Knots Landing: Season 08 (1986)

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Moving to its now-famous Thursday night timeslot on the occasion of its eighth season, Knots Landing quickly updates its fans on events left unresolved at the end of Season Seven, not least of which is the mysterious kidnapping of Karen MacKenzie (Michele Lee). It turns out that Karen's abductor is Phil Harbert (Louis Gimbalvo), who wants to get even with her crime commissioner ex-husband Mack (Kevin Dobson) for sending him to jail during his wife's terminal illness. Before Mack manages to rescue Karen, Phil has obsessively cut her hair, leaving her with the new shorter style that she will sport for the remainded of the season. In other Season Eight developments, Gary Ewing (Ted Shackelford) runs for the senate opposite the duplicitous Peter Hollister (Hunt Block), but ends up losing both the election and his wandering wife Abby (Donna Mills) to Peter. The past relationship between Mack and Anne Matheson (Michelle Phillips) is revealed in a series of flashbacks tied in with the appearance of the couple's illegitimate daughter Paige (Nicollette Sheridan), who is a curious character indeed: Benign to Abby's daughter Olivia (Tonya Crowe) as she helps the girl get over her drug dependency, but quite the predator when it comes to seducing every available male in Knot's Landing--including Michael (Pat Petersen), the son of her father Mack's ex-wife Karen. The seriously disturbed Jean Hackney (Wendy Fulton) comes back into the life of Ben Gibson (Michael Sheehan), estranged husband of Gary's ex Val (Joan Van Ark). Gary has his own problems with the conniving Jill Bennett (Teri Austin), who has maneuvered him into a marriage proposal. And Laura Sumner (Constance McCashlin), the wife of crooked politician Greg Sumner, gives birth to a daughter. As the season rushes to a close, Ben is driven mad by the obsessive Jean and completely drops out of view; and Olivia falls for her mom Abby's current amour, the unsavory Peter Hollister--a turn of events that prompts Abby to conclude that Olivia is responsible for Peter's sudden death ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi