They’re
We’re Not. So why are we loving the 1% on TV? From Revenge to the return of Dallas, the nighttime soap is back. By Leah Rozen COVER AND OPENING PHOTO GRAPH BY MAT THEW ROL STON
W
e in the hoi polloi
may resent the 1 percent, but we havee no problem with theirr occupying prime time. Soapy dramas ers are rocking featuring plump-pocketed characters the ratings and multiplying fast. Not since the 1980s, when Dallas and Dynasty ruled the airn and women, waves, have so many powerful men ably coiffed, expensively garbed and impeccably connived and schemed against onee another. Case in point: ABC’s Revenge, one of the d a topic of new season’s few breakout hits and ia. Inspired heated discussion on social media. ury novel by Alexandre Dumas’s 19th-century The Count of Monte Cristo, this guilty pleasure is set in the Hamptons, the ters Long Island playground that caters ek, to Manhattan’s wealthy. Every week,
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Emily Thorne (Emily (Em VanCamp) plots to ruin a high-society coupl couple (Henry Czerny and Madeleine Stowe) who framed her late father for a heinous crime years ago. Stowe, who stylishly plays Victoria Grayson, Gray the show’s presiding diva, thinks the series ser taps into our national concern over the ggrowing gap between the superrich and everyone every else. “Audiences get to have it both ways: T They peek into the extravagant lifestyle of the über-wealthy, but they also g see them getting a comeuppance,” she says. “P “People have felt so screwed over. I think there’s a collective ange out there, and people are anger get getting a collective revenge.” Other series showcasing the sw swanky set include Masterp piece’s Downton Abbey, the aaddictive WWI-era drama February 19, 2012 • 9
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