History Series / KnotsLanding

* TheGhost: A rather odd example in the case of Abby's son Brian. He was played by Bobby Jacoby in Seasons Two through Six. He was not seen at all in Season Seven in spite of numerous mentions and the fact that many scenes feature his home Westfork and his elder sister Olivia. Typically, when they were explained at all, his absences were explained by saying that he was staying at a friend's house or simply asleep. Brian returned to the screen in Season Eight where he was played by Brian Austin Green, who continued in the role until Season Ten and later returned for the miniseries ''Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac''. Before his return in Season Eight, Brian was in danger of following in the steps of his cousin Annie and becoming a victim of ChuckCunninghamSyndrome.

** Eric's relationship with his African-American girlfriend Whitney in Seasons Six and Seven is a very straightforward example. Beginning in "A Piece of the Pie", there is a story arc over several episodes in which Eric is being very secretive about his new girlfriend. He lied to Karen and Mack, telling them that he was just hanging out with the guys but they could see right through him as he was wearing a very nice suit. It wasn't until two episodes later that he even confirmed that he had a girlfriend and told them her name but he still seemed reluctant to bring her over. In the following episode "For Better, For Worse", he brought her to Joshua and Cathy's wedding and introduced her to Mack and Valene. Karen wasn't there because she was investigating Mitch Ackerman, the doctor who stole Val's babies. True to form, Mack teased Eric by saying that Whitney was too good for him. In the next episode "Four, No Trump", Eric brought Whitney to dinner and everyone was very taken with her with Karen describing her as sweet, adorable and very bright. However, Eric seemed almost upset that no one seemed to take any notice of the fact that she was black. Not because he thought that everyone in the cul-de-sac, including Karen and Mack, were closet racists but because he seemingly wanted to be a romantic hero of the old mould and defend her honour. Lilimae accused him of being old fashioned and wanting to be a star-crossed lover but reassured him that they had come a long way since ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''. Whitney returned in the Season Seven episode "A Little Assistance" in which Eric told her that he was thinking about moving out. The implication was that he and Whitney would eventually move in together. After all that build-up, Whitney is never seen or mentioned again and Eric continues to live at home until leaving for college at the end of Season Eight, about a year and a half later. The reason that this arc was aborted was that Troy Beyer, who played Whitney, was cast as Dominique Deveraux's daughter Jackie in another prime time soap opera, ''Series/{{Dynasty}}''. Considering how much Karen later hated Eric's wife Linda, she probably wished that he and Whitney had stayed together and he had married her instead. Nevertheless, it is notable as the first interracial relationship in ''Knots Landing'', something which never happened in the original ''Dallas''.

* YourCheatingHeart: Richard Avery very much so. Gary Ewing as well; Kenny Ward as well plus he ReallyGetsAround.

** Gary almost does this for a second time in Season Eight when he becomes engaged to Jill. However, the wedding in Las Vegas is postponed and never goes ahead in spite of the fact that Gary and Jill remain a couple, taking into account one relatively short breakup, until early in Season Ten.

** Nicollette Sheridan plays Paige's mother Anne Winston (later Anne Matheson) in several flashback scenes in Season Eight.

** Nicollette Sheridan (Paige) in Season Ten, having been with the series since the end of Season Seven.

** Paige's age is open to some debate but it is nowhere near as inconsistent as Michael's. In the Season Seven finale "The Longest Night", Paige tells Mack that she is 19 years old but it was revealed in the Season Eight premiere "Just Disappeared, Part I" that she was conceived during the summer of 1967, which would make her 18 in 1986. The series abided by her originally stated age of 19 for the next several seasons. For instance, she was said to be 22 in several episodes of Season Eleven (presumably turning 23 towards the end of that season). However, during an argument with Paige in the Season Twelve episode "You Can Call Me Nick", Tom claimed that she got a promotion at the Sumner Group because she is 26 years old and she slept with the boss. 26 was Nicollette Sheridan's real age at the time.

* SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: The show generally avoided this as Claudia Lonow (Diana), Steve Shaw (Eric), Pat Petersen (Michael) and Tonya Crowe (Olivia) all remained with the series for years, eleven in Shaw's case (until his death) and twelve in Petersen's case, so their characters aged in real time (at least until Season Seven in Michael's case). The only children on the series who were played by multiple actors were the younger ones: Bobby and Betsy Gibson Ewing, Meg [=Mackenzie=], Brian Cunningham and Jason Avery. Except for the pilot (in which he was played by Justin Dana), Jason was played by Danny Gellis until 1982 when he was replaced by Danny Ponce, who played the character until 1986. Even this is not an example of SORAS since Ponce was actually a year and a half younger than Gellis. Jason actually seems to suffer from the opposite affliction, which is much less common: Reverse Aging Syndrome. When the 13-year-old Danny Ponce left ''Knots Landing'' during its seventh season to star as Willie Hogan in ''Series/TheHoganFamily'' (otherwise known as ''Valerie'' and ''Valerie's Family''), he was replaced by the 9-year-old Matthew Newmark. The character consequently grew younger in terms of his behaviour. Had Jason remained with the series after Season Nine, he could very well have reverted to infancy by Season Ten or Eleven.

* TheyDo: Or more accurately They Do Again. After several missed opportunities, Gary and Valene reunite towards the end of Season Eleven and he proposes to her in the aptly titled season finale "Let's Get Married". They officially get engaged in the Season Twelve premiere "Return Engagement". As previously mentioned, they tie the knot for the third time in the Season Twelve episode "The Last One Out".

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This trope page needs to be expanded, and probably re-written by somebody with more first-hand knowledge of the show.

* [[AsHimself As Themselves]]: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Billy Curtis and Mike Douglas in "Svengali", Creator/DickSargent in "Weighing of Evils" and Mary Lou Retten in "Letting Go".

* ParentWithNewParamour:
** When Karen starts dating Mack in Season Four, Diana dislikes him intensely to begin with but she eventually grows to like him. On the other hand, her younger brothers Eric and Michael liked Mack right from the start, though it did take Eric some time to get used to no longer being the man of the house after Karen and Mack married and Mack moved in with them in "A New Family".
** In Season Eleven, Bobby and Betsy hate Valene's new boyfriend and eventual husband Danny. It turns out that they are much more perceptive than she is.

* TheAlcoholic: Gary Ewing.

* ContinuityOverlap
** Heavily averted and then some. Although Bobby's "resurrection" represented the permanent parting of the ways between the two show's continuities (at least until Gary and Valene's return in the ''Dallas'' {{Revival}} 27 years later), things had already been heading in that direction for several years. No ''Dallas'' characters appeared in ''Knots Landing'' after the latter's fourth season and, other than Bobby's death, the only major ''Dallas'' storyline that ever had a significant impact on ''Knots Landing'' was Jock's death as Gary inherited $10 million in his father's will. After the reading of said will in ''Dallas''' sixth season, Gary only made two further appearances on that series: in the ninth season premiere "The Family Ewing" in which he returned to Southfork for Bobby's funeral and in the SeriesFinale "Conundrum" which has a ItsAWonderfulPlot in which J.R. is shown what would have happened to the Ewings and others if he had never been born. "Conundrum" also marked Valene's only ''Dallas'' appearance after its fifth season.
** Prior to Bobby's death and resurrection, the most extreme example of this lack of Continuity Overlap is the fact that Lucy only appears in one episode of ''Knots Landing'' in spite of the fact that she is Gary and Valene's daughter. The original plan, as discussed in early episodes of ''Knots Landing'' and contemporaneous episodes of ''Dallas'', was for Lucy to move out to California to live with her parents but this idea was abandoned. Speaking of Gary and Valene's children, the ''Dallas'' Dream Season revelation meant that their twins Bobby (named after his "late" uncle) and Betsy are never mentioned in ''Dallas''. Miss Ellie seemingly never found out that she had two other grandchildren while Lucy seemingly never found out that she had two younger siblings. Less extreme examples include Miss Ellie never visiting her supposed favourite son in Knots Landing once in fourteen years, none of the Texas Ewings bar J.R. ever meeting Gary's second wife Abby and Gary's unexplained absence from various family events in Dallas. In the ''Dallas'' / ''Knots Landing'' universe, Texas and California might as well be at opposite ends of the galaxy.
* CrossOver with ''Series/{{Dallas}}'' (at least until Season 4, completely cut off by Dallas' "Dream Season")

* [[NotHimself Not Herself]]: Val -- after the abduction of her twins sends her over the edge and into schizophrenic state, she takes on the personality of "Verna Ellers", a diner waitress back in Tennessee.

On the ''Dallas'' third season episode "Return Engagements" (December 21, 1979), a PoorlyDisguisedPilot, Gary (Ted Shackleford) remarried ex-wife Valene Clements Ewing (Joan Van Ark), and Gary's mother bought them a house in California to get away from the other turmoil in the Ewing family. Their daughter Lucy, already almost an adult herself, did not resettle with them, and only appeared on this show as a guest in the first season. The house was one of several his brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) was flipping to take advantage of California's housing boom at the time.

* ShowWithinAShow: In Seasons Eleven to Thirteen, Karen hosts a daytime talk show called "Open Mike".

* SurpriseIncest: Played with. Towards the end of Season Eight, Anne tells Mack that Greg, not him, is Paige's father. Karen and Mack are concerned that Paige may unwittingly be having an incestuous relationship with her uncle as she was dating Greg's half-brother Peter Hollister at the time. It turns out that they need not have worried since Anne was merely being vindictive and Mack is indeed Paige's father. Greg and Anne never had sex, though it wasn't because of any lack of trying on Greg's part. Besides which, even if Greg had been her father, it still wouldn't have been incest since Peter wasn't actually Greg's half-brother, something which the audience knew but Karen and Mack didn't.

* AsHimself: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Billy Curtis and Mike Douglas in "Svengali", Creator/DickSargent in "Weighing of Evils" and Mary Lou Retten in "Letting Go".

** Karen, Mack, Meg and Jason are taken hostage in their house by Brian Johnston in "House of Cards".

* PresentAbsence: After his death in Season Three, Sid's absence hangs over Karen, their children and Abby for most of the year, less so afterwards. Although his death did not have as big an impact as either Jock's death or Bobby's (temporary) death in ''Dallas'', his presence was felt throughout the rest of the series in small ways.

* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: In the early seasons, Diana tended to view Michael in this way.

* IHaveNoSon: In "Rise and Fall", after finding Joshua preparing to throw Cathy off a roof, Lilimae tells him not to call her "Momma," that she is ashamed of him for the way that he destroys people and that she has no son. A shocked Joshua then backs off the roof and plunges to his death.

* QuietlyPerformingSisterShow: Although they both ran fourteen seasons, ''Knots Landing'' was very much this to ''Dallas''. While ''Dallas'' was No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings in 1980-81, 1981-82 and 1983-84 and No. 2 in 1982-83 and 1984-85, the highest Nielsen rankings for ''Knots Landing'' were No. 11 in 1983-84 and No. 9 in 1984-85. In later years, ''Knots Landing'' achieved higher ratings than ''Dallas'' - No. 34 to No. 43 in 1989-90 for ''Dallas'' and No. 35 to No. 61 for ''Dallas'' (then its last season) in 1990-91 - but the two series and prime time soap operas in general were significantly less popular by then.

* TwoScenesOneDialogue: A regular feature of the series from Season Seven onwards.

* QuietlyPerformingSisterShow: Although they both ran fourteen seasons, ''Knots Landing'' was very much this to ''Dallas''. While ''Dallas'' was No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings in 1980-81, 1981-82 and 1983-84 and No. 2 in 1982-83 and 1984-85, the highest Nielsen rankings for ''Knots Landing'' were No. 11 in 1983-84 and No. 9 in 1984-85. In later years, ''Knots Landing'' achieved higher ratings than ''Dallas'' - No. 34 to No. 43 for ''Dallas'' and No. 35 to No. 61 for ''Dallas'' - but the two series and prime time soap operas in general were significantly less popular by then.