Knots Landing

Knots Landing is an American primetime television soap opera that aired from December 27, 1979 to May 13, 1993 on CBS and was a spin-off of Dallas. Set in a fictitious coastal suburb of Los Angeles in California, the show centered on the lives of four married couples living in a cul-de-sac, Seaview Circle. Initially intended to be a Scenes from a Marriage-type drama series, storylines also included rape, murder, kidnapping, assassinations, drug smuggling, corporate intrigue and criminal investigations. By the time of its conclusion, Knots Landing had become one of the longest-running primetime dramas on U.S. television after Gunsmoke, Law & Order, and tied for third place with Dallas and Bonanza (although Bonanza had made far more episodes).

Knots Landing was created by David Jacobs (one-time writer of Family and later producer of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) in conjunction with producer Michael Filerman (who would also later co-produce Falcon Crest). Although it became a spin-off of Dallas, the concept predates that series, and was initially rebuffed by CBS in 1977, as the network wanted something more "saga-like." Jacobs then created Dallas, which the network accepted and premiered in 1978. After Dallas became a hit, Jacobs was then able to adapt Knots Landing as a spin-off series by way of incorporating characters originally introduced in the parent series. The series was loosely inspired by the 1973 Ingmar Bergman television miniseries Scenes from a Marriage, but with four marriages. Though initially not as popular as Dallas, Knots Landing eventually outlasted it and garnered much critical acclaim. The series peaked during the 1983–84 season with a 20.8 rating (finishing in 11th place) and a 20.0 rating for the 1984–85 season (when it finished 9th). This can be attributed, in part, to more dramatic storylines as the series became more soap-opera like, and the gradual inclusion of newer characters to interact with the original cast. By the 1988–89 season, Knots Landing was ahead of Dallas in the ratings, though audiences for both shows by this time were less than their earlier years.

In 1997, much of the cast reunited for a two-part mini-series entitled Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac. In 2005, they reunited again for the non-fiction special Knots Landing Reunion: Together Again in which the cast reminisced about their time on the show. Dallas itself was revived in 2012, with several characters from Knots Landing scheduled to appear in its second season.