Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 8, 1993 TAG: 9305080358
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The show bows out with a two-hour finale on Thursday (at 9 p.m. on WDBJ-Channel 7). Producer-creator David Jacobs promises it will have "a few surprises."
It's no secret, however, that Donna Mills is returning as vixen Abby Cunningham Ewing Sumner. She joins Ted Shackelford as Gary Ewing and Michele Lee as Karen Fairgate MacKenzie, the only stars who remained with the show continuously since December 1979.
"Without giving too much away, there'll be no gimmicks," says Jacobs, who also created "Dallas." "We'll wrap up this year's stories. The feeling is that the curtain comes down and life goes on in `Knots Landing.'
"So far, ending `Knots' feels good. I'm waiting. I know at some point I'm going to miss it. I'm still doing post-production work, so I haven't gotten completely away from it."
Only "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza" ran longer than "Knots Landing," although its sister show, "Dallas," had more episodes.
"I thought `Knots Landing' was going to be an American `Scenes From a Marriage,' " Jacobs says, referring to the Ingmar Bergman Swedish drama that was first a limited TV series and then a movie in 1973. That was a painfully honest look at the disintegration of a marriage.
"I took it to CBS, but they said they were looking for a saga. As soon as they said saga I thought of Texas. My partner, Michael Filerman, and I sat down and came up with `Dallas.'
"I approach my shows like novels. I start with the characters. I want to know their history and see why they are like they are."
The success of "Dallas" cleared the way for "Knots Landing," particularly when it was changed to make Shackelford's character a Ewing from Dallas.
" `Knots' has changed throughout its time on the air," says Jacobs, who previously had been a writer for Aaron Spelling's "Family."
" `Knots' was always more a reflection of my own juices. I like to keep things changing. `Dallas' was always the fight for Ewing Oil every year. `Knots' flowed with the times. I didn't want to duplicate `Dallas.' I wanted a different scale. We didn't have a villain the first year."
In 1980, Abby Cunningham arrived. She was quite a different villain from the flamboyant J.R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman.
"Abby drove up in a Volvo station wagon with two kids," Jacobs says. "J.R.'s power came from his wealth. Hers came from her beauty and sexuality. She shook things up. When Don Murray wanted to leave the show we needed another male lead. In a way, Kevin Dobson was the best break we got, not that Don wasn't terrific. Kevin was a man's man.
"Bill Devane came the year after that, and `Knots' developed a strong male audience. Devane, like Abby, was my kind of villain, which means he's not all bad. He was a good man going bad."
Jacobs says he believes the greatest contribution to television by "Knots Landing" was the evolving character.
"The changing character has become the rule of television," he says. "Before that, television characters were cast in stone. They did change on `Family,' `The Waltons,' `Eight Is Enough' and `Dallas,' but `Knots' was the show that opened the door.
"Devane was an evolving character. When Nicolette Sheridan arrived, her character was spoiled, insecure and inept. She used nothing but her beauty to get along. Now, she has evolved into a real mature person."
Jacobs says he wanted to end `Knots Landing' before CBS pulled the plug.
"We could have been renewed if we'd taken a few hundred thousand dollars off the license fee," he says. "We got renewed this year because we took a big cut in the fee. That made it hard to tell good stories. We'd get the momentum going and we'd have to leave Kevin Dobson out for a few episodes because we didn't have the money to pay him for every show.
"Bill Devane and Nicolette Sheridan said this was their last year. I didn't want to continue the show without a full cast. I didn't want to see the show diminished. This year was very, very hard."
Jacobs, whose shows also include ABC's "Homefront" and CBS' "Bodies of Evidence," has some new creations in the wings.
One is "Lois and Clark" for ABC, which looks more at the relationship between Lois Lane and Clark Kent than at Superman's exploits. Another is "Profiles," a talk show with actors that is partly written and partly improvised.
Jacobs' favorite all-time show? "Dallas: The Early Years," which examined the feud between Jock Ewing and Digger Barnes that set the tone for the series.
"That was fun to write," he says. "It was a personal story. It was a period you could get lost in."
by CNB