Fans will be tied up in
`Knots' again By Kirk Nicewonger
NEW YORK - The trouble with most TV-series
reunions is, you sit down to get reacquainted with old friends,
and you get up depressed about time's inexorable march. ``What
the heck happened to HER?'' you ask ruefully. ``And I didn't
even know he could BUY a belt that size!'' Just forget that
apprehension in ``Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac'' (9
p.m., CBS, TV-PG; concludes Friday).
These people look great. I don't mean
they look great ``for their age.'' I'm not talking about ``holding
up well.'' I'm saying they look objectively, are-you-busy-Saturday-night
great. Happily, the miniseries' script seems to have imbibed
from that same fountain of youth. In fact, its friskiness can
be out-and-out surreal: In one early scene, Val (Joan Van Ark)
asks a movie-studio guard if that was Stefanie Powers she just
spotted. Naw, he replies, that was Michele Lee - Van Ark's ``Knots
Landing'' castmate.
Inside jokes notwithstanding, the miniseries
re-creates the frothy angst that made the 1979-93 original so
addictive. The ever wide-eyed Val runs into trouble as she works
with an alcoholic screenwriter on the movie version of her best-selling
kidnapping memoir. Greg (William Devane) and Abby (Donna Mills)
plot to steal a document that will short-circuit a workers'
lawsuit. Karen (Lee) is distressed by a Buick-sized midlife
crisis in Mack (Kevin Dobson). And Gary (Ted Shackelford) faces
a Shattering Revelation From His Past. But on the bright side...
you're lookin' GOOD, gang.
|
L
