"Dramatic" reenactment of the making of Dynasty. It seemed more like a light satire to me. I really did like it. Some of the stuff cracked me up, like Aaron Spellings horror over thirtysomething. And Alice Krige was phenomenal as Joan Collins.

PS: I asked over in Bugs & Feedback and it was said that the movie gets its own thread.

Jessica is going to be doing a recap of it.
I really enjoyed it. It was good and cheesy. Now I long for the days of Dynasty and Dallas. I used to love those shows.

The details were all off though! Sammy Jo wasn't on until the second season. Sammy Jo wasn't in Moldavia. If I can remember things like that as someone who hasn't watched the show in years, shouldn't the writers of this movie research those details?

The Joan Collins impersonation was spot-on hilarious though. I wasn't as thrilled with the Stepford Linda Evans thing they were trying to pull though.

Where were Fallon, Dominique, and Adam? They were my real favorites.

I enjoyed this, it was campy and funny enough. The Joan Collins parts were really great, one of my favorites was her husband outside with a picket.

I have to say that I was a little confused by the movie. I know it was made clear that some of the things presented did not happen, but the timeline of the show seemed all screwed up.

For example, I thought Sammy Jo didn't show up until the second season, and they had her there during the first season. And I know they had Stephen sleep with Claudia (not Sammy Jo) during the first year, and his ex-boyfriend who Blake accidentally kills was Ted, not Bart. And one thing I am positive about is that Sammy Jo was not at the Moldavian Massacre. She was getting her doppelganger (not evil twin sister?) of Krystle ready in New York to replace Krystle so Sammy could get at her inheritance.


I thought they were going overboard with the idea that Joan was really Alexis and Linda was really Krystle. I know that Joan really had that kind of reputation back then, but it seemed like they pulled that idea about Linda out of thin air. It was very silly, but then again the entire movie was pretty silly.


That's the problem of a two-hour tv movie. Too little time to to delve into anyone else besides Joan, Linda, John and Esther.

Well, there was a title card at the beginning of the movie that said it was taking liberties with details for the sake of compression. Sammy Jo being at the Moldavian Massacre in the movie when she wasn't on the show is an example of this.

That was the Borg Queen?! Outstanding! I never would have made the connection. She blew me away.

I didn’t watch all of it, but didn’t it seem to be the exact same formula as the Charlie’s Angels TV movie? Same tone, same viewer reaction shots, etc. I’m not really complaining-- I like the formula-- I’m just not sure how many of these I can sit through. Are they going to do this to every campy nighttime soap?

I wish it had been longer because it seemed somewhat rushed. I'm sure there was alot more they could have added.

I'm only 30 minutes into this, but I already am anxious for Jessica's recap. Bring on the snark!

When Al Corley is giving his on-set interview about the social significance of his character, in the background we see a chair that says "Pamela Sue Martin" and the back of a redhaired woman. There's dialogue about Dominique and the viewers' "confusion" as to how Blake's sister could be black, and later we see her sitting in the front row at the Moldavian wedding. No sign of Adam, though. And you'd think they'd have something to say about Charlton Heston and Barbara Stanwyck when talking about The Colbys.

The Catherine Oxenberg actress certainly had the voice down, and you had to laugh when they changed the name on her chair.

Weird that they got Steven's boyfriend's name right for the reunion movie, but wrong for the first season. But they did have Sammy Jo come in for the second season, because it was stated that ABC's two conditions for a second season were a "big name" to play Alexis, and and end to Steven's gay storylines (whereupon Locklear was hired). They just made it seem that the first season was only a handful of episodes (sorry, folks, THAT was Dallas).

I guess I was the only one who thought it was really bad. Not good bad, either, but poorly written, poorly acted, and boring. There had to be more interesting things going on backstage than, "Oh, the ratings are low! I know, we'll pull this stunt." "Oh, the ratings slipped. I know, we'll pull that stunt." I found it wierd that within the context of the movie, Fallon didn't exist at all considering how many years worth of storylines centered around her, and I didn't even like Fallon. I thought that they really underestimated the audience they figured would be tuning in for it, and only threw in names they thought the audience would recognize. They really glossed over the thing with Rock Hudson.



Yup, I agree. I also think that the way they interspliced the "clips" with the Middle America segments also screwed with the timeline, and not just the timeline of events, but the timeline in the movie. It didn't help that the movie basically had no plot in a beginning, middle, end sense. It just seemed to bounce from one isolated point to another with little coherence.

I know it's futile to even criticize a show like this, but it really bugged me that they just mentioned a million things and never delved into them and some of the bigger 'storylines' weren't even mentioned. The whole 'second Fallon' recasting, the addition of Adam and Amanda, Ali McGraw (or rather, how the hell they came up with that idea in first place), Kirby and the rape -- so many things that would have been nice to have been explored. I mean, why would they spend time showing them replacing Catherine Oxenberg, whom no one even cared about, but not Pamela Sue Martin and Emma Samms? The hell?

My favorite part, and I'm sure it never even happened, was the conversation between Joan and Linda after Linda reads the magazine calling her the loneliest woman in Hollywood. Those are the sorts of things I wanted the movie to show.

I took the movie with a grain of salt. (I hope that Michael Nader is as well). This just makes me hope for a release on dvd soon.

No, I thought it was TERRIBLE. It made me realize that I didn't want to watch a movie about Dynasty, I would rather just watch AN EPISODE OF Dynasty.

Whither Adam? Or Jeff? Or Fallon -- I'd love to know why Pamela Sue Martin quit.

And Heather Locklear? So not at the Moldavian massacre. There's "compression," and then there's "factual error," and that one was egregious, I thought.

And, dude, Krystal didn't have an evil TWIN, she was just her DOPPLEGANGER, and she wasn't in a DUNGEON, it was an ATTIC. Heavens.

I agree with a lot of the complaints, but I think the biggest shame of the movie was that it had a few points that really showed it could have been better. I was surprised to find that I really liked the Joan/Linda scene near the end. It was as if the two actresses suddenly decided to act in a completely different movie, and I found myself wanting to see more of that one.

On the other hand, I thought there were some funny cuts. Al complaining about the change in Steven's character cutting to "Al, you're in an oil rig explosion" was pretty funny (even if not historically accurate). The same with Catherine Oxenberg complaining of back pain then cutting to the car accident.

BTW, one of the German Dynasty sites has a photo-essay version of the movie that is pretty amusing. Some of it is in German, but it has a lot of the English dialogue. http://www.der-denver-clan.de/Denver/movie/movie01.htm

Count me in on the just terrible comments. I enjoy bad TV movies. I live for film/tv history. I adore campy "behind the scenes" looks. I've never even seen an episode of Dynasty. But the simple factual errors? The wonky timeline? Bugged me. How hard is it to do basic reseach on a show your network once aired?
Did they use the actual theme song in the movie? It sounded like a generic E!THS version to me.
The movie wasn't all that bad,IMHO. It makes me want to watch the show!

Slightly weird off topic note:
My great grandparents were (real) Carringtons. Family reunions? Not gonna be dull anymore.

Unfortunately, this wasn't as funny as the recent making of Charlie's Angels t.v. movie in the same format. The excessive amount of time spent on the relationship of Richard & Esther Shapiro (does anyone care?) would have been much better spent with things like a Claudia Blaisdell impersonator lighting candles and whispering "LIARS!" or some unknown actress mocking Ali McGraw's unbelievably bad acting.

The funniest part of this movie for me was the absurd and rather insulting portrayal of what typical Dynasty viewers were supposedly like.

If the segment of the movie was true, let me just say how sad I am that Esther Shapiro was not actually forced to go on television and issue an apology to the nation for the Moldavia Massacre because THAT would have made for some damn funny t.v. back in the day.

There's an interesting article here about Esther's apology for Moldavia, and the show's history thereafter, from May 17, 1986.

Lord, don't get me started. I found it incredibly odd that all those January 20th Presidential inaugurations were coinciding with season-ending cliffhangers.

Speaking as a completely casual viewer of the show during its original run, muffed details such as this didn't bother me at all. Far more entertaining were the entirely inaccurate portrayals of the actors involved. Lord knows what huge grudge the guy who wrote this thing is toting against John Forsythe, Joan Collins, Linda Evans, Heather Locklear, and Al Corley.

I'm still trying to get over the fact that Friedrich from The Sound Of Music was Aaron Spelling. For a very, very long moment, I also thought Patricia Hearst was playing Candy. And where, pray tell, was mention of the latter's gift-wrapping suite during the blueprint/lawsuit scene? I feel cheated.

They did all look like morons, didn't they?

What I couldn't get over was how Richard Shapiro was writing every single episode entirely by himself. Because that's exactly how big-budget television series work.

I still thought it was highly entertaining, although not as entertaining as Desperate Housewives would have been.

I thought it was funny that in a freaking dynasty reunion they had to get a potshot in at Reagan at the very end on the radio. What the hell does that have to do with Dynasty? Nothing, I say.

I just wish they had spent more time actually showing the behind the scenes rather than all the relationship between esther and her husband and the viewer shots and the reagan shots. It just felt like filler.


That bugged me too.

As a non-viewer of dynasty (I have vague childhood memories of dynasty and dallas being on but nothing else not gleaned from television retrospectives) I didn't notice the inconsistencies but how stupid. Demian what did they show wrong about heather locklear? I kept waiting for her to be a part of it and she was barely in the show.

Thank God, I'm not the only one who was bugged by this. They couldn't afford a staff of writers? Just one guy at home on a typewriter?

They mentioned Lady Ashley. Wasn't that played by Ali McGraw?

See I always think of him as The Amazing Spider-man.

I liked how they had a disclaimer at the beginning mentioning how inaccurate the movie was going to be. It gave me license to just watch for the cheese. And this was a big, gooey pile o' cheese. And I loves me some cheese.

I once heard that Dynasty was based on the Reagans -- you know, powerful family with gay son. Yeah, she did start to say Ali and "John" cut ES off in midname. I know, I was waiting for it too.

Honestly, that was so bad and I watched the entire thing. When they first showd Aaron with the young guy, I thought they were saying that Aaron was gay and that was his boy toy. The "cameo" at ABC by Herskovitz and Zwick did crack me up. I think my favorite part was Yanni showing up at Linda Evans house at the end.

Of course they could afford, and had other writers, compression again anyone? Interesting article Static, perhaps more so than the movie, no clue there seemed to be as much dysfnction off-camera as on.

I was wondering the same thing.

Two things that I found interesting about this film. First, it was a lot "nicer" to its subjects than some of these behind-the-scenes movies of late, which may have cut down on the entertainment factor. Pretty much all of the cast of Dynasty came off as decent which kind of equals boring.

Two, when the credits were running at the beginning, it occurred to me that with the exception of Heather Locklear, Linda Evans, John Forsythe and Joan Collins, they might has well have cast the original actors in the other roles. Because, what the hell, have YOU seen Al Corely or Jack Coleman in ANYTHING lately? I mean, anything that isn't on Cinemax?

I thought it was pretty campy. Alice Krige was great as Joan Collins. I'm a bit young to have watched Dynasty (although I did catch the last few seasons of Dallas) so how big a deal was the Moldavian Massacre when it first aired?

A huge deal! Security on the sets was top secret and the episode script (which I could usually read before the episodes taped) did not contain any pages revealing the massacre so that tabloids could not get copies. The buzz that summer was huge and tabloids and television shows (e.g., Oprah) were running all sorts of stories about who was coming back. That shirt with the bullet holes and "I Survived the Moldavia Massacre" really existed -- and was quite popular. But one of the huge problems was that it became a total letdown when they did not kill anyone of consequence.

One of the things the movie ignored was that the producers wanted the massacre because a lot of the original actors' contracts were up. By having so many characters in peril, the show could take away any leverage they had during contract renegotiations. If they did not re-sign, the actors' characters could simply become casualties. In fact, before the season premiere, the show reshot the final "characters lay unconscious and dying" scene so that a number of characters had less blood on them. When the season finale repeats, they use the reshot scene.



I'm not sure what you mean by Andrew Stevens, since he wasn't in Dynasty, but have you seen any recent pictures of Al Corley (or most of the original actors)? Try this Corley pic: http://www.der-denver-clan.de/images/denver/people/al01.jpg

I liked the crack about The Colbys. "What next? Aliens?" Hee.
That dude did not look like Michael Nader. And the guy playing Yanni? Yikes.

You're right. I meant Jack Coleman. I get my blond himbos from the 1980's mixed up all the time.

Oh yeah, that drove me nuts. That was the worst Dex Dexter impression I have ever seen. Ok, well, the only one. But he wasn't even close.

The only funny parts in this movie were the reactions of the audience. The guy who hated the gay guy, then loved the cat fight, then said "hey, what happened to the gay guy?" etc.

Rikraq, you're right about Yanni though. Oh boy.

The actor protraying Dex sucked. I couldn't believe he didn't try to sound even a little like Dex. Overall, the movie was ok. It made me remember fondly when I was unemployed for a year, and I watched Dynasty every day on Soapnet.

Or the timeline of politics. I particularly liked how it was simultaneously a recession AND an economic boom.



Yeah, that too. Maybe the movie, like Days of Our Lives, was "unstuck in time."



That is what it looked like.



I laughed out loud at that part. Nice touch.

Apparently he decided to emphasize the eyebrows as opposed to, you know, acting. His black eyebrows were like another character altogether.

Yeah, the "Dex Dexter" was TERRIBLE. Esp. since Michael Nadar has such a distinctive voice, and that guy didn't even try to pull it off.

I agree that they made the actors -- which the exception of Joan Collins -- look sort of like morons. I've seen a lot of Heather Locklear interviews -- because, yes, I love the soaps -- and she's no where NEAR that dumb.

I think it would have been a lot more amusing to actually focus on some of the crazy, crazy shit that happened ON Dynasty: Claudia Blaisdale lighting her Candles of Hate and burning down La Mirage, Adam painting Jeff's office with the poison paint, that time Blake raped Krystal and then felt really, really, really bad about it...they wouldn't have even have had to reinact it. You could have had Richard Shapiro sitting at his typewriter and going, "I know! Poison paint!"

Wait, what?! I remember the poison paint. I remember the near incest between Adam/Fallon. And I remember Adam raping Kirby. Thankfully, I must have been tuning out when Blake raped Krystal. What? Huh? They did that? Ugh!

Even Joan didn't look too bright for picking that husband. Whatever happened to him, I wonder?

I wish I had gotten closure on the "real life" couple. What happened to them between the show being canceled and the reunion? Did he finally get a job? Did watching Steven Carrington on tv give him the courage to come out?

I remember that. I think a soap, maybe Santa Barbara, ripped that off.

I agree that the best part was Linda Evans and Yanni making eyes at eachother while a few bars of generic new age music played in the background. Hee.

Man, the Moldavian massacre looked so cheap. Didn't it actually happen in a big stone cathedral? Nice that they included the tolling church bell, though...I remember that gave me the shivers at the time.

It was Days of Our Lives. Laura was driven crazy with poison paint in her office.

Yes, that's it! They've also done their versions of the Moldavian massacre.

It doesn't look like Pamela Sue Martin has done much lately. An episode of That 70's Show in 2002. Here's a pic from 2003.

I believe it was a first season plotline. Now if anything, I would think John Forsythe would have had a much bigger problem with Blake raping his wife than Blake having an affair.


It was very odd that the first President Bush's inauguration coincided with the 9th season finale of Dynasty and its cancellation, despite the fact that the finale aired in May 1989 and Bush was inaugurated in January 1989. But they were just trying way too hard to work the whole "the Reagan era symbolized Dynasty and both ended together" thing.

However, one of the strangest things in that movie was Joan Collins doing a complete 180 for no apparent reason and deciding that she liked Linda Evans after all when Linda told her that she was leaving the show. So Linda gets one unflattering story in a magazine and Joan all of the sudden understands her? I was really under the impression that they did not care for each other in real life.

I enjoyed the movie, even though I've never seen an episode of Dynasty. I'm just a sucker for camp. I cracked up when the Middle American husband was enraptured by the catfight, and when Yanni showed up at Linda Evans' doorstep.

Incidentally, isn't it weird that this show was promoted everywhere (TV Guide, ABC's own website) as being called Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure, when the title in the credits was Dynasty: Behind the Scenes?

Yes, rikraq, Days of our Lives totally ripped off the Moldavian Massacre, in several ways. Greta's coronation as Princess of Amburg was crashed by...an organized crime gang, I think (I didn't actually watch the show until the year after it happened.), and then the only people who died were ancillary characters on recurring status--no contract players.

And yet she'll always be Nancy Drew to me. Of course her replacement Emma Sams will always be Holly Scorpio to me.



Maybe it was doing all those interviews about Studio 54 for VH1.



Probably bolstered by the TV Guide (or was it Zap2it.com?) interview with her this week where when asked about the accuracy of this movie, she said that all the cast got along so well and loved each other. Then the interviewer asked "Including Joan Collins?" To which she answered, "No comment."

Linda Evans had more than one unflattering tabloid article written about her. In the 1980s, Linda Evans and Joan Collins were both constantly featured in the tabloids.
And there is no way Yanni could have just shown up on her doorstep, as I'm sure she had gates around her house to keep away the annoying tourists at that time trying to spot a celebrity.
But I didn't expect accuracy. Just some campy fun, which this movie provided. However, I think they could have done it justice if they had made it a mini-series rather than a 2-hour movie. So much to cover and so little time.

When I first started watching Dynasty I thought there was no way way PSM could be anything other than Nancy Drew. After about 40 minutes of the first episode, I was all, "Nancy who?" She totally rocked as Fallon. (So much so that I actually saw a movie she made during Dynasty called Torchlight in the theater. Worst. Movie. Ever.) Emma Samms, not so much. She just wasn't evil enough. Good as Holly Scorpio, though.

I really wanted an explanation for PSM's departure. Back in the Dynasty days, I didn't read all the gossip mags, watch ET or AH, or have access to any information other than what was printed in the TV Guide so whenever any cast changes happened I was usually shocked. New Steven? New Fallon? New Amanda?

That's why I loved the moment from the movie last night when CO's chair was replaced with a chair back for "Karen Cellini." I remember when I watched the show I had no idea that CO had been replaced. Nice to find out it was because of "back trouble." Oh, how I missed CO's "Mummy" though.

Speak of the Devil

I finally got a chance to watch this last night because in NYC it was bumped back to midnight because of football. I thought it was enjoyably cheesy as long as I just resigned myself to the fact that a lot of the details were going to be off, although I definitely liked the Aaron Spelling in the Charlie's Angels one better.

Yeah. The only thing I can figure is that maybe they were "compressing" it into that he had one long-running male love interest, but then Alexis would have had no reason to come back to town because the whole reason Blake was on trial in the first place is that he killed Steven's boyfriend Ted...oh, I give up. (As long as we're nitpicking, though, it was Pamela Sue Martin who was sent off with a car crash, not Catherine Oxenberg--she was in the fire Claudia started at La Mirage at the end of the 85-86 season and the godawful Karen Cellini was carried out by the firemen in the fall. (The chair bit was inspired, though.) Also, it was Adam and Dex who were fighting by the balcony and when Adam gave Dex a hard shove, that's how he and Alexis, who was standing right there, accidentally crashed through the balcony, and Joan Collins was actually rather pissed at first that Michael Nader was Dex because she wanted Jon-Erik Hexum, who she'd worked with in some cheesy TV movie about male models, to get the part.)

That's odd. In the one I saw, the Guilty Pleasure title was the one in the opening credits.