Cynical Cinema

There may be no better television series in history for aspiring film industry people than Dynasty. It is great because you can grab Season Three, out on DVD October 21st from Paramount Home Entertainment, and keep it lying around your house. Because life is tough for people trying to break into the film and television industry. We’re always hearing about starving actors and writers, people who make their living dressing up as Wonder Woman on Hollywood Boulevard, having their pictures taken by tourists for cash while they continually struggle to break into the business while barely making ends meet at home. It can be depressing and sad and a lonely existence. You need a pick-me up every now and then. And Dynasty IS that pick-me-up.

You can’t watch four minutes of this show without thinking “oh my God! I could do that! I can act better than that! I could write that scene on the toilet at McDonalds! I could have filmed that with my mom’s old home video camera!” There is nothing quite like watching terrible actors deliver terrible dialogue in staggeringly ridiculous scenarios to give you hope that you, too, could make it in Hollywood. What’s truly amazing about Dynasty is that so many of the actors and actresses have made it in Hollywood. A very young Heather Locklear looks gorgeous but is clearly struggling with the whole acting thing. Joan Collins was, at the time, one of the best known “actresses” in the world. Linda Evans, following her time on Dynasty, pursued a successful career as the star of a series of infomercials. It was a star-maker series!

The plot of Dynasty is standard soap-opera fare. Betrayals, sexual liasons, love triangles, jealousy, murder, power struggles, conspiracies and cliffhangers abound. It is all so gloriously cheesy and campy and staggeringly stupid that one can’t help laughing while watching, and enjoying every minute. And it makes you feel good. Because yes you, whoever “you” are, could do that. And you could do it better.

Paramount Home Entertainment is in the Christmas spirit. A little early, if you ask me. But they didn’t ask me. They just went ahead and released the Holiday Treats DVD today, October 7th. It’s billed as “8 heartwarming TV classics”, and it actually delivers. For although I have not yet become imbued with the Christmas spirit, and I will likely hold off on that until about December 22nd, these TV episodes stand on their own. I had just turned on the I Love Lucy episode to take a quick gander at the DVD, and I was joined by my nine-year-old stepson. And he forced me to sit there, through eight episodes of Christmas cheer. And, with the exception of the Frasier episode, he laughed the whole time.

There is an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ricky put up a Christmas tree while reminiscing about the birth of their child. Then The Honeymooners, where Ralph sells his bowling ball to buy Alice her Christmas gift, only to find out she bought him a bag for his bowling ball. The episode of Andy Griffith where they hold their Christmas celebration in the jailhouse. The Brady Bunch episode where Flo has laryngitis. A particularly funny episode of Taxi where Louie puts up his own mother in a poker game with his brother. The Family Ties episode where Alex is visited by the ghosts from A Christmas Carol. Then a truly heartwarming episode of Frasier and a silly episode of Wings that involves Fay throwing her late husband’s ashes out of a plane in a dustbuster.

I could have done without the Family Ties and Wings, but six out of eight isn’t bad. I would suggest saving the Holiday Treats DVD for Christmas, but it’s a gift that could well be opened before December 25th.