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TELEVISION REVIEW

If You've Got It, Flaunt It: ABC Trumpets an 80's Hit

"Dynasty," repeats an ABC executive, dubiously. Talking into a cumbersome speakerphone, he asks: "Aaron? Will Middle America get it?"

There is a pause before the word comes down from Aaron Spelling, television's clairvoyant: Yes.

The delivery of that yes -- at once so modest and so oracular -- is perfect. And it marks the point at which "Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure," a two-hour television movie to be broadcast tomorrow night about the rise and fall of ABC's hit drama of the 1980's, turns really good. As he is played here, Mr. Spelling (Nicholas Hammond) knows that audiences want to see Americans behaving and misbehaving like royalty, and it's satisfying to see a low-key character who trusts his own judgment so absolutely. In Mr. Spelling, we also get a winner whom we know will be spared (so far) a comeuppance -- and that makes him all the more fun to watch.

But it doesn't sound very promising, does it? A television movie about a 20-year-old television series? It rings of narcissistic self-tribute, evidence that ABC, on a roll this season, is willing to push its luck. But if this movie demonstrates nothing else, it's that ABC knows well how to flaunt its victories; flaunting, after all, was what "Dynasty" was all about. In fact, there's something very "Dynasty" about paying such ostentatious tribute to "Dynasty" when a more prudent network, fresh from turnaround, might be shoring up its recent hits.

These just aren't prudent times at ABC; they're "Desperate Housewives" times. Do-no-wrong times. And that spirit comes through in this funny movie, which begins in 1981, with a husband-and-wife team -- she's a producer, he's a writer -- trying to find a way to do an "I, Claudius" for commercial television. Esther Shapiro (Pamela Reed) is convinced that a family strung up in the trappings of wealth would make great television; Richard Shapiro (Ritchie Singer), her husband, is a bookish man who apparently can write anything. From the start, the Shapiros are well aware that ABC wants a show to rival CBS's mammoth hit, "Dallas." (ABC executives already have a title for the copycat show they envision: "Fort Worth.")

In response, the Shapiros rapidly invent the Carringtons, Blake and Krystle, a rich oil-money couple played by John Forsythe (Bart John) and Linda Evans (Melora Hardin); for a time they are styled as moral exemplars. Mr. Shapiro proposes "Dynasty" as a title and, with the benediction of Mr. Spelling, who becomes the show's executive producer, it sticks.

An early plotline involving a gay son, Steven, reflects an effort to establish the show's progressive bona fides. But when the ratings aren't quite high enough, ABC nixes the gay themes, and Steven, who was initially played by Al Corley, is forced to go straight. (Heather Locklear, here played by Holly Brisley, is imported to facilitate the conversion.) When Corley (Rel Hunt) refuses to sell out his part, the producers fire him, and write in a disfiguring oil-rig accident; after an efficient plastic surgery scene, a new actor plays a straight Steven.

But the producers' greatest coup comes in casting Joan Collins (Alice Krige) as Alexis Carrington, Blake's ex-wife. She plays the villainess with relish and is soon the centerpiece of cat-fight scenes with Krystle that at the time seemed to mark television's lowest and highest point. The show eventually hit No. 1.

Melora Hardin is exquisitely Southern Californian as Linda Evans, who first appears doing someone's numerology chart, and ends the movie in love with Yanni.

The movie is less satirical than it has been billed; as a comedy about the soap opera life, it's closer to "Tootsie" than "Soap Dish." The absence of drug-abuse plots or other standard Hollywood melodrama keeps the action fresh. And the film even has some serious moments, which it doesn't overplay. When Rock Hudson (Robert Coleby), whom Ms. Evans kisses in one episode, is found to have AIDS, will Ms. Evans turn out to be infected? The flicker of poignant concern in everyone's eyes evokes the 80's better than all the acetate dresses and shoulder-pad jokes combined.

ABC, tomorrow night at 9 Eastern time, 8 Central and Pacific times

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section E, Page 25 of the National edition with the headline: TELEVISION REVIEW; If You've Got It, Flaunt It: ABC Trumpets an 80's Hit. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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