The Rich Also Cry

[commonpeople1]

Dynasty: The First Season, 1981
Dynasty's first season is neither campy nor kitsch: it's pure, unadulterated bad art. Launched at the height of Dallas' popularity, it follows its format to the tee in the hope of gaining some of its popularity - going as far as borrowing plot lines (the oil business) and characters (Krystle's rag-to-riches story) - but on a lower budget (supporting actors are rehashed, such as the prosecution lawyer who is only a few episodes before a punter in a disco club). There's no tension, no antagonists (if you discount the "hero" Blake Carrington's rapist homophobe rages when he doesn't get his way.) It's like the anodyne garden of Eden before the snake (Joan Collins) arrives and wraps itself around Eve (Linda Evans) for a fight in a puddle of mud. For the DVD launch, the producers sneakily hint at Collins' presence on the box's cover as a way of tricking unwarry shoppers - she makes her entrance only in the Second Season. But get through the First Season you must if you want to reach that campy good fun. And, in any case, there's some pleasure to be found in the show's fossilised impressions of the early 80s: rotary phones inside limosines, cellphones the size of heads, Emily Dickinson quotes by crackling fireplaces and a lot of unprotected sex.