‘Dynasty’ Series Finale: “There Was Never Discussion About Ratings Ever,” Admits Showrunner Josh Reims
17.09.2022 - 05:13
/ deadline.com
Dynasty, the CW’s reboot of the beloved ABC sudser from the ’80s, came to an end Friday night after five seasons. Here, showrunner Josh Reims talks about what he really wanted to do in the series finale, and how odd it was that ratings for the sudser were never really discussed.
DEADLINE: Did you have enough time to plan for a series finale?
JOSH REIMS We actually planned a series finale and a season finale, just in case. We did twice the work, basically.
Did you know you wanted to end with the wedding?
REIMS That came up near the end. For some reason we kept ending seasons with weddings and we thought it would be fun to do it again. We figured Culhane (Robert C. Riley) and Nina (Felisha Terrell) were the best couple to do it, and we liked the idea of playing around and having viewers think it was Sam (Rafael de la Fuente) and Steven (James Mackay), at first.
Wait, how many seasons did you end with the wedding?
REIMS I think there were like three and one in the middle. So we had a lot of weddings.
There were initially calls by fans to shop the show elsewhere. Was that ever a real possibility?
REIMS Uh, no. As far as I know, this was the final goodbye to Dynasty, which is why we gave everybody happy endings they deserved.
Richard Alan Shapiro and Esther Shapiro, who created the original Dynasty, were attached from the beginning. How involved were they over the course of the show?
REIMS I took over running the show in season three and sat down, I think twice, with Esther Shapiro. I had lunch with her a couple of times and we talked about the show and she gave me her thoughts. She was very complimentary and very much like, you know? Do what you think is best. I’m just gonna tell you what I think and you go with that. And then once