in a 1987 episode, would later marvel at "the speed and clinical precision" of the production as opposed to the low-budget films and television series he had acted in up until this point. In particular, he wrote that Michele Lee "ran the set like a drill seargent and laid out all the blocking."
The writing team of Bernard Lechowick and Lynn Marie Latham (the head writers from 1986 to 1991) was controversial among both fans and actors. Their humor-imbued style of writing made them the favorites of Michele Lee, while John Pleshette felt they were "awful people." Pleshette, however, was not a regular cast member during their tenure (only making a guest appearance in 1987), and harbored resentment because the writing team, who had been represented by his wife, moved to a different agency.[9] Joan van Ark, whose character was struck by a brain illness in season 12 and proceeded to thereafter go crazy, felt that Latham and Lechowick had turned her character into the "village idiot." Joan Van Ark's and Donna Mills' favorite Knots Landing writer was Peter Dunne,[7] who was responsible for making Knots Landing a top ten show in 1984.
In 1987, CBS demanded that production costs be cut. This meant the firing of two regulars, Constance McCashin and Julie Harris. Season 13 saw a large ratings drop for the show after writer/producers Bernard Lechowick and Lynn Marie Latham left to create Homefront and creator David Jacobs had a health crisis and pulled back his involvement in production. Jacobs has publicly stated that the way he knew the show was in trouble was when waitresses at his favorite diner, whom he had heard gossiping about Knots Landing every Friday during past seasons, suddenly stopped discussing the show in late 1991. He attempted to save face by shutting down production on November 20, 1991,[10] firing head writer John Romano, and replacing him with Ann Marcus. Cost cutting again plagued the series in its final season, when only 19 episodes were produced, and (with the exception of Michele Lee) regular cast members did not appear in every episode. Not wanting to compromise what he felt had been a good run, series creator David Jacobs described its end as a "mutual decision" between Knots Landing's producers and the CBS Network, saying, "We don't know if they would have picked us up anyway...but even if they had, we would have had to pare away more to survive."
The series' signature cul-de-sac, Seaview Circle, was actually Crystalaire Place in Granada Hills, California, a suburban street in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley about 20 miles north of the Pacific Ocean. The opening credits during the first two seasons were edited in such a way to make it appear that the cul-de-sac was closer to the beach. The aerial shots as seen in the opening and end credits from 1981 to 1987, were filmed at Palos Verdes Estates, an affluent coastal area of Los Angeles.
Music[edit]
The theme song, which lasted all 14 seasons was composed by Jerrold Immel. Immel, along with Craig Huxley composed the background music for the pilot. The original background music cues by Immel and Huxley were never fully abandoned by the show, and were heard right through until the final season. The early Knots Landing background music cues heavily emphasized the brass section, and were often played with a very sparse bass line accompaniment. It was the only aspect of the series ever to win an Emmy award, for the music orchestration during its 1979–80 season.
By the debut of the fourth season in 1982 the lushness of the 1980s was in full swing and background cues were changed to reflect that style. The new dramatic cues emphasized full orchestral arrangements as formerly middle-class Knots Landing became upwardly mobile. The background music of seasons 4–7 was frequently composed by either Lance Rubin or Ron Grant.
Season 8 in 1986 introduced a completely new score for the show. New wave artists and bands had taken America by storm and the new style of music cues made good use of the synthesizer instead of a full orchestra. Bruce Miller was one of the main composers during this era. Updated orchestrations of the by-then familiar Lance Rubin cues were also re-arranged to be played by the synthesizer, and the Immel/Huxley cues were similarly utilized, albeit less commonly.
In the early 1990s, soft contemporary acoustic music became popular and Knots Landing began incorporating this into its background music during season 12. Lance Rubin's music cues were mostly phased out at this point. Patrick Gleeson and Kennard Ramsey composed during this period.
Knots Landing had five completely different styles of opening credits over its 14 years.
Legacy[edit]
In the 2005 Knots Landing Reunion special, the cast along with creator David Jacobs, said that the lasting legacy of the show was their dealings with many of the issues real middle-class people were having. While its parent show Dallas was a show about the rich upper class, Knots Landing had this aspect as well but was much more about the struggles of parenting, drug addictions, spousal issues and many of the evolving problems in the 1980s and early '90s. The reunion special showed such subjects as: women's power in the workforce, the HIV/AIDS crisis and the matter of safe sex, the cocaine epidemic in the 1980s, and the ever-growing spread of crime in America (Michele Lee's character Karen alluded to this in a famous speech about not feeling safe and being happy being a Pollyanna).
Screenwriter Alan Ball declared the show had been an inspiration to him when he created the hit series Six Feet Under, describing his show as "Knots Landing set in a funeral home".[15]
Screenwriter Marc Cherry also confirmed the show was an inspiration to him when he created the hit series Desperate Housewives, describing it as a cross between Knots Landing, American Beauty and Twin Peaks.[16]
When asked which character from film and TV history he wished he had created, Mike Kelley, the creator of ABC's popular primetime soap opera Revenge, said: "Abby Ewing. Donna Mills, you rocked my world."[17]