Knots Landing cliff-hangers that kept us on the
edge of our seats....
· There were no earthquakes, no flying saucers, no terrorists
crashing into royal weddings with guns ablaze. Even without
such fireworks, Knots Landing managed to bring one season after
another to a stomach-knotting climax. So, as we await the outcome
of the current midseason cliff-hanger --the bomb planted aboard
the Sumner jet -- and wonder how Knots will tie up 14 years
in two hours, we recall all those loose ends, the finales that
fed our curiosity through a dozen summers.
By Staffwriter Gerard J. Waggett - Soap Opera Weekly - May
1993, with some edited comments by Joseph Talone.
1980: In the beginning, each episode was fairly self-contained.
As such, instead of using a cliffhanger the show opted to close
its first season with a two-parter about Gary (Ted Shackelford)
falling off the wagon.
1981: The first and most literal of Knots’ cliffhangers
ended with Sid Fairgate’s (Don Murray) car toppling over
the edge of a cliff. Murray’s decision not to renew his
contract sealed his character’s fate.
1982: Gary’s affair with Abby (Donna Mills) was fast
becoming public knowledge. By season’s end, even Valene
(Joan Van Ark) knew. She walked in on the lovebirds and went
running off in horror. Knots spent almost 10 years resolving
this cliff-hanger, working Gary and Valene back together.
1983: The latter half of the season revolved around the murder
of aspiring singer Ciji Dunne (Lisa Hartman Black). Gary had
been charged and was sitting in jail. In a quietly chilling
final sequence, Karen (Michele Lee) realized the killer was
actually Chip Roberts (Michael Sabatino) , the man her daughter
Diana (Claudia Lonow) had just run off with.
1984: Although this finale looked too much like the typical
action cliff-hanger being used by the other nighttime soaps,
a clever script made it work. The Wolfbridge Group, a ruthless
business cartel, had targeted Gary for murder and tricked Valene
and Karen into luring Gary away from his police escort. Abby,
who tried to warn Gary about the danger, was kidnapped by the
bad guys, and Karen ended up getting shot in the cross fire.
1985: The show took an effective step backward to the character-driven
finale. Valene had been told earlier in the season that her
twins had died at birth. In reality, they had been sold on the
black market. When Val learned the truth, she and almost all
of the principal cast members coverged on the home of the adoptive
parents. The “father,” who had taken one of the
twins for a drive, spotted the entourage and sped away. Slow
motion made the final scene all the more gut-wrenching.
1986: While previous finales brought existing storylines to
a major turning point, this year’s finale initiated two
plotlines, both involving Mack (Kevin Dobson). The same day
Karen disappeared, Paige (Nicollette Sheridan) appeared at his
house claiming to be his daughter. The last scene brought Karen
face to face with her kidnapper, whose identity we would not
learn until the following season. (He was a vengeful former
friend whom Mack had once testified against.)
1987: One of the best finales, this was a showcase for Mills
and an effective stab at black comedy. Abby spent almost the
entire episode trying to hide the body of Senator Peter Hollister
(Hunt Block), who had been impaled on a spindle. Whether she
was covering her own tracks or protecting her daughter, Olivia
(Tonya Crowe), was unclear. (It was revealed the following season
that Paige had accidentally killed Peter.) Abby buried the body
in a construction site and breathed a sigh of relief when concrete
was poured over the make-shift grave. Unfortunately for her,
a crack developed in the foundation.
1988: Titled “Poor Val,” this was the most tense
of all the Knots cliff-hangers. Jealous over Gary’s unseverable
ties to his ex-wife Valene, Jill Bennett (Teri Austin) plotted
to eliminate her rival. She broke into Val’s house and
forced her at gunpoint to swallow a mouthful of sleeping pills.
1989: Paige had been nosing around into a couple of “accidental
deaths” involving Abby’s partners in a land fraud
scheme. Although this was Mills’ farewell Knots episode,
the story was far from over. Paige uncovered evidence linking
both Greg and Abby’s ex-lover Ted Melcher (Robert Desiderio)
to the murders. The final scene left her standing in Greg’s
courtyard in the pouring rain, confronted by both men, having
to choose which one to trust. (She picked Ted, who turned out
to be the killer.)
1990: This cliffhanger had two story ideas brewing: Paige was
engaged to be married to crooked cop, Tommy Ryan. They were
to get married at the altar; however, Tom bailed out because
it was later revealed in the next season that Greg was blackmailing
Tom as a favor to Mack who disapproved of this wedding from
the start. The other story was Karen’s stalker. She felt
sure that her stalker had finally been captured since security
guard Wayne was behind bars. Her vindictive producer, Dianne
Kirkwood (Robin Strausser), had been implicated and sent to
an insane asylum. As the last few minutes rolled; however, we
saw associate producer Jeff Cameron (Chris Lemmon) flipping
through a scrapbook of his other victims while watching videotapes
of Karen.
1991: Cut to the chase would have been pretty good advice for
this drawn-out double episode, since the climax felt as if it
were tacked on to the end for shock value. Paige was involved
with the Sumner Group architect - Brian Johnston. What she didn’t
count on was the night that she punched his obnoxious jaw out,
that arch-rival Linda would set her up to take the fall when
he was found missing in action. The other story involved Karen
in a soapbox of issues. After being shot with a paint pellet,
Karen, fueled with righteous anger, hopped into her car and
took off after her assailants. She chased their car right into
the path of an oncoming truck. When she out to see how badly
they were hurt, she found her foster son, Jason (Thomas Wilson
Brown), unconscious in the backseat.
1992: Anne’s (Michelle Phillips) home-pregnancy test
came back positive, Greg gave away his company, and Meg (Rhianna
Janette) was missing, but the season’s final shock was
saved for Paige: Her psychotic ex-boyfriend, Pierce Lawton (Bruce
Greenwood) , had not drowned. When she hopped into the car and
adjusted the rear-view mirror, there he was staring back at
her. The real-life cliffhanger for that year was whether CBS
would renew the show for another season.
1993: The series finale went out with a bang in a two hour
episode. A midseason cliff-hanger made people hang on the edge
of their seats to see how Knots was going to resolve 13 years
of stories all in two hours. Here’s what happened in those
two hours: Val Ewing returned back from the grave and re-claimed
her husband Gary, which meant him and Kate had to break-up.
Claudia ended up moving to France coincidentally with Anne Matheson
and Nick, her Italian boyfriend. Paige was considering marriage
to Tom, her previous boyfriend; however, she ended up with Greg
Sumner. Mack and Karen reconciled after a major fight in the
10 years that they were married. Finally, the best for last:
Abby Fairgate, Cunningham, Ewing, Sumner returned to Knots Landing
after a 4 year absence to tell her old neighbors, “I see
that Claudia sold her house, and I just purchased it. Karen,
how nice to see you...Doesn’t it seem like old times?”
Copyright KnotsLanding.Net 2003
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