Had prime time soaps become an endangered species in the 1990s? Mimi Torchin begged to differ, "The only thing that's endangered is the nomenclature. If you're going all year with the same basic storyline, you're a soap." In 1993, 'Knots Landing' concluded after 14 years. Creator David Jacobs shared, "I'd always seen 'Dallas' as being very much a show of its time, while 'Knots Landing' changed and evolved with the times."
"I approach my shows like novels," David disclosed. "I start with the characters. I want to know their history and see why they are like they are. 'Knots' has changed throughout its time on the air...'Knots' flowed with the times. (Bill) Devane, like Abby (played by Donna Mills), was my kind of villain, which means he's not all bad. He was a good man going bad. The changing character has become the rule of television. Before that, television characters were cast in stone...'Knots' was the show that opened the door. (Senator Gregory Sumner) was an evolved character. When Nicolette Sheridan arrived, her character was spoiled, insecure and inept. She used nothing but her beauty to get along. Now, she has evolved into a real mature person." Bernard Lechowick added, "Our characters are not written black and white – all of our characters are grey."
Lynn Marie Latham believed, "Drama is the same from a storytelling perspective, whether you're talking about theater, film, prime-time, daytime. It all goes back to Aristotle's 'Poetics.' You have setup, complication and resolution. I think it was William Goldman who said, you put somebody up in a tree, you throw rocks at them and then you take them down. What happens in daytime is you have a much bigger pile of rocks - setup, complication, complication, complication. And then if you have resolution on a story, you better have another story in place as you're doing that." In the American fall of 1993, 'Angel Falls' inherited 'Knots Landing' Thursday-night television time slot. However after 5 episodes, 'Angel Falls' got canceled. Entered 'Second Chances', which lasted 8 episodes. It was noted "'Second Chances' becomes the first fictional TV series of any sort to work all 3 of the 1992 presidential candidates into the same script." Lynn Marie maintained, "I have always found throughout any series I've worked on that the audience is hooked in by multi-generational storytelling. If you isolate the young people, if you isolate the older cast, the storytelling is not as good because that's not real life."
Of 'Angel Falls', Peggy Lipton recounted, "We shoot 6 episodes at a time so it's like filming a self-contained story. Because I know what happens to her, I can build her like I would a stage character. When we'd get our scripts, there would be pages cut out so that even the actors didn't know what the end would be. And that's difficult for an actor. You really want to be able to prepare to play your character. It takes more than just reading the lines; it takes getting into that person and understanding why she does what she does. You need to be ahead of the audience, so that when you reach a certain point, the viewers will feel you've taken them with you; you haven't suddenly arrived somewhere without a way of getting there."
Of her character, Peggy described, "Although she was born and raised in a small town, she's lived much of her life outside. She’s gone to college. She has a view of the world that isn’t shared by many other people in Angel Falls. She came back only because her husband, Luke (played by James Brolin), wanted to return, but she's never been able to fit back into the life. Since coming back, she's become increasingly dissatisfied with her life in Angel Falls, and the steam has been building up, and if there isn't an immediate explosion there certainly will be a lot of venting."
