When it premiered on Dec. 20, 1979, no one would have dreamed that "Knots Landing" would become the longest-running contemporary drama in television history. (As CBS likes to call it.)
After all, this was just a spinoff of mega-hit "Dallas" that didn't even break into the top 20 until its fourth season. (It peaked at No. 9 two years later.) And it never got the media attention that fellow soaps "Dallas," "Dynasty" and "Falcon Crest" garnered.It was also about people who lived on a cul-de-sac, not in fabulous mansions.
But it outlasted all of them, running 14 seasons - a feat exceeded by only 11 shows in the history of prime-time television.
Why? Because, when it was at its best, "Knots" was great soap opera. The kind viewers talked about during the week, and eagerly anticipated.
The kind that left fans dying to know what would happen next.
A show with characters you loved - like Karen (Michele Lee), Valene (Joan Van Ark) and Laura (Constance McCashin) - and characters you loved to hate - like Abby (Donna Mills) and Greg (William Devane).
But even the villains were more than just evil caricatures. Even when Abby and Greg were doing their worst, you couldn't help but empathize with them at least a bit.
And one of the things that kept "Knots" going for so long was its willingness to bring in new characters and move out the old ones - keeping a core of favorites from season to season. And, even more important, to allow the long-running characters to change and grow.
And "Knots," which has fended off "Hill Street Blues," "L.A. Law" and "20/20" durings its run, isn't ending because of low-ratings - it's high production costs that are forcing it off the air.
CBS has scheduled a retrospective "block party" Thursday at 7 p.m. on Ch. 5, followed by a two-hour series finale that wraps up the loose ends at 8 p.m. In addition to the current regulars, Joan Van Ark and Donna Mills will return for one last time.
With that in mind, here are a few memories of "Knots Landing" that stand out after all these years.
- Life on the cul-de-sac was spiced up considerably in the second season when Abby Cunningham moved in. She soon set her sights on Gary (Ted Shackelford), breaking up his marriage to Val and leaving fans to wait almost a decade for Gary and Val to reunite.
Abby went on to have affairs with various partners, including a visiting J.R. Ewing and politician Greg Sumner (William Devane) - who became her third husband some years later.
- After being paralyzed in a car accident, Sid (Don Murray) dies on the operating table.
- Seemingly normal Jill Bennett (Tracy Austin) went around the bend after her engagement to Gary broke up. First she tried to kill Val, feeding her sleeping pills and trying to make it look like suicide.
Then, to get back at Gary, Jill tied and gagged herself after locking herself in the trunk of his car and alerting the police. What she didn't count on was suffocating - leaving Gary charged with murder.
- Two different actresses each played two different characters. Lisa Hartman began as Ciji Dunn, and after Ciji was killed Hartman returned as look-alike Cathy Geary. (Get it? Initials C.G.)
And Stacy Galina showed up as Mary Frances Sumner in 1990 (a role played six seasons earlier by Danielle Brisebois), only to be murdered. Galina returned a short time later as Mary Frances' look-alike cousin, Kate Whittaker.
- The man who killed Ciji, Chip Roberts (Michael Sabatino), was so shocked to see look-alike Cathy that he stepped back, tripped and skewered himself with a pitchfork.
- Alec Baldwin played Val's half-brother Joshua Rush in 1984-85. Joshua started out as a sweet boy who became a television evangelist, married Cathy and soon went completely crazy.
When his mama, Lilimae (noted actress Julie Harris), found him plotting to kill his estranged wife, she literally screamed him off the top of a building, sending him plummeting to his death.
- After idle musings by Abby, her nefarious henchman sent Val into premature labor, kidnapped her twins and told her they were dead. It took an entire season for Val to get the babies back.
- Happening upon the murdered Peter Hollister (Hunt Block), both Abby and her daughter, Olivia (Tonya Crowe), assume the other has done it. Abby ends up hiding the body in the newly poured concrete of a children's playground. And it was Paige Matheson (Nicollette Sheridan) who killed Peter - albeit accidentally.
- Anne Matheson (Michelle Phillips) attempts suicide as a Mamas and the Papas song plays in the background - and the camera pans across the album cover, featuring a much-younger Phillips.
- Who could forget Greg and Paige playing a friendly game of strip croquet?
- By the time Val got through marrying Gary three times - and marrying Ben and Danny as well - her name was Valene Clemmons Ewing Ewing Gibson Waleska Ewing.
Ben (Douglas Sheehan), a crusading journalist, disappeared while on assignment in Central America. Danny (Sam Behrens), a crazed wife-beater/rapist, eventually drowned in a cul-de-sac swimming pool after killing neighbor Pat in a drunken driving accident and attempting to kill Gary.
- Among the other recognizable names who've spent time in Knots Landing were Ava Gardner, Brian Austin Green, Howard Duff, Ruth Roman, Red Buttons, Michael York and Joe Regalbuto.
- In the course of 14 season, Karen has been widowed, shot, paralyzed, kidnapped, suffered prescription drug addiction, hosted a TV talk show, been stalked by a mad man and held hostage - twice.