..Falcon Crest is an American primetime television soap opera which aired on the CBS network for nine seasons, from December 4, 1981 to May 17, 1990. A total of 227 episodes were produced.The series centers around the feuding factions of the wealthy Channing/Gioberti family in the Californian wine industry. The series was set in the fictitious Tuscany Valley (modeled after the Napa Valley) just north of San Francisco.
..The show revolved around Angela Channing (played by Academy Award-winning actress Jane Wyman), a despotic matriarch and corrupt woman who ruled with an iron fist over the Falcon Crest vineyards. Angela's honorable nephew Chase Gioberti (Robert Foxworth) was new to the area and had just inherited a portion of the Falcon Crest vineyards and winery from his father, Angela's brother Jason Gioberti (who died after a fall in the winery during the premiere episode). The rivalry between the established professional and the newcomer, who were tied together as blood relatives, set the tone for much of the series.Angela's heir was her lazy playboy grandson, Lance Cumson (Lorenzo Lamas), who loved money and yearned for power but lacked Angela's discipline and determination, which was proven after she persuaded him to work in the vineyards. Her ever-tightening grip on him, eventually sent him to work for his grandfather's newspaper, The San Francisco Globe. Eventually realizing that she would not gain control over Chase's land any time soon, Angela hoped to enlarge her empire by forcing Lance into an arranged marriage with winery heiress Melissa Agretti (Ana Alicia), who was herself a selfish schemer and would cause trouble for many residents of Tuscany Valley. Other major characters introduced in the first season were Angela's daughters, Julia (Abby Dalton), who was chief winemaker and Lance's mother, and the emotionally troubled Emma (Margaret Ladd), who became friends with both Maggie and Victoria. Chase's family included Chase's sympathetic wife Maggie (Susan Sullivan), who would eventually work as a freelance writer. Chase and Maggie's grown-up son Cole (William R. Moses) fell in love with Melissa, who later rejected him due to Lance's determination to have her for himself, and daughter Vickie (Jamie Rose, later replaced by Dana Sparks) was an open-minded college girl. But none could truly rival Angela until the conniving Richard Channing (David Selby) arrived in the show's second season. Originally a powerful newspaper editor, Richard later got into the wine business and made several attempts to wrest control of Falcon Crest from both Angela and Chase. Richard was the love child of Angela's late husband, Douglas, after his affair with Chase's mother, Jacqueline, and Angela therefore despised him.
..Despite its reputation as merely being "Dallas with grapesâ€, Falcon Crest soon found its own niche amongst the prime-time dramas of the 1980s, occupying the middle ground between the two extremes of the genre — being more glamorous than Dallas yet not quite as outrageous as Dynasty. The distinctive location filming in the Napa Valley and the dry, wryly humorous tone of the scripts gave the series a tone of its own.The rivalry among Angela, Chase and Richard stayed at the core of the show for years, as more romantic entanglements spun around them. Lance and Cole found themselves not only caught up in their family battles, but also competing for Melissa's affections.Like Dallas and Dynasty, Falcon Crest employed the use of memorable end of season cliffhangers to boost ratings. The 1982-1983 season climaxed with the culmination of a murder mystery whodunit plot (surrounding the death of Melissa's father, Carlo Agretti) that had spanned most of the season. The killer — Angela's daughter Julia Cumson — was confronted in front of the entire cast, only to produce a handgun. Shots were fired, and a coffin was seen being lowered to the ground, leaving the audience to wonder who had been killed off. Other cliffhangers included a plane crash carrying most of the major characters which ended the third season, (and killed the co-pilot, Philip Erickson, Dr. Michael Ranson and Linda Gioberti); a bomb explosion which ended the fourth season leaving Richard critically injured and Maggie with amnesia, and an earthquake that ripped through the valley that ended the fifth season. The earthquake killed Terry Hartford Ranson Channing, and Emma's fiance, Dwayne Cooley. The cliffhanger of the sixth season put Melissa, Richard, Chase, Dan Fixx and Maggie's baby, Kevin in danger. At the beginning of the seventh year it was revealed that Chase presumably had drowned in the San Francisco Bay after rescuing Kevin. He dove back into the murky waters to find Richard, Melissa, and Dan Fixx, but never resurfaced. His body was never found so ie could return if he ever chose to do so. At the end of the seventh season, Richard had joined and ultimately turned against The Thirteen, a murderous group of wealthy businessmen who planned to ruin The United States economy. Eric Stavros was brainwashed and sent to murder Angela (who knew about The Thirteen and could corroborate Richard's testimony to a Grand Jury) and Richard for exposing their ties to crime. Melissa was finally able to succeed in winning her battle for control of Falcon Crest, by evicting her from the mansion with the deed she found in a bank safe deposit box using a key Chase Gioberti left her in his will. At the end the county sheriff and his deputies watched as Angela came donstairs and exchanged words with Melissa, telkling her not to get too comfortable. She would not enjoy her victory long. In the last few minutes of the finale, Angela was seen lighting thirteen candles in a church. Then as the back of a man's head comes into view, she asks, "When are you going to tell Maggie you're alive?" It was revealed in the opening episode of Season eight that Richard was saved by Garth, his security chief, when he replaced the bullets in Eric's gun with blanks just prior to Eric's arrival to shoot him dead. Vickie and Eric were written off the show, Peter Stavros never returned, and the eight season shifted direction from the two previous years. Melissa was written off by way of committing suicide, instead of continuing the fun-filled battle with Angela over Falcon Crest the fans[who?] came to love and enjoy week after week[original research?]. Seasons eight and nine lacked the strong plot and character devlopement of pervious years, but was still fun to watch.[original research?] By the beginning of the ninth year, when Maggie drowned in a swimming pool, what had been the Falcon Crest fans[who?] knew and loved became more of a crime story than the family saga about controlling the family business.[citation needed] The last scene of the series shows Angela toasting the land, "A toast to you Falcon Crest, and long may you live."The series also frequently cast former Hollywood royalty in guest roles; Lana Turner, Gina Lollobrigida, Cesar Romero, Robert Stack, Cliff Robertson and Celeste Holm all appeared in Falcon Crest. Kim Novak joined the cast in 1986 and enjoyed a season-spanning story arc that was similar to her role in the classic film Vertigo. This aspect to the series seemed to be consciously embraced by the producers, who at one stage instituted a rotating guest star policy, in which her character would be revealed to be running from a murderous mob boss played by Robert Stack, who was responsible for killing Peter Stavros' real stepdaughter; Leslie Caron, Lauren Hutton, Eddie Albert, Eve Arden, Roscoe Lee Browne and Ursula Andress all made appearances during the 1987-1988 season. No other old-time guest stars ever appeared on Falcon Crest again after the seventh season.