Any fans of the coulda-been First Lady Jane Wyman or the Tylenol-hawking Susan Sullivan or Renegade's Lorenzo Lamas?

When I was young I was watching this one instead of Dynasty or Dallas. There must be something wrong with me when a person says "Cesar Romero" and I think "Angela Channing's third husband" instead of "Batman's Joker" or I hear Kim Novak and think of "Skylar Kimball" instead of Vertigo. Please, someone tell me I'm not the only one.

I am a huge fan. I hate that Soapnet took it off, because there are some eps I still haven't seen.

Let's see, I always loved Richard, no matter what he did. Chase always came off as a sancitmonous twit. Lorenzo annoyed me most of the time.

Angela was the best.

Angela Channing was the most un-stereotypical senior citizen I've ever seen. No rocking chairs and early-bird specials for her; she was too busy dodging bullets, crashing cars, eluding renegade Nazis, riding out plane crashes, and fleeing burning homes. Jane Wyman is Angela Channing--Action Hero!

But for sheer viewing joy, no one can top Emma Channing. She's one of my favorite soap characters ever, and Margaret Ladd rocked in that role. It's just too bad that the only major stories she got in the later years were set in the final season when the show was circling the drain (no offense, Maggie).

Why oh why is this show not on dvd? I LOVED this show. It used to come on right after Dallas, and if I went roller skating I could still be home in time to see it. My favorite was when Angela hired the special FX crew to make poor Melissa think she was losing her mind in a burning house. I always wanted to be a Gioberti. Richard seemed like Cliff Barnes 2.0 to me.

TV Guide has some really good info on the backstage drama on Falcon Crest. I loved this show as a kid. Jane Wyman was one tough lady - she would have kicked ass as a first lady.

Hee, it always seemed like Wyman was having some fun with Nancy Reagan to an extent. :) ( And Emma could've been a takeoff of Patti Davis... Mom thinks she is deranged, and she's all too eager to spill family secrets.)

Although I was a little kid when this show aired originally, I became addicted to the reruns on Soapnet when I was in school. I loved the Melissa-Cole saga, and Angela, of course, rocked.

They don't make primetime dramas like they used to.

Jane Wyman laughed all the way to the bank. FC paid her $2 million a year (probably more in later seasons), while her ex was earning a mere $200,000 per year to lead the free world. Yes, she was out-earning her ex-husband ten-fold, and had just as many great lines as he did. :)

TV Land will be showing two episodes of Falcon Crest as part of Warner Brothers weekend. The first episode airs tonight at midnight ET/PT and is Ashes to Ashes. The second episode, which I think will be Requiem, airs at 2AM ET/PT early Monday.

I loved this show, and look forward to watching it tonight. I guess to some extent it was because of this show that I worked at a winery.

This is one of the only shows that I watched when it aired originally from start to finish.

Why isn't TVLand running more of this show? I fortunately caught (and taped!) both episodes, but now I want more. I know it was part of their big weekend, but enough with the teasing.

Saw both episodes, and yes, I agree with you--I wish someone was airing this show. I only had to hear that theme music to become totally wrapped up in the nostalgia. I still can't recall a single thing about Linda, Cole's ill-fated wife, and I thought I was so good at recalling such details. Hell, it was twenty years ago...something had to give.

Watching with the SO, he jokingly asked "Where's Chao-Li?" when the survivors were being flown in. I theorized that Angela had sent him to clean up the crash site with his broom and dustpan.

The Angela/Emma dynamic still touches me after all these years. And lordy, lordy, I loved Maggie.

I missed Ashes to Ashes. I will pay money, bake cookies, tend children, whatever to get a copy of it. Please?

Man, Richard is still hot as hell. I miss FC so much! Why can't TvLand show that instead of MacGyver!

And Falcon Crest returns! AOL will be hosting a "network" for people with broadband. I'm so very happy. Current soaps and network offerings aren't doing it for me, but Richard, Angela, and the rest will fill the void nicely.

Yep. Angela looked exactly like Nancy Reagan, which I suppose was part of the joke.

How did this series end? I'm asking because I think I stopped watching when the old lady, was she the grandmother?, stopped appearing regularly. I have a vague memory of someone smothering her.

They did that because Jane Wyman was having health problems. She was back at the end of the series, and the last episode ended with Richard marrying....um, Not!Maggie. Richard also found out he had a secret son, Lance ended up with his teenage love, and Angela was back. She gave the monologue that ended the series, all about Falcon Crest.

Falcon Crest is heading to DVD in 2007. The release of season one will include the unscreened pilot The Vintage Years.

Source of information here.

That's great news. I hope they get season two out quickly, because season one...kind of boring. The lack of Richard and all.

Falcon Crest is also available on AOL now, or at least part of the first season.

In spite of the link above, there's no official announcement about Falcon Crest on DVD... yet.

Why are Warners dragging their feet so much about getting their products out on DVD?

I'd happily buy all nine seasons of Falcon if they released them.

Warner Bros. has changed their mind about releasing DVDs of Falcon Crest. Other than the Dallas DVDs all other nightime soap DVDs haven't done well. Most of the series they are providing to AOL are ones they do not plan to release elsewhere. Right now the AOL episodes are up through the middle of Season 3.

Which would be fantastic if it worked for Macs. God, I would love to have Falcon Crest on DVD. Why not release them through iTunes or something if they don't want to go through the hassle of a DVD release?

Jane Wyman has passed away. I haven't watched the show in donkey's years, but she was the best thing on it.

I was just thinking about her a few weeks ago, because I couldn't remember if she was still alive. She was in the last great generation of movie stars, people who usually had grace in public, instead of endless rehab trips, pantyless photo ops, DUIs, etc. I used to read about some of the feuds she had on the set of Falcon Crest (when Robert Foxworth found out she was getting a bigger trailer, he demanded the same size; when she found out he was going to start directing episodes, she demanded she also get the chance, and the show agreed...she never did direct an episode, she just wanted to know he was not getting what she didn't get) and Lana Turner (by the end of Lana's run on the show their scenes had to be filmed separately and then spliced together).

Angela was a wicked, wicked woman, but she was also human, and like all truly great schemers, she had a sense of humor.

Jane also had great respect for Falcon Crest, probably more than the hack producers of the last few seasons did. Against doctor's advice, she went back to the set to film the last few episodes of the series. The moving speech Angela gave at the end of the final episode was written by Jane herself, which, considering the disastrous writing that show had for it's last few years (I am still fuming about the way they killed Maggie), was for the best.

Here is the clip.

Goodbye Jane.

I liked how Angela like Cho Li. She treated him as an equal and not a servent. I had read the younger cast members such Lamas, Moses and Sullivan really liked her. I also thought it had the best theme music the first few years. There was nothing better than Knots, Dallas and Falcon Crest. I still remember being shocked that Julia was the murderer and then seeing the coffin being lowered into the ground and dying all summer to know who it was. Actually, I can't even remember who it was now, but the first five years or so were great. It didn't seem to get the respect that Dallas and Knots Landing got.

I think Julia killed Ana Alicia's father.

Abby Dalton had such an exotic look, as did Ana Alicia. I had a crush on her when I watched the show the first time around. I also loved Emma. That show really was all about the women, except for Richard. The only guy I could tolerate was Cole, because Billy Moses was so cute.

This is really clever and a fun way to pass a few minutes of time. Someone on Youtube spliced together each of the credit photos from each season. Those Maggie spins will make you dizzy.

I loved Falcon Crest. It had an old Hollywood feel to it. The way they had Lana Turner and Cesar Romero and others on the show. It's a shame it won't be out on dvd.

I watched part of the unaired pilot. Jane with silver hair wasn't working for me.

I'm hoping that Jane Wyman's passing might convince Warners to put out the first season on DVD as a tribute.

She did. But this was earlier. The second victim, after the gunshot cliffhanger, was Lana Turner as Chase's mother. (I can't believe I still remember this.)

Jane Wyman and Susan Sullivan were the best (well, they and Margaret Ladd as Emma Channing). I never completely watched the final season, because all the good characters were gone. The way they killed Maggie was simply nasty. :-(

I hated that they killed Maggie (I was so rooting for her and Richard, what a great couple!), but I /small voice/ loved how they did it..../end/ It was so awful! So soapy!! So perfect!

I liked that this show didn't seem to take itself as seriously as the other nighttime soaps. I watched it to the bitter end!

According to tvshowsondvd, Warners has Falcon Crest on the radar for a possible dvd release. But they want to see how the continuation of the Knots Landing dvds go.

So, we'll see.

So in order to get Falcon Crest DVDs, I'd have to buy Knots Landing DVDs. No offense to Knots Landing, but I only watched about five episodes. That sucks.

I loved both shows, so I'll be buying season 2 of KL. I hope it does well, I expect more people will be interested because seaons 2 marks Abby's first appearance. And if it impels them to finally release FC, I'll be ecstatic. Dynasty and FC were my favorites, but FC is number one for me. Nothing's better than Jane Wyman delivering scathing putdowns with just the right amount of arsenic-tinged humor.

FC consistenly had the best cliffhangers of all the big 80s soaps. I still vividly remember the struggle with Julia when the gun went off, the plane crash, the earthquake, etc. These cliffhangers were so great because the entire cast of the show was in jeopardy. It's like the show didn't know if it would be renewed or what actors would sign on for another season so the show prepared each year just in case.

Plus, that season-long murder mystery during season two, I believe, remains the best full season murder mystery on television since it aired over 25 years ago. I'm surprised I remember back that far but I can't think of anything since that time that compares.

I taped a DarkShadows!Classic movie recently and fell in love anew with David Selby. Mama and I didn't agree on everything in the 80s, but we both loved Richard. And I find it infuriating, but typical, that they're waiting to see how KNOTS LANDING does before they decide whether or not to release FALCON CREST. In the pantheon of nightime soaps in the 80s, FC was my favorite and I always felt it got the least respect; it was treated like an afterthought, a way for CBS to kill the hour between DALLAS and the local news at 11.

I have the first six seasons and have been rewatching for the first time in maybe five or six years. I'm finding that the show really hit its stride in season three when it became fully serialized. The first two seasons were severely hurt by the self contained episodes which boggled things down.

The first season should've been gothic and incestuous and darker, but the self contained episodes hurt it. I would've made the Cole/Melissa/Lance triangle a major storyline and delved more into the character. Even finishing out season three, character development is a *major* problem. Falcon Crest is entertaining, has a great cast and surprising guest stars, but it's popcorn tv at it's corn. Not bad like Dynasty, but could be so much better with a little help.

I most look forward to seeing the final season which everyone either loves or hates. It was a dramatic change, but finally got the character motivation that was always missing.

That's an understatement Knots Landing! I've never seen a show change direction quite so much, it wasn't my favorite season, I'm more the traditional soap viewer, but I never missed an episode of the last season. The best thing about the season was that it introduced me to Wendy Phillips, one of my fave TV actresses.

eta because spelling counts in large amounts.

As a kid I was weirdly obsessed with this show and I would love to watch it from the beginning to see why. I seem to remember that bizarre final season as well, didn't they eliminate half the cast and go younger? Emma was still in it if I recall, but didn't a bunch of new charcters move into the house while Angela was in a coma?

Also, was Emma supposed to be really eccentric or what? I seem to vaguely remember her witnessing a murder but no one would believe her?

ETA: I had forgotten about how Susan Sullivan had that spin and seperate billing at the end! Also, I had forgotten how good the theme music was. Thanks for that YouTube link!

What I remember most vividly about the bizarre final season was the bizarre-beyond-all-bizarre Halloween episode. Whatsisname was having nightmares (about his wife's death, maybe?) and it concluded with him in an open grave and the wife's sister (I think) - Genevra? Geneva? the one who caught the bouquet in the finale at Richard's wedding foreshadowing that she'd marry Gregory Harrison's Sharpe - dribbling dirt through her fingers on him. My brother and I watched the episode together and we were just so confused and freaked out.

I think the fifth through the seventh seasons were Falcon Crest's best, and some unbelievably good soap. Richard and Maggie, Richard finding out Angela was his mother, and the various misdeeds of the rest of hte clan were all amazing.

The season finale where Maggie and Richard kiss for the first time (finally!) and then the house blows up around them? Awesome.

The two guys who wrote that final season were also responsible for the circa 1995-96 meltdown over at As The World Turns, where they head-wrote ATWT into some of its worst stories ever. I think their names were Black and Stern, and the fans called them "Black and Decker" because of the way they chopped ATWT into little pieces.

I've tried to blot the final season of FC out of my memory, mostly because I'd watched it from episode one and knew how good it had been earlier on. Maggie's gruesome, comic-book-esque death sort of set the tone. I know they had no control over Jane Wyman's unavailability, but given the stuff with Charlie and his co-horts taking over the mansion, I have to wonder what B&S would have done with Angela if JW had not been ill.

Then again, I wonder what JW would have done with THEM! They might not have survived to maim ATWT years later.

I've always been of the mind that Emma was much more sane than she let on. Somewhere along the line, she realized that Angela was a controlling mother who would make her life hell unless she got out from under that influence. Angela always had that over-reaching obsession with legacy and family tradition. Julia obviously ended up losing her mind from all that pressure. By pretending to be "off", or even just plain stupid, Emma would keep her mother from exerting all that pressure on her. Angela would basically roll her eyes and let Emma go off on her crazy tangents because she had decided Emma was not suited for running the winery or doing anything productive.

Margaret Ladd was brilliant in that part.

Greg Harrison and the return of Angela was really the only thing to recommend the last season, IMO. The rest of it was a weird, creepy, hot mess of a season. Now that you mention it, I'm not surprised it came from the same people that largle ruined ATWT for a while...though I do remember at least SOME good storylines from 1996-97, so which ones specifically are you talking about?

The stories they wrote were:

- Margo and Tom's son Casey was kidnapped by a crazed woman who'd lost her son (they thought Casey had been kidnapped by neo-Nazi gunrunners)

- Lisa was wooed by John Dixon, who then dumped her out of revenge for her ruining his medical career. Lisa then got involved with a British man who turned out to be some type of criminal.

- Margo and Sam were injured in a plane crash and Damian was presumed dead. The man who caused the crash, Diego, romanced Damian's widow, Lily, while sleeping with Emily (they used to make out in front of a blind Sam and torment her in other ways).

- Mark and Connor had sex in a treehouse. When Connor's husband found them, he fell out of the treehouse and was paralyzed. Connor stayed with him out of loyalty, while Mark fell for a secret agent named T. Jones. She was murdered by Diego, and yet, her last words to Mark were to tell him her last name, not the man who killed her.

- A screechy fashion model named Zoe arrived on the scene with her mousy best friend, Sarah Kasnoff. Zoe was trying to get away from an abusive boyfriend. Zoe was often called the worst character in the history of ATWT, which isn't really true now.

- Paul Ryan returned as a vapid smugbot who ran a home shopping channel.

- Adam Hughes found out the secret of his paternity after 8 or 9 years. His only reaction was, "Now I can send out 2 Father's Day cards instead of 1."

Among others.

Black and Stern also wrote a very cheesy Playboy Channel soap called Eden, which is memorable mainly because you get to see most of the hot bodies of Jeff Griggs and Kevin Armstrong. Not much else to recommend it.

Joel Surnow famous for 24 is who wrote the final season. Black and Stern wrote Falcon Crest during the height of it's success, seasons 2-4. Not surprising they did so poorly at ATWT considering they had a terrible handle on characters when writing FC. There is just no character development at all. You either have a dynamic character and interesting one dimensional character or you have nothing. I still know nothing about Cole's wife Linda and she was there for a full season!



I actually loved Maggie's death. It was shockingly unexpected and the sort of thing that happens in real life. Why does every character have to get a picture perfect send off? Life isn't perfect. Whenever soap characters die in a sort of natural way that isn't channeled through months of story, fans tend not to enjoy it. I personally wish it would happen more often. Maggie's death set the tone for the season. I appreciate that the writers had a very clear tone and vision for the season. It was different, but they had a plan and executed it well. That doesn't mean everyone will enjoy it, but I appreciate a risk when there is a vision behind it.

In many ways I feel the tone of the final season is what they needed in the early years. With those storylines Joel Surnow could've done wonders with Falcon Crest. He knew how to write characters and thats what was always missing. It was far too plot driven, which clearly Black and Stern brought to ATWT.

I'm in agreement about Maggie's death, Knot's Landing, although I'd have to rewatch that final bizarre season to comment on it as a whole. Although I liked the character of Maggie, if the actress wanted off the show like that they did a sudden, shocking, macabre death for her like that. It was really creepy and its definitely stuck with me all these years later. I couldn't tell you how Julia, Melissa, or Cole were written off the show but I remember that final scene with Maggie vividly!

I stumbled across a YouTube with Maggie and Richard, and it brought back memories. I loved this show when I was younger. I didn't get to watch it all the time (Friday nights are devoted to high school football in Texas, and my parents hated soap operas), but I remember loving David Selby. Watching the clip, he still gives me goose bumps. Could someone please remind me why Maggie and Chase were separated? I can only recall Richard going to Chase and telling him if Chase wasn't going to fight for Maggie, he would. I remember Richard saying the thought of Richard near Maggie and Chase's son should be enough to cause Chase to rush back to Maggie's side. My problem is I don't remember why he left her. Any help?

I got out my Soap Opera Encyclopedia and they said Maggie and Chase split up because her book editor, Jeff Wainwright, raped her, and then she got pregnant. Chase wanted her to have an abortion, but she refused, because the baby might have been Chase's. This was too much for them.

Wow, thanks, steve! I remember having an intense hatred for Chase, but couldn't remember why - other than his self-righteousness, but that was always there so I don't know why I suddenly changed to being thrilled that he was gone. Now that you have solved the mystery - yep, drowning was still too good for him.

I loved Maggie and Richard together!

Yeah, my father, who normally roots for the stolid male leads on shows, hated Chase, and he said it was because of the endless self-righteousness. That story became very convoluted, as Melissa changed the test results to make everyone think Jeff was the father, so Maggie would give the baby up for adoption. Then Melissa ran off with the baby (Kevin), only to eventually be found and saved by Chase.

I wish I remembered more of the show. There was a lot of stuff in the book that I don't remember at all, like Maggie's mother being a compulsive gambler. I didn't even remember seeing her mother.

Richard and Maggie were great. This was David Selby's best role ever, and while I can't say that about Susan Sullivan (my favorite role for her was on that short lived soap The Monroes), I did love Maggie. I think what I enjoyed the most about the show was the witty banter. Falcon Crest had some of the drollest comic talents around and they used them very well.

I keep seeing William R Moses in those Perry Mason movies they rerun on Hallmark. I wonder what he's doing now. He was very hot then.

I don't remember Maggie's mother either. I was definitely Team Cole over Team Lance; William R Moses was quite attractive, but Richard had my heart. I agree that it was David's best role. BTW, he recently wrote a novel with Abe Lincoln as the main character. It's gotten good reviews.

I didn't see The Monroes, but I also loved Susan Sullivan. And you're right; Falcon Crest had some great quips. Angela and Richard especially had great chemistry, and their banter usually made me chuckle.