Season not split on Australian release ^ Love Dynasty. Got stung buying previous vols. from US on Amazon, as they were split into volumes. I've now released Dynasty is released in Australia as full seasons. Season 4 was released in December 2009 for about $35. My advice is if your dvd player is multi region hunt down the Australia release.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... ^ Season 1 of DYNASTY was intelligent and great, even if it was a little slowly-paced and not quite as splashy as fans would come to expect.
Season 2 got the balance right: DYNASTY is still a legit character drama, but the glamour and pace have been amped up and rivals Krystle and Alexis would never seem more competent or as in tune as they do here... Easily, this is the defining year of the show --- it looks as if DYNASTY is perched to become the best TV series ever!
Season 3: the writing starts to go awry... things don't make sense, non-sequiturs abound, the plotting becomes an afterthought, and too much dialogue is given over to empty sentiments of love/hate and the characters telling each other how fabulous they are. Also, the misguided new static acting directive from the producers damages the performances, unnecessarily ruining the feel of many scenes.
Season 4: the 1983/84 year is cited as the peak season for the wealth-based nighttimes soaps of the '80s, and while DYNASTY's riding high in some ways, the goofy, stilted problems from the previous season continue... The very first episode of the year is really quite taut and focused, but it's all downhill from there: Joseph commits suicide after trying to kill Alexis, but the show never fully explains why he set fire to Steven's cabin with her inside it. We know it has something to do with Alexis holding secrets about Kirby's mother --- but what? She was crazy, we already know that... No matter. After Kirby makes a lame attempt at strangling Alexis, the butler's orphaned daughter agrees to marry her rapist, Adam... Then the show initiates a promising plotline about someone stalking Alexis and ransacking her penthouse suite, yet that plot is dropped and forgotten without explanation... Who was doing it??... Claudia weds Steven so Blake can't take away his child in court, then the couple promptly forgets it was a marriage of convenience... Fallon gets taken in by a slimy slice of Eurotrash, Peter DeVilbis, inexplicably cast with the corpse-like Helmut Berger whose lines appear to be dubbed or shoulda been. When she realizes she's been had by this nasally mumbling opportunist, she runs into traffic and gets one of those Carrington Family Headaches the show seems so fond of; in fact, the headaches get so bad, she suddenly realizes she's loved Jeff Colby all along and wants to remarry him for no convincing reason... Blake's public-relations girl, Tracy Kendall, decides the way to get back at Krystle for taking the promotion she's hoped for is to seduce Krystle's husband in the most lazily-staged, pathetically transparent attempts imaginable... Alexis gets a new boyfriend, the effetely macho Dex Dexter, who just waltzes into her office, lays a kiss on her, and they're together forever! Only their relationship will never make any sense until Season 9 (which is a long time to wait, I'm tellin' ya!)... The cast actually goes to film in Denver for the only time in the series' history, but it remains inside the entire time, ignoring the opportunity to obtain any exterior location footage whatsoever... Diahann Carroll shows up at the end of the year to make a now-obligatory Mysterious Entrance, and she never gets anything else to do for the next three years except hand her brother, Blake, the occasional check to "save my company, dammit!" as she's apparently now his banker.
Nothing goes anywhere. The writers no longer seem to have a story they feel compelled to tell.
At least Alexis briefly takes on a sultry, smokey-voiced sense of her own statured coolness for Season 4, causing her to seem like the only person in the Rocky Mountains who might have even a clue as to what they're actually doing --- although her spontaneous Dietrich solo rountine in a cowboy bar to seal some nonsensical oil deal doesn't go far in proving it.
Oh, how good this show seemed to be a just couple of years earlier! For it is unrecognizable now. Only the diamonds and cashmere are of acceptable quality.
No wonder Paramount is now splitting up each season into two over-priced packages: the show is completely schizophrenic!
Vol. 2 Is On The Way, Finally ^ I received an email from Paramount last week that Vol. 2 is scheduled for a Spring 2010 release. Possibly the best half of the best season. This is a must-have for Deborah Adair fans in particular. She is sizzling here; too bad this was her only season.
rip off ^ this is a rip off.. I put up with it on season 3 the volume rip off .. but I'm now just gonna go to netflix.. forget this..
the DUMBEST marketing ^ I don't know who's brilliant idea it was to start marketing the Dynasty series in 2 parts beginning with season 3 - but this is the fastest way to KILL interest in the series. And who want's to spend $60 per season?
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
