Dynasty Increases Sex, Sleaze Quotient (CW)

Nastiness replaces camp in this rebooted nighttime soap. Fallon Carrington is the scheming, ambitious, and arrogant daughter of manipulative oil billionaire Blake Carrington, who expects to be named COO of Carrington Atlantic. But Fallon and her gay, “black-sheep” brother Steven receive a shock when Blake announces he is marrying PR staffer Krystal – and is making her COO. In retaliation, Fallon announces she is teaming up with Blake’s hated rival, tech billionaire (and former Blake) protege Jeff Colby. Also in the mix are Krystal’s devious nephew Sammy Jo, who has recently become Steven’s lover; Krystal’s former lover Matthew, injured in an explosion; and Matthew’s mentally ill wife Claudia, who publicly accuses Blake of trying to kill Matthew. The original Dynasty was a 1980s nighttime soap with an exaggerated emphasis on wealth and family dysfunction. But while the new Dynasty largely follows the same broad plot strokes as the old, it does so with little of the outrageously tongue-in-cheek campiness of the original. Instead of the over-the-top melodrama of classic Dynasty, the characters in the reboot are genuinely nasty pieces of work. The new series also substantially ups the quotient of profanity, graphic sex, and sleazy content over the original. Words like “bitch” are thrown about with abandon; both straight and gay couples are shown thrashing about in bed and performing and receiving oral sex in cars; and dialogue includes such gems as Fallon telling her father, “Stop acting as though you don’t lay all your girlfriends in front of us;” Krystal lamenting that Fallon will “never see me as anything but the girl you’re banging;” and the Carrington’s chauffeur boasting that Blake “pays me $200,000 a year, and I’m banging his daughter.” Though brought to television by original Dynasty creator Esther Shapiro and Gossip Girl producers Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, it is questionable whether the quintessentially ‘80s brand of Dynasty will have much meaning or resonance for the CW’s target demographic of millennials; but it is certainly a program from which parents will wish to keep younger children far away. Dynasty premieres Wednesday, October 11 at 9:00 p.m. ET on the CW.