Sheridan crusades to put some sass back into Paige.

"They're finally listening to me.  The show's half over for the season, but at last they're listening."

You'd think it would be hard to ignore someone as striking and outspoken as Knots Landing's brittle ingenue Nicollette Sheridan, who consents to a rare interview minutes after wrapping one of the few emotionally satisfying scenes she's had this rocky 13th season.

As Paige, the onetime mischievous brat who has developed over six seasons into a do-no-wrong heroine, Sheridan reacted with alarm to what she considered bad moves by a new writing staff this season.

She felt the audience was "cheated of romance" when a new lover (Bruce Greenwood) arrived out of nowhere, replacing her sexy-cop squeeze who dropped out of the story after contract negotiations stalled with actor Joseph Gian.  (there is talk he may yet return.)

Even worse, Paige incredibly ended a long estrangement with her irresponsible mother.   "Please don't bring up that scene" Sheridan pleads.  Not that she hesitated complaining to executive producer David Jacobs, who recently shut Knots down for emergency revisions, including dumping many writers.

"She was the first to call, and she was the most consistent," Jacobs says.   "She has been a big surprise to me this season.

"Nicollette is always so playful and nutty, sort of a giggler, and she was the one who's  been constantly at me, worried and very articulate.  She has more concern and love for the show than I thought, especially for someone whose agent was saying this could be her last year.  It's obvious to me now she would like to stay."

Sheridan, 18, says that decision will be "a though one. I do have an allegiance to Knots and to David Jacobs, who created the show and has been a good friend and believed in me as Paige.  I don't know how much longer the show can go, but I feel some obligation."

It will help if, as she has been promised, the plot soon will move in ways to give her "more power, to put her more on the same level with Sumner" -- William Devane's charismatic character who's her ex-lover, ex-boss, and arch-rival.

She'd like Paige to become more of the "perfect Bitch" she was before.   "She was too nasty when she first came on, and I thought there has to do something personable about her.  But I think the writers got a little carried away in turning her into a saccharine nice guy."

While grateful for the Knots exposure, Sheridan is eyeing the big screen.   During her series hiatus, she co-starred in Peter Bogdanovich's adaptation of the Broadway comedy hit Noises Off, with Carol Burnett and John Ritter, due out next year.

"It's a sex farce, sheer madness.  We rehearsed for five weeks, so we became like a company that's ready to put on a play.  I hope I'm funny in it, but I know I enjoyed doing it."

She plays a "sweet little girl off in her own little dreamland, a beat behind everybody else, not in control.  It wasn't easy, because you can't play ditsy, you have to it, and I'm a bit of a control freak and perfectionist myself.  You really have to work at spacing out."

USA TODAY December 12, 1991.