Back in high school and when I still had the time to watch TV, I watched Riverdale on The CW live on Sundays. I know… But Riverdale is one of those shows that is rough to watch sometimes but still is entertaining in one way or another. After watching the whole episode, I would let the credits run because that is when the network would show the teaser for the next episode. Let me tell you, some of the teasers are wild. As I am sitting there trying to digest what happened in the episode and figure out what the teaser was hinting at, another show would start playing immediately after. I would keep the TV on and watch the first few minutes for no real reason before my mom calls my name to eat dinner. Let’s just say I am very glad that I did not watch any full episodes because “Dynasty” is one of those shows that you can’t watch in front of your parents.
For those who aren’t familiar, “Dynasty” is a show currently running on The CW that stars “Victorious” actress Elizabeth Gillies. It is a modern reboot of the iconic ABC prime time soap opera that has the same name that ran on TV back in the 1980s. It follows two extremely rich families, the Carringtons and the Colbys, as they compete for the two things that run the world, both in fiction and reality: power and money. The main differences between the original show and the reboot are that while the glitz, glamor and dazzle are all still there, the reboot is more modernized to match the world right now. The setting is moved from Denver, Colorado to Atlanta, Georgia and the Carrington family business is changed from oil empire “Denver Carrington” to million-dollar conglomerate “Carrington Atlantic”. The original soap opera saw a very large cast that was consistent of only white people while in the reboot, The Colby family and the Carrington family chauffeur Michael Culhane are African American and Carrington patriarch Blake’s new wife, Cristal Flores and her nephew Sammy Jo (who was also changed from a woman in the original to a gay man in the reboot) are Hispanic. The reboot also makes Blake’s son Steven’s homosexuality a nonissue to Blake.
Nowadays, the only time people watch TV shows are on streaming services that provide all the episodes in one place: a perfect setting for going down the deep, long and dark tunnel of binge-watching. I have done my fair share of binge-watching (I even finished 2 seasons of “13 Reasons Why” in 2 days!) but now with school and life, the only time I get to watch shows are when I have a plate of food in front of me. In the case of “Dynasty”, I casually put it on my watch list since my FYP on Tiktok would sometimes show me clips of episodes of “Dynasty” and it would catch my attention. As I started watching the show, I got hooked on it very quickly. As a classic soap opera, the series has episodes that don’t fit the overall storylines and serve as comedic relief but the episodes that serve big purposes in the storylines are very well done. Never have I seen a show like “Dynasty” have so many cliffhangers nor have I seen a show do cliffhangers so well. It has become a staple show to watch while I am eating and doing mindless tasks for my projects. “Dynasty” has become my guilty pleasure show and it needs to be added to your watch list immediately.