SoapDope

What was everyone's favorite houses/sets on the show ? I liked Gary & Val's home, but as I have said before the stairs needed to be pushed back about several feet and the step down to the living room and kitchen should have been eliminated like they did in the reunion. The early seasons it looked better with Miss Ellie's antique furniture since the house had a colonial architectural style to it with the columned porch and the arched windows in the double entry doors. Their house looked its best during the 1997 reunion movie.

I also liked the Avery/Williams house and Gary's ranch. 

On youtube every time they post a clip with Eric Farlow as Christopher, there are nasty comments about him being an ugly baby. I actually preferred him in the role than Joshua Harris.....LOL

In the above pics, Farlow looks better compared to Harris. That hairstyle is not flattering. 

I noticed Lynne thanked the writers, but did not mention the cast in her speech. I wonder how she got along with them, especially Larry Riley ? 

3 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

The thing I liked about the mini series and the 1st full season with Pam was that she may have pulled herself up by the boot straps by working at the department store and marrying Bobby.. but there were times we were reminded that in her heart, she was a Waco girl... and had a coolness/strength that radiated.

Sadly.. that was lost as the show pressed on... though she could deliver a slap that packed a punch (i.e. Katherine when discovering she forged a letter to Bobby, and JR a few times).

Katzman didn't understand that the show was about JR and Pam... not JR and Bobby.

I agree. David Jacobs said Pamela Barnes Ewing should have been the most fascinating character he ever created, but she never really became the way he envisioned her.

As the series wore on Pam became emotionally unstable and Bobby often treated her like crap because of his male ego. 

1 hour ago, Vee said:

How many more years did they get with Bobby back? 3-5? That's not nothing for a cast and crew especially in those days, but the show suffered big losses with the women.

As I previously stated, I found Patrick/Bobby (and Larry) insufferable in the later years. He just comes across smarmy, hammy, and self important.

Instead of giving the women vital story, Katzman and company runs them off and gives the salaries to finance Patrick and Larry's backstage playground antics and lets their characters eat the show. The shows production values even started to look low budget. I don't think they shot on location in Dallas after about 1987.

I lost interest in Dallas once Victoria left. I hated how they handled things with her departure. To be honest, I also hated how they wrote Jock out. I think they should have had Miss Ellie find him passed away in his sleep at Southfork. That stupid crap about Steve Forrest as potential Jock was tacky writing and a insult to the legacy of Jim Davis. 

I also found Patrick Duffy (and Larry) insufferable after he returned to the show. I wish they told him that it was a done deal and sorry, but Bobby is dead. You pissed away your job. Good luck finding work. He screwed things up with his return. 

I also get the impression that Patrick is passive agressive with his feelings toward Victoria. There's times he will praise her, then times he will throw shade. 

Lynne Moody always looked way younger than her actual age. I was shocked she was born in 1945. I always thought maybe 1953 like Larry Riley. In recent years she reunited with her daugher she had to give up for adoption in 1964. 

8 hours ago, Khan said:

I agree.  At the very least, the show should have tried finding a new love interest for Frank and mother figure for Julie after an appropriate period of mourning had passed (and no, Halle Berry was not it, lol).  Unfortunately, I don't think anyone at the show was committed anymore to writing for Larry Riley or for Kent Masters-King.  If Riley hadn't have died of AIDS, he probably would've been written out anyway.

I like your suggestion of casting Amanda with Ana-Alicia instead of with Penny Peyser, @SoapDope.  Even if the writing had not changed, at least Ana-Alicia would have been more interesting to watch - and she would have been more Ted Shackelford/Gary's type, too.

LOL at Halle Berry was not it. I wonder if Sheryl Lee Ralph may have worked as a potential love interest/wife ? 

1 hour ago, Vee said:

Diana was unbearable by the end. Well before, tbh.

Yes. Everyone rooted when Eric slapped the piss out of her at Gary's ranch. 

8 hours ago, DRW50 said:

That was one of the stories which was ended due to fear, and cost the wonderful Lynne Moody her job. I wonder what might have been.

I remember reading somewhere she was vocal in the press about how her character was being written and they decided to kill her off. Too bad. She was a good actress and it kind stunted the Williams family storylines. 

8 hours ago, Khan said:

He didn't sleep with Amanda.   

The plan WAS for Gary and Pat to hook up, but TPTB put the old kibosh on it.  (Gee, I wonder why, lol?). They also planned for Gary and Anne to have an affair, but Michelle Phillips put an end to THAT, saying that Anne couldn't just go from man to man like that.  (Um, Michelle, did you know the character you were portraying, lol?)

UGH !!! that Amanda character. What was really the point of all that mess ? I wonder if the character could have been more tolerable with better writing and someone like Ana Alicia in the role instead of Penny Peyser. I also hated Melinda Culea's character on the show. 

If they wanted to torture viewers with annoying characters, they should have just brought back Diana Fairgate...

1 hour ago, j swift said:

Someone posted the scene on TikTok of Karen giving Val's eulogy, and the whole time Gary was looking back over his shoulder at Kate.  My reaction was, dude, keep it in your trousers at the memorial for the mother of kids!

I remember that. Gary was a man slut that never used protection and slept with every woman that came/looked his way. They even had a scene of Pat admitting to Karen that she was attracted to Gary. I was waiting for them to have a roll in the hay at the stables. 

1 hour ago, Khan said:

Probably - and they would've set it to "Can't Smile Without You," by Barry Manilow.

1 minute ago, Khan said:

I wouldn't be surprised if that was in their plan; however, I think it's common knowledge that the Lechowicks would often change direction because their stories didn't work as they had originally planned.

If they had done something like that, they would have probably made it even more dramatic by having a character die in the fire. 

1 minute ago, DRW50 said:

I never can remember if that was them or the team that replaced them. Either way, that finale, along with Linda's murder, is the end of KL for me.

I agree. KL all went to crap by then.  I feel the same way about Dallas when Pam was offed in that car crash. 

1 hour ago, Khan said:

I agree.  In the past, Abby had done malicious things, but her motivations were always clear and reasonable.  But planting drugs on Harold so he would stay away from Olivia?  Threatening Ted Melcher with proof that he was responsible for the Murakame murders?  That was too much.  It got to a point where you, as a viewer, had to ask, just how much money and power does one person NEED anyway?

Once Val had freed herself and the twins from Danny, and she and Gary had finally reunited, the two should have married right away and left town to start over somewhere else.  When the Lechowicks came up with the "brain virus" as one more obstacle to Val and Gary remarrying, it was clear that the Ewings had run their course.

Yes, you can tell the Lechowicks had no respect for Joan Van Ark by coming up with that story to make her even more ditzy. I'm surprised they didn't have her burn down the ranch or the house in the cul-de-sac. They also had Karen taking off like a vigilante in her car running down the kids with the paintball gun in a high speed chase. 

On 5/20/2023 at 7:38 PM, Khan said:

It would certainly tie in with that scene of Greg visiting Laura's gravesite in the season 13 finale.  But I think any plans to bring back Laura would have been doomed to fail.  Constance McCashin was irreplaceable, IMO, and given her feelings about being let go from the show, I doubt the producers could have convinced her to return, too.  In a perfect world, though, they could have lured her back - either as Laura, or as her twin or lookalike.

I agree. CM was given the shaft and would probably never return. They would have had to do some serious courting/butt kissing to make her even consider it. 

Speaking of those last seasons, why was Stacy Galina (Kate) considered such a find ?  Even when they did the 1997 reunion she was brought back with Gary's child in tow and given major airtime. 

If your a good writer/ producer/show runner that is hired to do a revival of a iconic series,  why would you not make sure to brush up on the history ? Cidre sounds like a arrogant hack. I think I read that David Jacobs said he offered to be a consultant and she said no thanks. 

Ran across this old pic of WGE circa 1975 online.

19 hours ago, Khan said:

I think Ann Marcus was planning to have Val unearth some big secret about Greg in the course of writing his biography.  (My money was on a long-lost son.)

I think I remember reading it was Val finding Laura still alive. 

I wonder if someone showed the Dallas novel to David Jacobs today if he would recall any of his original ideas for Dallas or say it was all fabricated by Raintree.

I remember reading an interview with Meg Bennett where she said Bell and Conboy hired her for Julia after knowing her work from SFT. She had recently moved back to California where she was originally from and they called her up. The Newmans were going to make their debut in 1979 for the expected 1 hour expansion, but all the problems and delays pushed it back till February 1980. 

Devane was a like a long lost Kennedy. 

3 hours ago, te. said:

When Dallas first started I believe Larry Hagman talked about how everyone was really rotten in that family and that's certainly the outline that the novel seemingly follows - of course, being 1970s network television they probably couldn't go as far with that concept, but I actually imagine that they're closer to Jacob's original vision for the show.

I agee. Jacobs did say that some of what Katzman did with the show turned out better than what he wrote or envisioned. He said he was alway more suited to write middle class and that's why Knots was more his baby and let Katzman and Capice run things. They would all have meeting every so often. Jacobs always firmly told them " No matter where the show leads, it all goes back to those 8 characters I created". 

Katzman eventually got shed of Capice. Capice wanted to give the women of the show equal storyline, but Katzman wanted it to be a mans show and they fought constantly. Hagman and Duffy made it their playground. I have seen countless takes/bloopers where they will be in a intense scenes with another actor and Duffy or Hagman will screw it all up to "Make a funny". I have a great sense of humor, but when you work those long hours and have to do constant re-takes because of co-stars antics, I bet that got old quick. 

I feel Duffy screwed things up for good by leaving the show by insisting Bobby be killed off. Then Hagman got pissed he didn't have his old playmate and started in by insisting he be brought back. Katzman also used this to his advantage to get "carte blanche" and run the show without any outside interference. With Katzman, Duffy and Hagman back in place, the women went back to playing second fiddle. When Katzman told Jacobs his choice to make it all a dream, Jacobs told him it was stupid and it will insult the audince. Katzman scoffed " Well we are doing it" Jacobs refused to undo Bobby's death on Knots. It killed the crossovers. 

David Jacobs said he wanted Bobby to be a playboy/jetsetter type. He was more interested in traveling, sailing yachts etc than working. Pamela was supposed to reel him in and make him more stable and settle down much to his chagrin. CBS insisted that Bobby be more good guy and down to earth and David Jacobs said " Bobby became bland and boring"......Jacobs also said that Pamela Barnes Ewing should have been the most fascinating character he ever created, but as much as he loved Victoria Principal......the character never became what he had envisioned. 

Jacobs also said he saw Lucy in the vein of someone like Stefanie Kramer, but CBS or Leonard Katzman thought she should be a nifty little blonde. He said Charlene was adorable, but couldn't act.....LOL 

This has probably been posted before, but this has got to be one of my favorite photos from the show....LOL