Knots Landing - The Complete First Season [DVD]

Soaps like this fell out of favour in the 1990s and in the UK in particular there are no shows that quite manage to satisfy the need. I find Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty too satirical, and the half-hour soaps too unglamorous, so what is a soap lover to do? Revisit the underrated US soap Knots Landing. It is impossible to put a finger on what makes the show so good. The actors work hard to play it seriously and never acknowledge how absurd the plot (or how thick the make-up) is becoming, or how odd it is that the suburban housewives can afford regular yearly visits to the plastic surgeon. In the first season, each episode is like a short story, introducing the characters backgrounds and current anxieties, and sometimes it seems like I'm watching a 70s film, the calibre of acting and writing is so high. However, be warned: some episodes have awful picture quality that is little better than an old videotape. Warner Brothers have made no effort to find a good print from which to master this DVD set. 'Land of the Free' is particularly poor and it is puzzling why the picture quality is so variable from episode to episode. This one is the weakest of the season, as the residents of Knots are harrassed by a laughably cliched gang of Hell's Angels. Once again, the actors do their best to make it believable, but the final confrontation on the beach is played for laughs.

The three main women in the show, Val, Karen and Laura are archetypes: Val is innocent and childlike, Karen is the matriarch, and Laura is the whore. In the second season, Abby takes on the mantle of maneater, and the show changes into a more traditional soap with ongoing story arcs that thread through a whole year sometimes. I found it fascinating to revisit this early version of Knots, particularly as many of the original cast fade out of later storylines and aren't given the respect they deserve by the makers of the show. I had forgotten how skilled this original ensemble were. The commentaries by Gary and Val are entertaining, and I love the trivia Joan Van Ark divulges about the filming of the show. She seems to love the show as much as the fans. I hope new viewers can discover this show through these DVDs and that Warners keep releasing following seasons as regularly as Dallas, with more extras.

Knots landing in the minds of the wider viewing public will always be remembered as the spin off from super soap Dallas. However over it's fourteen year run (out lasting Dallas) it won recognition for its brave (for a prime time American soap) story lines and critical acclaim for its talented actors.
Series one starts with Gary and Val moving on from the destructive grip of JR and the far reaching pressures of being related and defined as being one of the mighty Ewing clan. Gary settles down in LA in a middle American suburb where he gets a regular job as a sales man and starts to build a life for himself by his own efforts (a million miles from the pressures of being an oil barons son which led to years of drowning his sorrows in liquor and drifting from job to job town to town)
His victimized wife Val blends in with the neighbor hood wife's who form a strong bound to confide and support each other through their family's and their own personal ups and down's.
The writing is a lot better then Dallas characters are not so extreme. Not so much light and dark there are predominately more shades of gray on display. Which make the plots more riveting and the dialogue raw and believable although issues tend to be resolved to neatly and there's unnecessary sprinkling of network sugar coating to take out some of the dramatic sting.
The show is driven by a strong female character Karen Faragte (Michel Lee gives a likable engaging but real performance as the available shoulder for her family and neighbors).
The series gets better as it progresses a successful example of US soap (before the super hits from HBO) successfully tacking on a more realistic premises and being able to entertain a wider audience

It's about time this show was released, I just hope they don't stop there.

Here we have all 13 episodes of Season 1, with two commentaries by Joan van Ark and Ted Shackleford, clearly still the best of pals after all these years. And boy are they funny! You'll have to listen to them to see what I mean.

Right, about the pilot. I can't remember the last time a pilot was so well constructed... these days you get so many characters crammed in, all vying for screen time, that the pilot episodes are bursting at the seams. With the benefit of the older, longer episodes, Knots Landing had time to breathe.

Beginning with the arrival of Gary and Val (with Bobby along for the special appearance) in Seaview Circle, the whole episode is actually structured around a character who never appears again, Annie Fairgate, played brilliantly by Karen Allen (who a year later was making Raiders of the Lost Ark). She is the gel for virtually all the events in the episode, being Sid's daughter visiting because her mother is drying out. She causes mayhem at the Fairgate's house, is sleeping with Kenny Ward while being friends with his wife Ginger, causes a stir at the Avery's supper and then is befriended by fellow outcast Val. What is perhaps the best "happy" scene of the entire 14 seasons of Knots Landing takes place between the two, when Val picks up Annie from the police station and then goes to see the ocean for the first time. It's lovely. For geeks like me, in the series finale 14 years later, Val (who is presumed dead and is in hiding) contacts Gary by sending him flowers with a card that says "Valet Diner 9pm. I've never seen the ocean". Only he would know what that meant. Loyalty to the fans through the writing rarely happens like that anymore.

Through Season 1, although Val was always my favourite character, I think Laura and Richard are by far the most deeply explored and both John Pleshette and Constance McCashin are stunningly good. Laura also had, in my opinion, the saddest exit of all the characters throughout Knots Landing eight years later. One of the key musical cues used throughout the entire run of the show also came to be Laura's theme. It's here in the first series, it's there when she goes, and it's really tear-jerking.

Anyway, pick this DVD up, and any more that are released. In Season 2 we get the added pleasure of Donna Mills arriving as Sid's sister. Let the fireworks begin.

Five out of five, without a doubt.