DVD Review: Dynasty - The Fourth Season, Volume One - Page 2

On a business trip to Los Angeles, Blake buys a beautiful, race-winning  horse from a millionaire playboy named Peter DeVilbis as an engagement gift for Krystle. Fallon accompanies them there and falls in love with Peter, not knowing that he’s scheming to con Blake out of millions to pay off his drug habit debts.

Mark begins to sense he’s losing the battle for Krystle’s affections and proposes marriage to her in her hotel room. When she turns him down he attacks, trying to force himself on her but she fights him off. Blake’s ongoing campaign finally wins Krystle over and by the end of volume one of this collection she re-marries him. The act that seals the deal was his offering her a more prominent role in his life by making her Director of Public Relations of Denver-Carrington. Meanwhile the woman the job was promised to seethes with resentment and joins with Adam in behind the scene plots against her.

Jeff’s wife Kirby spends the entire first half of the season fretting over how to tell him that the child she’s carrying is the result of Adam raping her last season. That comes to a boil when Jeff discovers that she’s five months pregnant instead of three, meaning he couldn’t possibly be the father. When she admits that Adam raped her and that he’s the real father, Jeff confronts Adam on the top of a high-rise building under construction and nearly kills him. Adam didn’t know he’d fathered a child and goes on a relentless campaign to break up Jeff’s marriage. While in anguished grief for her father Joseph and after several attempts at intentionally losing the baby, Kirby relents and agrees to divorce Jeff and marry the evil Adam.

This was also the year (one of several) that the character Steven Carrington (Jack Coleman) “chose” to go heterosexual, alienating a good portion of the show’s fan base. On a personal note, I stopped watching the show midway through this season in disgust that they would present a harmful theory that someone could on a whim just change their sexuality at will. To make matters worse, in subsequent seasons he “chooses” to be gay again, only adding "support" to the religious right's claim that sexuality is a conscious choice of lifestyle.

Under President Ronald Reagan’s guiding wing, the religious right movement was gaining influence across the country. They began a negative letter writing campaign against Dynasty’s producers for presenting a positive gay role model during prime time viewing hours. As a result of the pressure that was brought to bear, strong speeches were added to the new scripts. John Forsythe as Blake began angrily railing against his gay son for raising a Carrington grandson “in that homosexual environment” with his supposed gay lover. More often than not the word “homosexual” began being used instead of “gay” as well. The net result was Blake suing his own son for custody of Steven’s infant son rather than see the child being influenced in such a twisted household.

Article Author: Jet Gardner

Jet likes to collect books, music, chess sets, and friends. Favorite quote: "Evil only succeeds when good men do nothing." In 2004 his "good life" came to an abrupt end with a robbery and near-fatal beating. …

Visit Jet Gardner's author page — Jet Gardner's Blog