Question for the Hive Mind, Dynasty Edition

A few weeks back, the husband and I started watching the original Dynasty¹ on Amazon. I don't remember wanting to watch it when it originally ran, but it wouldn't have mattered if I had, because I was a child and it was forbidden. I was nevertheless very aware of the show, because it was a big deal (Dynasty was the top-rated show across all networks in the 1984-85 season, and in the top ten for three other seasons). Without ever watching it, I would have been able to tell you that there were characters named Alexis and Krystle, and they fought with one another a lot, and that the show was sort of generally glamorous and soapy. It seemed like people took it sort of seriously -- I remember reading stuff about it being trashy and shallow, and yet also collected a lot of nominations and awards, so clearly people thought it was "good" TV for the time.

So watching it now has been really eye-opening in ways it couldn't have been if I'd watched it then, because it is terrible. Like, astoundingly so. I won't deny that it's entertaining (the outfits alone, my god), but the writing is frequently nonsensical. Like, characters who start at come on, unlock the door, we can't settle our problems if you won't even talk to me will, 15 seconds later, find themselves at fine, I hope you rot in your locked room, with no attempt on the part of the actor or writer to show any kind of thought process bridging the two. Just boom, 180-degree turn. Dynasty seems to be a TV show written by people whose only knowledge of humans is from watching other TV shows. It's amazing.

Also, a lot of the technical stuff is remarkably amateurish. Like, I don't remember which episode it was in, but twice now, I've caught the microphone boom dipping into the top of the frame and they used the shot anyway. There are occasionally shots of jewelry to which crude animated sparkles have obviously been added, and periodically the film quality gets abruptly worse for a single scene, presumably because a shot had to be redone with a different camera(?). "Romantic" scenes are designated as such by the addition of a filter that makes every point of light into an "x," as in this example:

State of the art at the time, I'm sure. But it hasn't aged well.

However! There are some moments that make it all worthwhile, which are highly recommended to any readers who want to watch on Amazon.

For the first big Alexis-Krystle catfight, check out season 2, episode 16, at 41:25.²

Joan Collins "singing"³ and dancing in leather pants: season 4, episode 15, beginning at about 28:30.

Have you ever wanted to see Linda Evans and Joan Collins fighting in a lily pond?⁴ Season 3, episode 23, beginning at 27:05.

To see the most hilariously awful sex scene I've ever seen (and be warned: it is really, really bad; I'm not exaggerating "most awful"), go to season 2, episode 22, at 43:36. There's a shorter version on YouTube, but watch the long version if you can, because part of what makes it so wonderful / terrible is that it goes until you're like okay, I get it, sexy sexy, let's move on and then it keeps going, and going, and going.

My younger siblings, when shown the sex scene, compared it to watching a box turtle eating a strawberry,


which is so precisely correct that it delights me each time I think about it, and cannot be unseen once seen.

And finally, how about a dull cameo from former president Gerald Ford and his wife Betty for no reason at all? (Season 4, episode 11, 25:51. Stick around until 29:55 and you'll get a bonus Henry Kissinger.⁵)

Anyway. So I wouldn't exactly say I'm enjoying Dynasty, but I'm not not enjoying it either. Nothing will convince you that the past is truly another country like watching their television programs will. Dynasty's treatment of Steven Carrington (only like the second gay main-cast character in U.S. television ever, I think I read somewhere) isn't up to modern standards, but it's pretty progressive for the early 80s. (On the other hand, he's only gay part of the time, and it was apparently acceptable to use a certain anti-gay slur in prime-time TV in 1981,⁶ which shocked me a bit.)

Another thing that would never fly today is the amount of fur being worn by the characters (mostly Alexis). I wasn't even looking very hard, and still managed to find these examples within like ten minutes:

More than anything else, though, I notice that the treatment of women is astoundingly bad by modern standards. Not just rape -- though Dynasty is in fact super-rapey⁷ -- but if you took a drink every time a male character grabbed a female character roughly by the arm, to stop her from going somewhere, force her to go somewhere, or demonstrate his manly man-ness, you would literally die of alcohol poisoning somewhere in the early to middle first season. It's alarming. I don't think Krystle changes rooms without male assistance once in the entire first season. Depending on how much of an optimist you are, this can be depressing or heartening; I choose to think of it as heartening. Sure, things aren't so great for women now, but they used to be so much worse that you could show characters doing this kind of shit on the most-watched TV program at the time and not have to worry about the audience losing sympathy for the grabbers and rapists. Change does happen sometimes.

ANYWAY.

The reason we are actually here, though, is plant-related. I am occasionally surprised by the plant choices the set decorators make,⁸ but I can at least usually determine what they are. And yet there are two I can't identify.

The first is obviously enough a bromeliad of some kind, but I can't even narrow down a genus for it. Closest thing I can think of would be a Guzmania, but it's awfully big for a Guzmania. Maybe they were bigger in the 80s?

UPDATE: Anonymous in the comments suggests Guzmania wittmackii. I'm not 100% certain on the species, but a Guzmania of some kind seems likely. See comments for links to photos.

The second plant has been driving me crazy for weeks, because the set decorator really likes them, and sticks them all over the place, but I can't figure out what it is; it reminds me variously of Schefflera actinophylla (compound leaves with large leaflets), Polyscias balfouriana and P. scutellaria (large leaves, produced from cane cuttings), and Ficus spp. (leaf venation, bark color) but doesn't seem to be any of them for sure. The bark is wrong for Schefflera; compound leaves are wrong for Ficus, it doesn't look like any Polyscias I've ever seen.

It's possible that the reason I'm finding it so difficult is that they're not all the same species of plant. The overall "tuft of large compound leaves at the top of a long, bare stem" appearance is consistent from specimen to specimen, but there are differences in leaflet angles and coloration that makes me unsure. In particular, I'm not sure if the two plants in this shot are of the same species:

Adam Carrington (played by Gordon Thomson), left, with Tracy Kendall (Deborah Adair). They're both more or less evil.

The guy here is Mark Jennings (played by Geoffrey Scott); he's the most pointless character and I hate every scene he appears in.

80s fashion!

Joan Collins, enjoying a morning half-grapefruit, as all Dynasty characters were apparently legally required to; it's rare when a breakfast scene shows them eating anything else.

I don't hate her outfit, though. I would totally wear something like that for all my personal grapefruit-eating scenes, if I ever ate grapefruit.

UPDATE: Pattock points out in the comments that it's actually a papaya, not a grapefruit. I don't like papayas, so I would not be willing to eat papaya while wearing Joan Collins' outfit. PATSP regrets the error.

More Adam and Tracy.

So what do we think? Any guesses on either plant ID? Thoughts on Dynasty? Anything?

UPDATE: David Gray, in comments, proposed Bombax, which after a lot of looking around in search engines got me to Pseudobombax ellipticum, a few photos of which look enough like the plants in question that I'm prepared to consider the plant definitely ID'ed. See comments for links to photos.

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¹ There is also a . . . severely unnecessary-sounding reboot on the CW, which I have not seen, and cannot imagine ever wanting to see. 1981 Dynasty or nothing. Accept no substitutes.
² This is especially delicious because while I'm not 100% certain, I think that for some of the fighting, Joan Collins' stunt double is a man on whom the producers have put a wig, a dress, nail polish, and maybe a little makeup. It doesn't show up well in screencaps, unfortunately, but:

If true, the likely real reason is that they were having difficulty finding a stuntwoman of Joan Collins' proportions, but I prefer the magical realist interpretation, that Alexis is so enraged that she physically transforms, à la the Incredible Hulk.
³ More "talking in a lilting way," really, though apparently Collins actually can sing: she just wasn't doing it for this particular performance.
⁴ (heck yeah, you have)
⁵ (Of course Alexis Carrington would know Henry Kissinger socially.)
⁶ Yep, it's the one you're thinking of. The really bad one.
⁷ Blake, Jeff, Mark, and Adam all either commit or attempt rape at some point, and all four of them are intended to be sympathetic characters at least some of the time. I'm probably forgetting some, too. Dex, maybe? Nick Toscanni?
⁸ Here's what was hot, plant-wise, in the 1980s, as best as I can determine from watching all of two shows (I'm also including data from our hernia-surgery-driven re-watch of Star Trek: The Next Generation), in order of increasing surprise (to me) when it showed up on screen:
• Epipremnum aureum (pothos)
• Syngonium podophyllum (arrowhead vine), though I think some of them were artificial so maybe it doesn't count?
• The presence of palms wasn't a surprise, but the number of them were. I'm not good at palm IDs, so the only one I'm sure about is Caryota mitis (fishtail palm). I feel like I've noticed Caryota being more popular on recent TV as well, which is interesting if it's true: I've never had great experiences with them personally.
• Strelitzia nicolai (white bird of paradise)
• Dracaena marginata, Dracaena deremensis 'Janet Craig,' Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana'
• Hedera helix (English ivy)
• Schefflera actinophylla (umbrella tree)
• Spathiphyllum cvv. (peace lily), though mostly only the big cultivars, and not nearly as often as I expected
• Codiaeum variegatum (croton)
• Ficus benjamina (weeping fig)
• Dieffenbachia cvv. (dumb cane)
• Yucca guatemalensis (spineless yucca)
• Monstera deliciosa (split-leaf philodendron)
• Aechmea fasciata (silver vase plant) and bromeliads in general
• There was actually a plot line involving African violets, starting in the middle of season 4, though the way the show dealt with them, I suspect the writers didn't know that African violets (Saintpaulia cvv.) and violets (Viola spp.) are different, so I'm not sure this one should count either.
• Maranta leuconeura erythroneura (prayer plant)
• Pachira aquatica (money tree)
• Araucaria heterophylla (Norfolk Island pine)
• Fittonia albivenis (nerve plant)
• orchids in general, but mostly genera that aren't Phalaenopsis (in particular lots of Cymbidium)
• Philodendron erubescens 'Red Emerald' and the occasional self-heading Philodendron
• Cissus rhombifolia (grape ivy)
• large columnar cacti (e.g. Cereus peruvianus) and Euphorbias (e.g. E. ingens, E. trigona); presumably this is part of the 1980s southwestern obsession even though neither of these are native to the U.S. southwest
• Pachypodium spp. (Madagascar palm), in both Dynasty and ST:TNG
• Gynura aurantiaca (purple passion plant)
• Dynasty had a few Chamaedorea metallica, which surprised hell out of me, because I would definitely have remembered it if I'd seen any in stores or books at the time, and yet I'm positive I didn't encounter the species until the late 2000s.

Plants I expected to see a lot, based on my memories of the 1980s, and either didn't see at all or saw only very occasionally:
• Ficus lyrata (fiddle-leaf fig) and Ficus elastica (rubber plant)
• Crassula ovata (jade plant)
• Anthurium andreanum hybrids (there are some, but almost always as cut flowers, rather than entire plants)
• Strelitzia reginae (orange bird of paradise) (again, always as cut flowers)
• Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant, airplane plant, mala madre)
• Aglaonema cvv. (Chinese evergreen) (though there were a few)
• Tradescantia zebrina (wandering Jew)
• Asparagus cvv. (asparagus fern) (though Dynasty has a few in exterior shots, and there is an A. plumosus in an interior shot early in season 5)
• Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant) (there are a couple in Dynasty, just not many; Star Trek: TNG has several)
• Philodendron bipinnatifidum (split-leaf philodendron) (though Dynasty has some in outdoor landscaping shots because they filmed in California, where P. bipinnatifidum can grow outdoors, instead of Denver, where they cannot, even though the story is supposedly set in Denver)
• Cordyline fruticosa (ti plant)
• cane Begonia cvv.

Random plant event: Carica papaya seedling

Partly/mostly inspired by the smallish papaya tree at the Quad City Botanical Center, we bought a papaya in mid December, and I scooped out a bunch of seeds and planted them to see how that would go. (The husband ate the papaya. It turns out that I don't like them very much -- not the flavor, the texture.) I planted 144 seeds on 14 December, which seemed like overkill even at the time, but I could have done two or three times that many: papayas have a lot of seeds.

Some of the seeds, after they'd been removed and cleaned up.
Then I put the flat on the back of a light fixture down in the basement, for the bottom heat. The first seedling popped up after just nine days, on 23 December.


Since then, at last count, twenty-two more have sprouted. I'm a little surprised it's not more than that, but I suppose they don't want to seem eager. Or possibly they're disappointed with the light. In any case, more are coming along every time I check, and I already have more of them than I'll know what to do with, once they're transplanted to pots.

I'm not actually sure what to do with them at that point, though. Are they difficult to grow indoors? Anybody who's tried this have some tips?

The Quad City Botanical Center, Part 1 of However Many

As I mentioned a while ago, there's a Botanical Center in the Quad Cities, the "Quad City Botanical Center." (Whimsical!) Somehow I'd never heard of it before the husband told me about it this past summer. And I know you would expect me to be bouncing off the walls until we were able to visit, but I actually forgot about it for several months, and only remembered I knew about the place when the husband raised the subject a couple weeks ago.

Botanical gardens are strange mixes of things I like and things I don't. On the one hand: plants. Plants are good. But then there's the part where you don't get to take home the ones you like. Even if you offer to pay for them. It took an enormous amount of focus and self-control, for example, not to leave the QCBC with a couple of Begonia leaves. Also, I'm fairly convinced that I will die, or at least become gravely ill, if I do not very soon get a variegated Callisia fragrans like the ones they have there.

Variegated Callisia fragrans.
Botanical centers are also weird places for me because I have so many plants, and have seen so many others, that my perspective is very warped about what counts as a cool plant. A gigantic, healthy Monstera deliciosa like this one --

Monstera deliciosa, split-leaf philodendron.
leaves me kind of cold. You know, big whoop, I have three of those at home. (Not as big or as nice. Not by a long shot. But a plant I'm very familiar with, even so.) I'm not saying this is desirable. It's just, you know, over time, it takes weirder and rarer things to get me excited.

So I don't know whether my opinion on the place can, or even ought to, matter to anybody, but having said that, I was pleasantly surprised by the QCBC. Part of the good thing about botanical centers, as opposed to retail, is that retail is fairly homogenized. No matter where you go, you find more or less the same set of plants over and over, and ordering is constrained by what's available and what will sell (jade plants, peace lilies, Dracaena marginata, pothos, lucky bamboo) than what the person doing the ordering finds interesting. On the other hand, botanical gardens, like home gardens, can cater a little more specifically to an individual's tastes and whims, which I suggest is a Good Thing, even if you aren't the individual being catered to.

So my guess is that someone at the QCBC has a special fondness for shrimp plants (Pachystachys, Justicia), plants in the Maranta family (Calathea, Ctenanthe), and . . . well, I'm not sure what you'd call the third category. We'll get to it.

I saw at least three shrimp plants, but only two were identified.

Pachystachys lutea, lollipop plant.
I was familiar with P. lutea from the garden center where I used to work. We never had any that were that big, though, and I was never that impressed with them. I get the appeal more now.

The second shrimp plant was one I hadn't heard of before.

Pachystachys coccinea.
Pachystachys coccinea inflorescence, close-up.

It might impress you more if it had been blooming as heavily as the P. lutea, but you get the idea from the close-up, I'm sure.

The picture of the third shrimp didn't turn out well; I was having to fight screwy afternoon light, shaky hands, and a lens that kept trying to fog up. So maybe next time on that one.

The Marantaceae plants were mostly Calatheas, with just one Ctenanthe I remember --

Ctenanthe lubbersiana.
-- but they made up for it by including two Calatheas I'd never seen or heard of. The QCBC gets big, big points for C. majestica:

Calathea majestica.

though they lose some points for making me look up the ID. (ID signs were sort of inconsistently placed, and often covered by the plants they were supposed to identify, which I suppose is the sort of problem botanical-garden-type places would have a lot.) There was also a large, sort of plain NOID, which didn't photograph well:

Calathea NOID.
And another one I had to look up, which I think is Calathea 'Wilson['s?] Princep.'

Calathea 'Wilson['s?] Princep.'
Unfortunately, there weren't any very large specimens of 'Wilson Princep,' and the ones that did exist were in weird, hard-to-photograph locations underneath lots of other plants, so I'll have to try again on this photo, maybe.

The final group of plants I want to cover for this post are all commercial plants, things I mainly knew from ingredient lists. The QCBC had several of them. They weren't nearly as pretty as the shrimps and the Calatheas, but I at least have mental images for some of these plants that I didn't have before.

First up, annatto (Bixa orellana). I realized while there that I knew the word, but had no idea what annatto actually is, or is used for. (Probably you know already, but if you're like I was: it's both a spice and a yellow to orange food coloring, particularly common in cheese, says Wikipedia.) The plant itself wasn't terribly impressive, though with a lot of these plants, I have no idea whether the specimen at the QCBC was particularly large or healthy.

Bixa orellana, annatto.
They also had vanilla (Vanilla planifolia), coffee (Coffea arabica), and sapodilla (Manilara zapota, which used to produce the base for chewing gum: gum is now, wikiposedly, mostly produced from artificial polymers), which I didn't take pictures of: I have a Coffea, the Vanilla wasn't that impressive and anyway I've seen them before, and for some reason it didn't occur to me to take a picture of the Manilara, though I remember thinking about it. Supposedly they had allspice (Pimenta dioica), cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) and bay (Laurus nobilis) too, though I don't remember seeing any of them.

I did get a picture of cacao (chocolate; Theobroma cacao), though I was a little let down; I expected more:

Theobroma cacao, cacao (chocolate) tree.
And the papaya (Carica papaya) was respectable, I guess. Only one I've ever seen in person, anyway.

Carica papaya, papaya.
Finally, they had a couple smallish ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata) plants. Fairly nondescript,

Canana odorata, ylang-ylang.
though there was one flower. (I think it may have dropped off the stem already, and just happened to catch in part of the plant, but if it was a dead flower, it still looked pretty. I couldn't detect a smell, which supports the dead-flower theory.)

Cananga odorata flower.
In the next couple posts, I'll take a look at the really big plants they had, some oddities which pleased me, and a few really impressive specimens of plants I already knew about. I'm tentatively planning Part 2 for 7 December, though that depends on me being able to write and sort pictures and etc. a bit more quickly than usual, so try not to be too disappointed with me if I make you wait a few days longer than that.