Falcon Crest (TV Series) The Harvest (1981) User Reviews

Here's the series pilot done better.

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 28 September 2019]

Lance shows his true colors I this follow up episode to another that showed that all cousins ain't kissin'. He is spending way too much time partiyng and getting into all sorts of trouble, causing Angela to put him on suspension as heir and using Cole to bring him back in line and thus under her thumb. It's not clear whether Cole has indeed become her new favorite or just a pawn in her determination to control everyone, but Billy Moses and Jane Wyman work very well together.

The growing friendship between Vicki and kind vineyard worker Nick Ramus has been slowly growing into something closer, but it ends up with him stabbed in a fight caused by Lance. There's more character development for both Julia and Emma with Julia's history explained and Emma obviously medicated, keeping them both under their mother's thumbs. It's obvious that Julia resents Angela but is too weak to escape from her.

The key scenes are between Angela and Cole with Angela sweetening Cole up as she explains the family history and the family's ties to the valley and the business which she refers to as her kingdom. She knows that Lance is listening and charms Cole in a way that would have anyone (with the exception of Chase and Maggie) eating out of her hands. Even if she has self centered motives, her kindness in some aspects (especially to the Nunez family) is genuine. While I thought that the pilot was one dimensional in many aspects, this episode takes the best qualities of the unaired pilot and adds in more. The show is strengthened by this episode, showing that best was yet to come.

Cole & Lance Rivalry

[JasonDanielBaker · 10 March 2012]

After Lance (Lorenzo Lamas) is caught causing problems (starting a bar fight because he sees his cousin Victoria dancing with "the help") which embarrass he and the local reputation of Falcon Crest in the valley Angela suspends his allowance and privileges.

After a chance encounter on the road in which Angela's car gives out on her, Cole (Bill Moses) graciously comes to the rescue. Grateful and intrigued she spends time with the young man learning a bit about him and teaching him about two subjects which have become of interest to him since he moved to Tuscany - wine and their family tree. She even buys him a car and lets him stay over at the her mansion.

Chase (Robert Foxworth), Cole's father and Angela's nephew is suspicious that she may be attempting to stir up some competition between Cole and Lance, her grandson and favourite potential heir. Headstrong Cole is just as determined to keep the car he has been given as Chase is that he return it to Angela.

Is all of this merely to teach Lance a lesson? Is it to have someone to replace Lance with if he continues to flounder? Is it to drive a wedge between Cole and his father weakening Chase's resolve by removing one of his strongest allies? Or is she sincere in grooming Cole, an upstanding young man with the same work ethic and integrity that his ancestors and hers built Falcon Crest with? It is all of that as Angela is a complicated woman who operates on a lot of different levels. In her own way she even loves Chase. Family can be complicated when people in your family are complicated.

In any event Cole's time with Angela means that he is potentially not there to help pick the grapes, a possible calamity given that Lance has secretly bribed Chase's workers to go elsewhere.

Cole is a valuable ally to Chase precisely for the reasons that occasionally cause a wedge between them. Both are stubborn and proud resulting in the occasional quarrel with each other. But the son shares the same sense of loyalty and propriety as his father and like his father that stubborn streak and pride can work in resistance to Angela's manipulations.

When Cole discovers what Lance has done bribing the pickers and that Angela is not necessarily perturbed by it he tosses her the car keys and heads home to be there for his dad and the harvest.

Yet another bad call by Angela. All she ended up doing was solidifying Cole's support for his father and strengthening Cole's interest in staying in the valley by showing him the proud tradition he is from and teaching him about wine. As for Lance learning his lesson and responding to the competition he merely gets more cut-throat in trying to keep what is his, not necessarily more effectual in serving Angela's interest.

Much of what is shown here was in the original unaired pilot for the series which starred Clu Gulager as Chase and Samantha Eggar (Red-haired freckled daughter Victoria-Jamie Rose casting making sense now?). I think that recasting the roles was the right thing to do.

What made Falcon Crest different from other night-time soaps was that you got to see not only the view from inside an empire but another one built in the foreground on hard labour and honesty. We see the being and becoming of this noble family not merely in what their heritage says about them but in what they do exemplifying the positive and negative traits.