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By Christine Champagne
May 6, 1997—When Knots Landing
went off the air on May 13, 1993, it was the longest- running
primetime drama series in TV history after Gunsmoke. Every Thursday
night at 10 p.m. ET, millions of viewers switched on the TV
and visited the Southern California cul-de-sac where Val, Gary,
Karen, Mack and the Knots gang lived. And to this day, there
are legions of devoted Knots fans who miss the show, which was
perhaps the most believable and cleverly plotted primetime soap
to ever grace the airwaves.
Even series star Michele Lee gets emotional
when she talks about what it was like when Knots went off the
air. "I had a very difficult time," says the actress
who played Karen. "Leaving that show was leaving a group
of people that I really enjoyed being with. We went through
so many things as a group through that course of time, as you
would with a family, whether it be new marriages, divorces,
deaths."
Well, after nearly four years of no Knots,
there will be a family reunion of sorts when CBS airs the long-awaited
Knots reunion movie, Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-De-Sac,
May 7 and May 9 from 9-11 p.m. ET each night. Some reunion films
are disappointing because the producers aren't able to lure
back all of the players, but Knots creator David Jacobs and
executive producer Michael Filerman snagged six original cast
members—Lee, William Devane (Greg), Kevin Dobson (Mack),
Donna Mills (Abby), Ted Shackelford (Gary) and Joan Van Ark
(Val)—and numerous series regulars, including Michelle
Phillips (Anne), Stacy Galina (Kate), Brian Austin Green (Brian),
Francesca Smith (Meg), Carlos Cantu (Carlos), Victoria Ann-Lewis
(Peggy), Tonya Crowe (Olivia), Pat Petersen (Michael), Claudia
Lonow (Diana), Kim Lankford (Ginger) and Emily Ann Lloyd (Betsy)
and Joseph Cousins (Bobby). Nicollette Sheridan makes a cameo
as Paige.
With all that is involved in coordinating
a reunion, it's a wonder that this project ever got off the
ground. Jacobs and Filerman began calling the actors to see
who would be interested—and available—to do the
film well over a year ago. Then, a script was completed, but
it had to be tweaked again and again to please everyone involved.
Once everyone okayed the plot, it was time to coordinate the
shooting schedule, which was difficult because of the actors's
conflicting schedules. Dobson, for one, was only available on
weekends because he spent weekdays shooting his syndicated show,
FX: The Series, in Toronto. <http://web.archive.org/web/20000301165118/file:///A%7C/KLBest.gif>
Lee says that once everyone finally did
get on the set together (much of the film was shot at the Simi
Valley, CA neighborhood where the original series was done)
everything clicked. It was almost like they had never left.
"Don't forget we last did Knots Landing three and a half
years ago, so it wasn't like a 10-year hiatus. Also, we have
all talked about it. I think we were all very, very surprised
about how emotional it was for us to get back together again
because we genuinely liked each other," says Lee, who recalls
the first day she worked on the reunion film with onscreen best
buddy Van Ark. "It was very easy to look across the room
and see Valene…there was a wonderful unspoken thing that
happened."
Meanwhile, Van Ark was stunned to see
how much the actors who played Val and Gary's twins, Lloyd and
Cousins, had grown. "That's when I got fahrklempt. I did,
totally fahrklempt. I go out to the cul-de-sac the first day,
driving out there at 4:30 in the morning in the dark the way
we did year after year, morning and morning, and I get out of
the car to see these two little kids, now 12 and 14. Michelle
and I looked at each other and welled up."
A lot has changed over the past four
years. The reunion finds all of the characters in a state of
crisis: Mack and Karen's marriage is in trouble because he is
facing a mid-life crisis; Val is suspected of murder; Kate returns
with her daughter and claims that Gary is the dad; and Abby
makes a million-dollar deal with Greg because she needs money
to pay back taxes. The film is full of all the intrigue, scandal
and family feuds Knots was known for.
With all the interest fans still have
in Knots, you have to wonder why the series went off the air
when it did. The ratings were respectable, the actors loved
doing the show and there were no backstage squabbles to speak
off. "We didn't have to end it when we ended it,"
Jacobs admits. The show's demise came down to simple economics.
"What was happening, though, was there was a process of
attrition that was occurring, and we were amputating characters
every year because the show was getting more and more expensive
to produce…and I think we all felt rather than continue
to amputate limbs, which is really what we were doing, that
it was just time to stop."
Many of the show's stars say they would
have loved to continue the show. Shackelford speaks for nearly
all of his castmates when he says: "If they'd said, 'You
can stay on for another ten years,' I would have stayed on for
another ten years in a heartbeat."
"I was just hitting my stride,"
adds Lee, who is happy to be known for her work on Knots. "Knots
Landing really opened up a lot of doors for all of us."
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