A Happy ‘Landing’? : Producer Hopes to Save Unraveling ‘Knots’

For 12 seasons, “Knots Landing” thrived on scandal, sex, suspense and secrets. But in Season 13, the only scandal has been that TV’s oldest prime-time soap lost its way and a chunk of its audience. The only suspense: whether David Jacobs’ drastic decision to close down production, fire three writer-producers, dump a couple of characters and revamp most of the story lines will save it.

“It’s like an airplane crash,” said Jacobs, the creator and executive producer of “Knots Landing,” explaining what went wrong. “It’s never just one thing that causes it.”

The first of seven restyled episodes salvaged from the early-season wreckage airs at 10 tonight on CBS, and whether the midstream changes boost the ratings over the coming weeks is likely to determine whether the longest-running prime-time entertainment series on television today lives to see another year.

“Knots,” the story of several families who live side by side in a suburban cul-de-sac in Southern California, has already outlasted “Dallas” and “Dynasty,” TV’s most famous prime-time soaps. But Jacobs insisted that it wasn’t old age that induced some of the show’s audience to defect this season, transforming what had been a Top 25 ratings winner just three years ago into an also-ran that has been beaten badly most recent Thursdays by NBC’s “L.A. Law” and ABC’s “PrimeTime Live.”

Viewers left, he said, because the stories quit focusing on the roller-coaster emotions of the show’s familiar core of characters, played by Michele Lee, Kevin Dobson, Ted Shackelford, Joan Van Ark, William Devane and Nicollette Sheridan.

“Unlike ‘Dallas,’ which always returned to the struggle for control of Ewing Oil, we have always tried to change ‘Knots Landing,’ ” he said. “And I guess it was inevitable that we would come upon a series of changes that didn’t work. We have done some pretty absurd stories in the past, but we got away with it because the characters always behaved in a way that remained compelling to the audience. What happened this year was the stories weren’t too good, and we introduced too many new characters who were unrelated to our core characters. These new characters were out there doing their own show, and our audience got mad.”

“You just don’t fool around with Joan and Ted and Michele,” said Michele Lee, who, along with Shackelford and Van Ark, has starred in the show since Day 1 in 1979. “You can’t neglect them. We have always had new characters, but the audience wants to see how the new characters affect our lives, not how they affect the lives of the other new characters. That is a different show. And that is what happened.”

Jacobs and fellow executive producer Michael Filerman had brought in several new producers to supervise the show last summer when Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick, who had been running “Knots” for the past few years, left to work on the new ABC drama “Homefront.” Jacobs, who also created “Dallas” and serves as executive producer of “Homefront,” said that a serious nine-week illness prevented him from working closely with the new producers at the start of the season.

When he returned and found that the waitresses at Art’s Delicatessen in Studio City wanted to talk about “Homefront” instead of “Knots Landing,” Jacobs said he knew the show was in trouble. After several of the veteran actors bugged him to make changes, he closed down production in November for nearly six weeks to rewrite the scripts for Episodes 16 through 22. He publicly confessed the reason for the unusual hiatus and vowed to use the down time--which added about $400,000 to the show’s budget--to return “Knots” to its old form.

The only problem with that public statement, some of those close to the show say privately, is that another seven episodes of the first batch still had to air before “Knots” arrived at “magic” episode No. 16. By admitting that these episodes stunk, one source said, Jacobs basically invited viewers not to watch.

Jacobs conceded that “perhaps it was not wise” to publicly discuss the show’s problems, but he said he wanted to reassure the loyal “Knots” audience that the series would soon get back on track. “

He intends to win them back by inserting a “shock” into each episode--something that he promises will get viewers talking about the show every Friday morning.

In addition, the characters of Joseph Barringer and Victoria Broyard have disappeared, and Pierce Lawton (Bruce Greenwood), who was initially brought in to play Sheridan’s lover, has been turned into a villain. Two young sexpots, played by Boyd Kestner and Felicity Waterman, will enter the neighborhood, and the new story lines, Lee said, intertwine all of the main characters in an “explosion of emotional jeopardy.”

“If it’s ‘Knots’ ’ time to die, it’s ‘Knots’ ’ time to die,” Jacobs said. “But I didn’t want it to end because the show wasn’t any good.”

Both Jacobs and Lee believe that it is not “Knots’ ” time to die. Unlike “Dallas” and “Dynasty,” which were rooted in the affluence of the Reagan years, “This show is about the work ethic, the American family,” Lee said. “It changes as our society changes. That’s why ‘Knots Landing’ can run for another 20 years.”

More than ratings, however, economics is the real threat to the show, Jacobs said. Because of the hefty salaries paid to the many longtime stars, “Knots” costs at least 50% more to produce than the average drama series (which runs about $1.4 million per episode), he said. Even if the ratings improve and CBS decides to renew it, the network is unlikely to increase the license fee it pays for a series that has struggled this season.

“Because of the economics, at some point we will have to have more cast turnover, and I don’t know if the audience will put up with that,” Jacobs said. But that’s a problem for the future. “I came back to save it,” he said. “We all want to be back next season.”