Falcon Crest: Season 1
Nineteen eighty-two was a very good year for prime-time soaps.Dallas, in its fourth season, revealed who shot J.R.,Dynastyheated up in its second season with the addition of Joan Collins, andFalcon Crestmade its auspicious debut. Neither as wickedly fun nor campily over the top as its predecessors in its inaugural season,Falcon Crestadded a touch of class to this genre of infinite guilty pleasures. The venerable Jane Wyman, a casting coup, stars as Angela Channing, the iron-willed matriarch who will stop at nothing to maintain her power as head of Falcon Crest Winery and the surrounding Tuscany Valley. Robert Foxworthy, not the snappiest grape on the vine, costars as Charles Gioberti, Angela's nephew, who inherits a share of the winery in the wake of his father Jason's death. He moves west to make a new life for his troubled family, including wife Maggie (Susan Sullivan), a freelance writer; hotheaded son Cole (William R. Moses), an aspiring archaeologist; and angsty teenaged daughter Vickie (Jamie Rose), especially unhappy in her new surroundings. "I can't breathe in that house," she complains to Cole in the episode "Dark Journey," just before running away to San Francisco, where she unwittingly becomes enthralled to a pornographer.Falcon Crestwas referred to as "Dallaswith grapes," but there is one key difference. Larry Hagman's J.R. took great and gleeful pleasure in plotting his rivals' downfalls. Angela is a tough old bird, but whether she's hiring Charles's disreputable former war buddy to sabotage his crop or undermining his campaign for the County Board, she seems to get no particular kick out of her machinations to drive Charles and family out of the valley. What she andFalcon Crestneeded was a more formidable and equally cunning opponent. Enter David Selby as Richard Channing in season 2. Until then, we have Lorenzo Lamas as Angela's spoiled nephew and dangerously eager coconspirator and plenty of dark secrets and uncovered family skeletons to propel the season forward, principally Charles's growing suspicions that Angela isn't telling the truth about his father's death (well founded, as the audience knows from the pilot episode). One Very Special Episode features Lana Turner in her first screen role in more than a decade as Chase's mother. Anyone hoping for aDynasty-esque catfight between Turner and Wyman will be disappointed, but the two screen legends are great verbal sparring partners. A special shout-out, too, to Chao-Li Chi as Chao-Li, Angela's very faithful butler and chauffeur, as well as Ana Alicia as Melissa, who livens things up as a scheming wine heiress who loves Cole but submits to an arranged marriage with Lance. Though it serves up some cheese with its wine,Falcon Cresthas aged well, and its first season can be savored in episode sips or in one intoxicating gulp.--Donald Liebenson