In case you're wondering, I was none too fond of Emma Samms as Fallon.

Even though the original Fallon, Pamela Sue Martin, had mellowed a bit, she was still interesting.

Now, I never saw Emma Samms in General Hospital, so I don't know if she was a good actress or not, but she was not good as Fallon. It didn't help that Fallon underwent a personality transplant from spunky, feisty partygirl to whiny ditz who cries at the drop of a hat.

But I think what really sunk Samms as Fallon was her inability to hide her accent at times. Her aussie or English accent slipped through. You think the producers would have reshot or redubbed the dialogue.

I never accepted Samms as Fallon. To me, she was another character altogether. She had the name Fallon, but she wasn't the real Fallon.

I think Al Corley was the better Steven, but the transition to Jack Coleman was nearly as dicey. Coleman was kind of stiff and obviously hated playing a homosexual, but he was passable.

Emma Samms was not cast as Fallon because she was right for the role; she was cast because she was the leading lady on the hugely popular "General Hospital" at the time. The producers knew that her casting would create some buzz, and hoped that some of her fans would follow her to "The Colbys".

I agree that Samms was miscast, but it didn't help that the writers began writing Fallon as if she was Holly Scorpio, Samms' character from "GH".

"Dynasty" got a new producer for what turned out to be its final season, and he tried to get Pamela Sue Martin to return. Even though Martin turned down the offer, the new producer told the writers to start writing Fallon as if Martin were playing her. When the writing was better, Samms was a passable Fallon.

I don't remember the last season all that much. It has been said that Dynasty was making a creative comeback in its final season, but apparently that didn't spur the ratings as it was cancelled.

I would love to have seen a reunion movie with the original Fallon, Steven and Adam - the replacement actors were very weak by comparison in my opinion.

Emma Samms was not cast as Fallon because she was right for the role; she was cast because she was the leading lady on the hugely popular "General Hospital" at the time. The producers knew that her casting would create some buzz, and hoped that some of her fans would follow her to "The Colbys".

I agree that Samms was miscast, but it didn't help that the writers began writing Fallon as if she was Holly Scorpio, Samms' character from "GH".

"Dynasty" got a new producer for what turned out to be its final season, and he tried to get Pamela Sue Martin to return. Even though Martin turned down the offer, the new producer told the writers to start writing Fallon as if Martin were playing her. When the writing was better, Samms was a passable Fallon.


I like Emma in the role of Fallon. I love her classiness and sophistication. I also agree that she was better in the last season when she was being written in the manner that the original would have been. Collins said that she thought that Martin was "stupid" for leaving. "The total opposite of the rat deserting the sinking ship" said Collins. LOL. :lol:

Emma Samms' Fallon was abducted by an alien spaceship! :)

Emma Samms' Fallon was abducted by an alien spaceship! :)

But when "The Colbys" was canceled, she was transported back to Dynasty. LOL. I have that episode on tape. I wondered what would have happened had The Colbys continued into a 3rd season and they carried on with that storyline. The storyline was explained on Dynasty when Fallon and Jeff moved back to Denver.

Joan Collins was right about Pamela Sue Martin leaving -- she never did anything after leaving Dynasty. Nothing that nobody noticed, anyway....

As far as I'm concerned, Fallon died in the car crash at the end of season four.

Emma Samms was her replacement, but she was no Fallon.

But we're all entitled to our opinions, right?;)

I love it when old, old threads get revived -- especially when they're mine!!:D

The reason why Gordon Thomson (Adam) didn't return for the reunion movie is that he was under contract on the daytime soap Santa Barbara at the time. He wanted to be in the movie, but Aaron Spelling Productions didn't give him enough notice, so he couldn't get the time off to do the movie. :(

Its interesting that the originals of the four Carrington children, Pamela Sue Martin (Fallon), Al Corley (Steven), Gordon Thompson (Adam), and Catherine Oxenburg (Amanda), were all back for the retrospective reunion in 2006, appearing with John Forsythe, Linda Evans and Joan Collins. All four were replaced at one point or another.

Speaking of "fakes", how bout the fake Amanda they brought in when Oxenburg got fired. She wasn't even an actress!

Its interesting that the originals of the four Carrington children, Pamela Sue Martin (Fallon), Al Corley (Steven), Gordon Thompson (Adam), and Catherine Oxenburg (Amanda), were all back for the retrospective reunion in 2006, appearing with John Forsythe, Linda Evans and Joan Collins. All four were replaced at one point or another.

Speaking of "fakes", how bout the fake Amanda they brought in when Oxenburg got fired. She wasn't even an actress!
How many of the "fake" kids were in the retrospective? I didn't see it.

Its interesting that the originals of the four Carrington children, Pamela Sue Martin (Fallon), Al Corley (Steven), Gordon Thompson (Adam), and Catherine Oxenburg (Amanda), were all back for the retrospective reunion in 2006, appearing with John Forsythe, Linda Evans and Joan Collins. All four were replaced at one point or another.

Speaking of "fakes", how bout the fake Amanda they brought in when Oxenburg got fired. She wasn't even an actress!

She didn't even bother to fake a British accent. Amanda became a valley girl! I notice the replacement got booted quickly.

Only the original 4 children, Blake, Chrystal, and Alexis were together and they had cameo-comentaries with Emma Samms, Jack Coleman, Pamela Bellwood, I think. Notablely missing were Heather Locklear and John James.

I think I caused some confusion here. I referred to the fake Amanda, but I was talking about the series, not the retrospective reunion. Catherine was part of the reunion.

How many of the "fake" kids were in the retrospective? I didn't see it.

They spoke to Emma Samms, but she was not included in the cast discussion. She was interviewed separately. I think Jack Coleman was interviewed too.

It was great to finally see the real Fallon, Steven and Adam together for the first time.

Gordon Thomson shook Al Corley's hand and said "I finally get to meet my kid brother. How long has it been? 25 years?" They all laughed.

They spoke to Emma Samms, but she was not included in the cast discussion. She was interviewed separately. I think Jack Coleman was interviewed too.

It was great to finally see the real Fallon, Steven and Adam together for the first time.

Gordon Thomson shook Al Corley's hand and said "I finally get to meet my kid brother. How long has it been? 25 years?" They all laughed.
That's awesome. :D

Only the original 4 children, Blake, Chrystal, and Alexis were together and they had cameo-comentaries with Emma Samms, Jack Comeman, Pamela Bellwood, I think. Notablely missing were Heather Locklear and John James.

I think I caused some confusion here. I referred to the fake Amanda, but I was talking about the series, not the retrospective reunion. Catherine was part of the reunion.
Thanks!!!

That's awesome. :D

It was a great joke.

Here's one I'd like to throw out there and see how it gets answered: When Jack Coleman assumed the role of Steven, it was explained that Steven had plastic surgery. This was so viewers would accept a new actor in the role and excuse why Steven looked different.

In the Dynasty: The Reunion TV-movie (1991), Al Corley returned to the role of Steven. They never gave an explanation as to why he looked like his old self again. Was it reverse plastic surgery...?:confused:

Ironically, I have taken a book out of the library called Soap Opera Babylon (by Jason Bonderoff) and there is a section dedicated to Emma Samms and her time on both GH and Dynasty. It begins with her starting on GH as Tony Geary's (Luke) new love interest, and how she began both an on- and off-screen romance with Tristan Rogers (Robert). The book was published in 1987, when Dynasty was still on the air. Here's where she takes over the role of Fallon, after her amicable breakup with Tristan Rogers:

"For Emma, though, the traumatic times were far from over, and she probably could have used Tristan's strong, calming presence on the set when she went off to stake her claim on Dynasty. Her reception there couldn't have been icier. In order to play Fallon, she had to affect an American accent. It gave her trouble right from the start, even though she'd already done the same thing playing an American girl in the 7-hour miniseries Ellis Island.

"Emma had barely started on Dynasty when the press suddenly turned on her. The Hollywood Reporter, the backstage bible of the television world, ridiculed her performance as Fallon. Other papers began hinting that Dynasty was secretly negotiating with Pamela Sue Martin, the original Fallon, to come back to the role.

"All in all, it wasn't the best of times for her. While Emma was being crucified in print, she was also suffering from exhaustion trying to do two shows at once. Because of contractual obligations, her exit from General Hospital wound up overlapping with her entrance on Dynasty - and all through the summer of 1985 Emma had to shuttle back and forth between both studios.

"On top of that, while horseback riding in one of her first Dynasty scenes, Emma was thrown from the horse and took a wild spill. As she fell, she landed on the battery pack of her body microphone (which had been strapped to her back), and had to be carried off on a stretcher. One of her vertebrae was jabbing into her spine, damaging her spinal column and rupturing a disc. There was also extensive nerve damage to the lower half of her body. Her reflexes in her knees and ankles were affected, and urinary and bowel problems developed. "It was tremendously painful," Emma recalls. "Nothing from the waist down functioned properly. And my work situation became a nightmare. Dynasty had to reschedule everything because I couldn't work for almost a month. It put a real strain on General Hospital, too, but (executive producer) Gloria Monty was an angel. She rewrote the storyline so that I could do my scenes sitting up in bed and she had a dressing room installed for me right on stage, with a portable potty. That way I didn't have to walk any stairs at the studio."

"But poor timing only exacerbated Emma's woes. The accident happened just when she needed her strength most. She was literally fighting for her life on Dynasty. All through her convalescence, reports continued to circulate that she was about to be replaced as Fallon, even though Emma had been privately assured by ABC not to worry. Finally, as a public declaration of the show's faith in her, producer Esther Shapiro did something totally unexpected: she criticized Dallas for not sticking with Donna Reed after bringing her on as the new Miss Ellie. The message was subtle but clear to anyone who cared to read between the lines: for the moment at least, Emma's job was safe. Dynasty intended to stick with her, hoping that viewers would gradually accept her, the way they'd slowly warmed up to Jack Coleman as the new Steven Carrington.

"In November 1985 the network reaffirmed its faith in an even stronger way. Emma and her Dynasty leading man, John James, were launched into their own multimillion-dollar spinoff, The Colbys. To help it survive, the Shapiros gathered the most glittering collection of stars ever assembled in a primetime cast. Even though Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster quietly turned down roles, Charlton Heston, Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Ross and Ricardo Montalban were all eager to sign on.

"Emma's daytime experience in no way prepared her for the daily setside cataclysms that occured on The Colbys. During the first week of production, two million dollars' worth of furnishings and scenery were torn apart because one of the show's executives decided the sets looked tacky and uninspiring. Then Joan Collins, who played Emma Samms' mother, refused to guest star on the new series when she became convinced that it would steal ratings from her own show. Backstage, Charlton Heston bellowed, Katharine Ross raged, and Barbara Stanwyck turned cameramen and extras to ice with a single, tight-lipped call for silence on the set. Stanwyck was bitterly unhappy from day one. She regularly fought with the producers over scripts and publicly criticized several of the show's young stars for not knowing their lines and showing up late for rehearsals. She stormed off permanently at the end of the first season. By then, The Colbys had slipped to a subbasement position in the ratings, and next season - when it was scheduled to air opposite NBC's Cheers and Night Court and CBS' Knots Landing - it seemed assured of getting clobbered even worse.

"Despite all her trials and tribulations on The Colbys, though, Emma has no regrets about giving up her daytime crown. The primetime exposure has been wonderful and because she plays John Forsythe's daughter, there's always a place waiting for her at the Carrington dinner table on Dynasty."

Here's Emma with Stephanie Beacham and Joan Collins at a fundraiser last year:

I read somewhere that just prior to hiring Samms, the Dynasty producers did ask Pamela Sue Martin to return. Obviously she declined, so Samms was hired.

Part of the reason I never liked Samms as Fallon was because she couldn't hide her accent at times. It poked through at usually the worst times, during the most dramatic scenes.

I thought that foreign actors couldn't do American accents as a result.

A few years later, I was surprised to learn that Bob Hoskins was British. I'd first seen him in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and assumed he was American because he played his part so well.

Go figure...;)

Shapiro criticized Dallas for canning Donna Reed? lol I didn't know that. Dallas was right to do that. Donna Reed was a great actress but she was horrible on Dallas. Emma Samms was horrible on Dynasty. Pamela Sue Martin was Fallon. I think Pamela Sue Martin wanted to slow down her acting career or something like that. I remember at one time that she was rumored to replace Victoria Principal on Dallas. That didn't come about though. I also remember late in Dynasty's run, they actually had flashbacks of Fallon from season 1 and had Emma Samms recreate Pamela Sue Martin's scenes. Ugghh.

Well, after reading about Emma's experience on Dynasty, I feel a lot of empathy for her. If anyone deserved hazard pay, she did. I will say that she has aged very well, if that photo is any indication. Hard to believe that Emma will be hitting the big 5-0 at the end of August!!! :cool:

Shapiro criticized Dallas for canning Donna Reed? lol I didn't know that. Dallas was right to do that. Donna Reed was a great actress but she was horrible on Dallas. Emma Samms was horrible on Dynasty. Pamela Sue Martin was Fallon. I think Pamela Sue Martin wanted to slow down her acting career or something like that. I remember at one time that she was rumored to replace Victoria Principal on Dallas. That didn't come about though. I also remember late in Dynasty's run, they actually had flashbacks of Fallon from season 1 and had Emma Samms recreate Pamela Sue Martin's scenes. Ugghh.

Agreed. I would rather that Fallon had stayed "dead."

I will say that the chemistry between Pamela Sue Martin and John James simply wasn't there between James and Emma Samms. But Emma did have good chemistry with Maxwell Caulfield (Miles) on The Colbys.

Wow! That was a very interesting read about Emma Samms' experience on both Dynasty and General Hospital.

I, too, feel a lot of empathy for Emma. I've always liked Emma Samms, and I really liked her on General Hospital. Emma's Fallon was okay, but I did prefer Pamela Sue Martin's version. I liked Pamela's chemistry a lot more with John James (Jeff) and John Forsythe (Blake).

And I do agree that the chemistry was lacking between John James (Jeff) and Emma, but I did like Emmas' chemistry with Maxwell Caulifield (Miles).

Thanks for posting, Monika.

My pleasure!!! :D

Here's Emma with Stephanie Beacham and Joan Collins at a fundraiser last year:

I love this picture! It would be fun to make up hilarious captions to what they are all thinking! :lol:

I love this picture! It would be fun to make up hilarious captions to what they are all thinking! :lol:
I like the photo, too. They all look great. :cool:

I actually liked Emma Samms as Fallon. I think she was particularly good during the final season of Dynasty. However, I do feel that Pamela was the best in the role.

I think I read someplace is that the writing finally caught up with Emma, as TPTB realized that she could bring the edge back to Fallon as opposed to playing her as the put-upon victim she'd been since PSM left the role. Emma rose to the occasion, so even though a lot of things went wrong during Dynasty's last season, she wasn't one of them.

Here's Emma with Stephanie Beacham and Joan Collins at a fundraiser last year:

Great photo of Stephanie, Joan and Emma.

Yea, I liked Pamela Sue Martin in the role of Fallon the best but I did like Emma in the role in the last season. Of course, I loved Emma on GH and she had fabulous chemistry with both Tony Geary and Tristan Rogers. But I agree there wasn't much chemistry between her and John James on Dynasty.

In case you're wondering, I was none too fond of Emma Samms as Fallon.

Even though the original Fallon, Pamela Sue Martin, had mellowed a bit, she was still interesting.

Now, I never saw Emma Samms in General Hospital, so I don't know if she was a good actress or not, but she was not good as Fallon. It didn't help that Fallon underwent a personality transplant from spunky, feisty partygirl to whiny ditz who cries at the drop of a hat.

But I think what really sunk Samms as Fallon was her inability to hide her accent at times. Her aussie or English accent slipped through. You think the producers would have reshot or redubbed the dialogue.

I never accepted Samms as Fallon. To me, she was another character altogether. She had the name Fallon, but she wasn't the real Fallon.

I think Al Corley was the better Steven, but the transition to Jack Coleman was nearly as dicey. Coleman was kind of stiff and obviously hated playing a homosexual, but he was passable.

Basically, Pamela Sue Martin had that feisty edge that set her Fallon apart. Plus in the first seasons, Fallon was written as a strong character. You believed her on the earlier Dynasty seasons as a worldly rich party girl who was just as smart as the men on the show. By the time Martin left, Fallon had begun to be watered down. When Emma Samms inherited the role as amnesiac Fallon, it was written as a victim and continued on until the last season of Dynasty.

I loved Fallon when she was played by Pamela Sue Martin. Emma Samms was OK. It's just when she came on they made Fallon a nut abducted by Aliens which was a bad storyline. I don't think Pamela Sue could have saved it.

Also, same goes for Amanda. I had a crush on the original but when Catherine Oxenberg left and replaced her replacement wasn't the same.

I loved Fallon when she was played by Pamela Sue Martin. Emma Samms was OK. It's just when she came on they made Fallon a nut abducted by Aliens which was a bad storyline. I don't think Pamela Sue could have saved it.

Also, same goes for Amanda. I had a crush on the original but when Catherine Oxenberg left and replaced her replacement wasn't the same.
I don't blame the actress really, but given the standard of the scriptwriting it was the best place for her..