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From Variety Januray 2, 1980
Television Reviews Section
Primetime soaper, which has risen to new rating heights with
the emergence of 'Dallas' this season as a top-10 series, was
given another nudge towards the look and content of 'Peyton
Place,' the predecessor of the genre, with the introduction
of 'Knots Landing' to the CBS-TV slate.
A spinoff from 'Dallas', the new entry has a middle-class frame
of reference rather than rich income background of the former's
characters. It retains, however, the raunchy behavior patterns
and bad taste of the original. Ostensibly in California, the
location is a four house cluster surrounding a cul-de-sac court
in a housing development into one of which moves Ted Shackelford
and Joan Van Ark--he being the weak son of the 'Dallas Ewing'
family. Determined to make a new life, the Ewings were immediately
swept into the intrigue of the court, which included used car
lot owner Don Murray and wife Michele Lee, aggressive lawyer
John Pleshette and wife Constance McCashin and record exec James
Houghton and wife Kim Lankford. Murray's daughter (from another
marriage) was found by him in the sack with a strange boy as
the episode began -- and the exploitable sequences took off
from there, with the good guys and the bad guys immediately
identified for the long run. It was the kind of trashy domestic
drama that 'Dallas' has made great rating strides with and there
was no indication that 'Knots' is not capable of the same acceptance.
Murray, Lee, Pleshette and guest Karen Allen (as the visiting
daughter) were most prominent in the opener, with Lee the most
impressive performer. The possible variations seem endless.
--Bok."
Copyright KnotsLanding.Net 2003
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