The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Westminster grad now runs ‘Dynasty’ reboot
Sallie Patrick, as a child in Atlanta, used to sit on the floor of her parents’ bedroom on Wednesday nights, absorbing the insane dramatics that was ABC’s “Dynasty” along with her grandma, her mom and her aunt. “I was young and loved the dollhouse quality,” she said.
Three decades later, the 41-year-old TV writer is overseeing a modern reboot of the 1980s classic airing on the CW as showrunner and co executive producer. The show itself is not only shot in metro Atlanta but also set in the city.
Patrick said a pure soap like “Dynasty” — without a high concept like a haunted town or set in a particular venue like a prison or hospital — “is a real rarity on prime time these days. It also means the show can switch directions, characters and tone from season to season more freely than a show with more defined parameters. And that’s exciting!”
Unlike TNT’s revamp of rival “Dallas” from 2012 to 2014, which featured some of the original actors, “Dynasty” is a complete reimagining of the wealthy oil-drenched Carrington family. The new “Dynasty” returns from holiday break with its 10th episode tonight.
Patrick, as head writer, infuses “Dynasty” with a breezy air. Greed, which was good in the 1980s, remains very much en vogue in 2018. The dialogue is often glib, loyalty runs blood deep, and secrets and lies are always on the menu. The sets are lush and the costumes elegant — though not quite as showy as the original.
She also brings back a signature “Dynasty” move: the catfight. In the second episode, new stepmom Cristal pushes rival stepdaughter Fallon into an open grave. During the Christmas episode, Cristal and her sister go at each other until they knock over a massive Christmas tree.
“We love our soap opera tropes,” Patrick said in a recent interview at Eagle Rock Studios in Stone Mountain. “The original ‘Dynasty’ drew from them and spawned many more of its own. We have to honor that. People eavesdropping and getting critical information. People getting shoved into graves!”
At the same time, Patrick doesn’t ignore class, gender and racial divides. “It’s hard to tell a story about the 1 percent without considering the other 99,” she said.
During the Thanksgiving episode, for instance, Fallon finds out her former lover, black chauffeur Michael Culhane (Robert Christopher Riley), had been lying to his parents about what he does for the Carringtons after all his parents sacrificed for him.
The Atlanta touches are there. When a prisoner meets Fallon, he calls her a “Buckhead Betty.” Steven Carrington’s drug buddy lands in the Fulton County jail. Former Falcon Jamal Anderson and UGA Bulldog alum Hines Ward pop in for a friendly Carrington family Thanksgiving touch football scrimmage.
Patrick attended the Westminster Schools. While in high school, she fashioned herself as the quiet, quirky Ally Sheedy character in “The Breakfast Club” — “minus the dandruff.” She had her fair share of personal stresses: Her father, for instance, had a heart transplant. Several teachers helped her stay focused on school. Nedra Roberts, her 10th-grade English teacher who is now a playwright, was especially nurturing.
“She taught me that I had a voice,” Patrick said. “We were analyzing a poem and I remember her saying that I had insight into other voices, reading other people’s voices. In a way, it weirdly related to being a television writer on other people’s shows and emulating other voices.”
Roberts, who stays in regular touch with Patrick, said her former student is an active listener, open to others’ points of view. As a big fan of the original “Dynasty,” Roberts said Patrick’s version feels fresh. “She sucks me in,” she said. “She makes me care about the characters in surprising ways.”
After graduating from Duke University, Patrick tried stop-motion animation and ended up at Lucas Films working in marketing, licensing and image archives.
But she wanted to do something more creative and attended Carnegie Mellon for grad school. She learned how to write dialogue and work in groups, both valuable skills for managing a TV show.
Her first writing job was on ABC’s short-lived Peter Krause soap “Dirty Sexy Money,” which had elements of “Dynasty” woven in. From there, she worked on the CW’s “Life Unexpected,” then in 2012, landed on the writing staff for four seasons of ABC’s saucy soap “Revenge,” another progeny of “Dynasty.”
At the time, she had two children and life “got blurry,” she said. She did some work on the CBS series “Limitless,” which lasted a season. Then “Gossip Girl” creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage approached her about a “Dynasty” reboot last year. “I hopped on board,” she said. “You are inheriting 220 hours of television history,
a huge book to draw from.”
Patrick also knew she had to modernize the characters and make it more diverse to reflect Atlanta versus the original show’s Denver home.
The rival Colbys, for instance, are black. Blake Carrington, much younger in the form of Grant Show vs. John Forsythe, marries a super-smart Latino woman played by Nathalie Kelley instead of a Nordic goddess in the form of Linda Evans from the secretarial pool.
And times have changed: Steven Carrington ( James Mackay) is out and proud instead of questioning his sexuality.
Central character Fallon isn’t just promiscuous and mouthy. As played by Elizabeth Gillies, she’s a career woman, deeply ambitious but still the Queen of Sassy Sarcasm. And she gets involved with Jeff Colby (Sam Adegoke), who is self-made rich in the reboot.
“As a working woman showrunner, I’m running a small company at times,” Patrick said. “As head writer of the show, that’s a storyline I can easily tap. I do identify with her petulance at times. She’s still a child in a way, and she works hard to mask her vulnerability and insecurities.”
Ratings have been relatively modest, but the CW has guaranteed the show a full season of 22 episodes. And CW President Mark Pedowitz said recently to a group of TV critics that he is psyched to see “Knots Landing” and “Desperate Housewives” vet Nicollette Sheridan take on the role of Blake’s ex-wife Alexis Carrington, played with delightful wickedness by Joan Collins in the 1980s.
“I’m disappointed in the ratings,” Pedowitz said. “I wanted it to do more, but I’m happy with the production values that Josh, Steph and Sallie are doing.” He said Sheridan will arrive by episode 16 and should add “juice” to the show.
Patrick said keeping Sheridan under wraps as long as they did was not easy. “I’m glad the cat’s finally out of the bag — and the cat has the requisite claws!” she wrote in a follow-up email. She considers Alexis “a force of nature, a disrupter, the leader of her own resistance. Nicollette is all of that and more.”
Back in the day, “Dallas” generated higher ratings than “Dynasty.” But Patrick is clearly in the “Dynasty” camp.
“I think ‘Dynasty’ has a more lasting, iconic flavor,” she said.