Broderick

19 hours ago, SoapDope said:

 

lol.  That clip didn't last very long on YT.  But it was fun to see!  

17 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

As different as Y&R may have been from its P&G neighbors on the CBS lineup, I think a great deal of those P&G soap fans were still drawn to Y&R as Bell was still a traditionalist in many ways. For years, I think the Bell soaps complemented the P&G soaps even as they also served as an alternative. 

I agree completely.  As "suave" and "smooth" as early Y&R appeared to be, it was nothing more than a traditional 1950s Irna Phillips soap, updated with a youthful early 1970s "contemporary vibe".  

17 hours ago, kalbir said:

Did your mother eventually change her mind about Y&R?

When the show went to an hour in 1980, it became a LITTLE bit harder to "ignore it completely".  She'd occasionally catch the last few minutes or the first few minutes.  But of course it was still "horrible", as it featured a female stripper (Nikki), a male stripper (Cash), an older lady (Kay) paying a younger male prostitute for sex, and the perpetually bouncing breasts of Lorie Brooks "who evidently can't afford to buy herself a brassiere".  

Once some of the perceived "seediness" was zapped away (about 1982), she started watching it along with the rest of the the CBS line-up if she was at home. 

I still vividly remember her reaction when she walked through the living room & saw Tyrone in whiteface.  "That poor little girl can't tell he's Tyrone?" lol.   

25 minutes ago, kalbir said:

I wonder what grandmas BITD thought of Y&R. It must have been scandalous and shocking to them.

My mother wouldn't watch it when she was home during the day.  She kept it on CBS if she was in the house, but when "that awful show" came on, she turned it off.  I learned early on that was the one to watch, lol.   

8 minutes ago, te. said:

What's surprising is that Edge of Night's male demo is nothing special, especially since the story has always been that it was male skewing.

First thing that jumped out at me.  Maybe they hadn't recovered from the "CBS time switch" where all of that demo was supposedly depleted.  

On 6/3/2023 at 1:32 AM, Paul Raven said:

Surprising that ATWT began to drop as nothing really changed in terms of storytelling or characters. It just seemed like viewers suddenly found ATWT not to their liking and switched off.

I believe World Turns was hurt by DEMOS, more than by any other factor.  

There's a book on soaps (written by Robert LaGuardia) that was published right about the time of these ratings -- late 1977, early 1978.  LaGuardia closes his book by saying an "unprecedented number of young viewers have recently entered the daytime audience", and the shows primarily benefiting from this influx of young viewers, in his opinion, were All My Children and The Young and the Restless.   In fact, he goes on to note -- direct quote here -- "The Young and the Restless and All My Children are currently all the rage on college campuses, where young viewers tend to relate to the characters on these two shows."  

We can see the proof of his assertion clearly in the ratings for the final week of December 1977.   During that particular week, winter break from school was occurring all across America, and younger viewers were at home, taking control of their parents' TV sets.  What's #1 & #2 that week?  AMC and Y&R. 

The next week, school started back, and those younger viewers returned to campus, where their viewing wasn't being monitored by A.C. Nielson, and the parents at home switched back to As the World Turns and Another World, propelling the more traditional soaps back to the top.  

As the "influx of younger viewers" continued into the late 1970s and very early 1980s, we saw All My Children continue doing extremely well, along with One Life to Live, and of course General Hospital, which underwent a huge transformation in 1979.  We also saw The Young and the Restless at or near the top of the ratings in 1979 and 1980, up until its somewhat disastrous transition to an hour, which temporarily zapped away the momentum it had been gaining for the past 7 years. 

I don't necessarily believe World Turns was "abandoned" by its viewers.  I believe the viewers of the older P&G soaps were simply dying off slowly, and the younger viewers, who were entering the audience at a fast rate, were more interested in the ABC shows and the Bell shows.    

On 5/30/2023 at 11:27 PM, DaytimeFan said:

Bill and Lee's 'weekend cottage'

 

Yep, that's the "weekend cottage" on Lake Geneva that was pointed out to me.

During the time they owned it, their "weekday house" was a large, expensive unit in a high-rise on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.

I bet they made a KILLING when they disposed of their properties in the Midwest, then bought wisely in California and made yet another killing.  

4 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Interestingly Eileen left under his watch and the vibe I got was that she wasn't happy with the story for Ashley. Mal said something along the lines that it was a short break and Eileen reiterated that she wouldn't be back. As soon as Mal left Eileen began reappearing.

The business with the "blood Abbott clause" was probably a good story for Eileen (in theory), but it wasn't handled very well, and I do expect it hastened her decision to call it quits as a contract actor on the show.  I'd imagine the budget cuts were also a factor.  No reason for her to sign a new contract at a smaller salary, tie herself to the show full-time, and get lousy storylines in return.  She doesn't seem to mind working when she feels like it, lol.  

Those folks have always had really nice houses.  Bill Bell was always fairly dismissive of his "weekend cottage" at Lake Geneva.  A few years ago, I was up there and saw this two-story 1920s mansion with a red-tile roof on the south shore of the lake.  I commented to the folks I was with, "That's sure a pretty one."  It looked to be about a 15,000 square foot house, and it had a tremendous amount of lake frontage (about 100 yards, it looked like).  The response was, "Oh that house is Casa del Sueno; it belonged to this guy who wrote soap operas.  His wife had a talk show in Chicago.  They moved to California in the 1980s."  Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who that was.  

12 hours ago, kalbir said:

I'd say the heart and roots of Dallas is that of a western. That's why it has such a masculine energy.

I agree that Dallas, at its best, was fundamentally a "modern-day Western".

When doing a re-boot, you're probably best served by keeping the underlying THEME of the program -- what made it unique and popular -- and then updating that theme for a newer audience. 

There's no reason a crime drama aspect couldn't work -- as long as the crime/drama elements were secondary to the family dynamics and the "epic Western" theme.  

I read the article last night about Beyonce buying "the most expensive home ever sold in California", and I noted the house is hideously ugly but in a pretty location.  It never crossed my mind that was Lil Billy & Maria Arena's house!  

1 hour ago, Khan said:

I think the 2012 series was a good idea, but I agree with David Jacobs that they relied too much on the original cast members, who should have made limited or recurring appearances, and that the younger generation should have taken over more.  I think the fact that they didn't was a sign that TPTB weren't too sure about the younger generation carrying the show on their own.

Which is kind of the opposite of what Dallas was intended to be.  For the 1978 version, TPTB outfitted themselves pretty well with veteran actors for the tentpole characters -- Barbara Bel Geddes, Jim Davis, & David Wayne -- but they let the younger actors carry the majority of the storylines.  Producers don't have that confidence anymore.  

8 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

As we saw from the ratings,those first 5 eps did quite well.

Maybe CBS saw potential early. Perhaps part of the reasoning behind scheduling Dallas was that mini series had been picking up steam and CBS was looking at bringing some of that flavor to a regular series. So having a book tie in worked in with that.

It's hard to remember, but I believe there were a couple of weeks when it appeared CBS had miscalculated.  

My recollection -- might be wrong -- is that the 1st installment did well in the ratings, the 2nd and 3rd installments were disappointing, the 4th was well-received, and the 5th showed clear series potential.  Which is why CBS reran it a few months later, to guarantee viewers had the opportunity to catch the two installments that hadn't fared as well.  

2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

I know novelizations of TV series were once a thing (maybe still are?) but was it usual to have a book out on a spring short flight series that may not be picked up?

Seems like a lot of trouble and expense that may not be recouped.

I'm not sure why CBS, Lorimar, and Dell Publishing opted for that (rather expensive) treatment of a miniseries that might or might not sell.  

PRESUMABLY, it was because of the "miniseries based on the best-selling novel" craze of the late 1970s and early 1980s.  We'd seen Irwin Shaw's Rich Man, Poor Man hit CBS in 1976.  Jesus of Nazareth and, of course, Roots had also gotten the treatment.  In 1978, Judith Krantz wrote Scruples (the first big "sex & shopping" blockbuster, based on Giorgio's of Beverly Hills), and CBS was frantically purchasing the novel's television rights for an elaborate 1980 miniseries.  There seemed to be a belief that Dallas possessed a certain "epic blockbuster" element that would lend itself to a novel, even though the novel hadn't existed prior to the television project.  My understanding is that by the time the miniseries was rerun in late 1978 to introduce the first full season, sales of the novel had hit 300,000 copies and had generated more royalties for the author than any other novel he'd ever written.  

@Khan, that's excellent.

In my opinion, you should consider deleting it, as it's far too good to risk having it stolen.  Seriously.

On 5/19/2023 at 4:46 PM, SoapDope said:

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 wonder that, too.  It was a multi-layered process, I believe.  Once CBS had fully committed to the 5 episodes, a contract was made with Dell Publishing Company -- either through CBS, Lorimar, or David Jacobs -- to have a novel produced that captured the action of the 5 episodes and also expanded upon the backstory of the characters who were introduced in the 5 episodes.  Dell Publishing Company then contracted with author Lee Raintree, who was an accomplished, versatile writer that was known to be able to produce a novel in a matter of a few weeks.  Raintree could guarantee delivery of the manuscript to Dell Publishing by the time the miniseries hit the CBS airwaves.  

During Y&R's 30-minute period, Bill Bell had developed a masterful (or annoying, depending on your preference) practice of writing brief "vignettes" or "sequences" which he often inserted into his episodes.  His "vignettes" often aired about midway through the show, had nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the episode, and made you pay attention, scratch your head, and ask yourself, "What is he doing here?"  

In the first episode ever of Y&R -- which everyone on the board has undoubtedly seen -- the little Frenchman, who appears to be a minor character, suddenly belts out a song at lunchtime in a bizarre little "vignette" that appears to serve no storytelling purpose.  Everyone applauds for Pierre, and the episode immediately returns to its purpose, which involved Snapper, Chris, Leslie, Brad, Sally McGuire, and Stuart Brooks. 

In the second episode, there's a little "vignette" where Jill Foster explains to Snapper that she can't go to work that day because she's having menstrual cramps.  The scene is entirely about Snapper's progress at school and his relationship with Chris Brooks, but you're drawn into the scene because of the little "vignette" about Jill's cramps.  

When Doug Davidson celebrated his 40th anniversary on the show, a little "vignette" appeared in which Doug Davidson and Rick Springfield practiced karate in the gym, while Greg and Snapper were working out.  The purpose of the scene was to remind us that Greg doesn't have any use for Paul, but Bill Bell designed it as a "karate vignette", rather than just have Greg tell Snapper at home, "I can't stand that guy Paul." 

When the mandate came down in 1979 -- the show's going to an hour; there's nothing you can do about it -- Bill Bell probably should've negotiated with them.  "I don't want my new, larger budget to be given to me all at once.  I'd like 30% of it given to me three months prior to transition, another 30% the following month, another 30% the following month, and the balance at the expansion."  This would've enabled Bell to go ahead and sign his new characters to contracts and begin incorporating them into the show using those brief little vignettes that he'd already mastered. 

He'd already signed an actress to play April Stevens, and he already had a day-player working as Paul.  One of his initial storylines in the hour-format involved April's baby turning out to be Paul's. He could've previewed that easily in a two-minute "vignette" in the autumn of 1979.  Chris Foster takes April to the campus coffee shop to get her out of the apartment.  Greg Foster joins them.  While April is meeting Greg and chatting with Chris, she notices Paul out of the corner of her eye.  She looks at him uneasily.  Paul turns and looks at April, sighs, puts his arm around another girl and exits.  Fade to black.  2-minute scene.  The audience is left wondering, "Is that little April Stevens going to break up Greg and Nikki??  Does she already KNOW Nikki's deadbeat boyfriend Paul??  Or was that just a throwaway scene??"  I think it heightens the interest in both April AND Paul, as well as previewing the next year's storyline. 

Bell could've gone ahead and brought back Pam Peters -- who we all knew -- as Peggy Brooks, and had her take a job at the newspaper working for her father.  In a little "vignette" scene, Stuart assigns Peggy a story to write about some guys in an office on Market Street rescuing a pregnant cat from the roof of an office building.  Peggy returns with her story -- "I think it's great, Dad" -- and Stuart gives her the bad news -- his newest reporter, Steve Williams, already covered the story and has already written up the article.  Steve's article is better than Peggy's.  Steve takes Peggy to lunch at the Allegro to show he doesn't consider himself her competitor.  Peggy tells him all about the Brooks family, then asks him about his own family, giving him the opportunity to tell her his dad is a cop who often gives Stuart Brooks information from the daily police report.  His mother is a die-hard Catholic who also volunteers on the Genoa City blood drive.  His little sister is sixteen.  And then there's his deadbeat brother Paul.  Steve looks toward the entrance, and there stands Paul slouching in the doorway, "Speaking of the devil, there he is." 

A few days later, Jill comes pouting into the living room to complain about Kay and Derek.  Liz isn't paying her much attention at first, because she's helping with the blood drive.  The lady who's working with her on the project is babbling about meeting the Pope.   "I wish my son Steve could've been there.  He would've loved meeting the Pope.  Paul, too -- he's my youngest, but he never goes to mass.  Oh.  It looks as though your daughter wants to speak with you about something.  I'll go now."  Another brief vignette that would've laid the foundation of the 1980 storylines. 

The whole business with Brock, Cathy Bruder, the stolen Rolls Royce, the vampire-like owner of the car (Victor Newman), his fragile little wife (Julia) -- all this could've been previewed vignette-style in Brock's law office, which he shared with Greg Foster, while the primary thrust of the scenes could've been about Nikki's modeling for La Pleu Belle Rose, and Greg's concerns about the lingerie modeling. 

By the time the show expanded into an hour on 2/4/1980, there wouldn't have been any reason to introduce ANY new characters, because they would've all already been there, they would all be familiar to the audience, and the audience would already be curious about each & every one of them.  Some of them could've been fully developed by 2/4/1980, others in the mid-stages of being developed, and some still blank canvases. 

All it would've taken was a LITTLE planning and part of the budget being allocated earlier to sign some or all of the new actors and begin incorporating them into the canvas while the show was still operating on all cylinders, at or near the top of the ratings.  

5 minutes ago, Vee said:

There would be more Latino and Black characters - probably the spouses - but I also thought of maybe having a fourth wild card, a cutthroat Latino tycoon who is alleged to be Jock's long-lost son or daughter pulling rank on all of them, positing that the Steve Forrest character from the later seasons was Jock after all. Except that question would of course never be answered and the truth would never be confirmed.

That's why I wish Dallas (on TV) had moved forward with the suggestion that Gary had a short-circuited marriage to Vera Rodriguez.  Gary's son by Vera would eventually appear as an adult, and he'd be FAR more like Uncle JR than like Gary.  

@AbcNbc247, I can't think of Dallas in any format without thinking of Bond Whitson.  He wasn't a "good guy", and he wasn't a "bad guy".  He was a "wounded" guy, as a direct result of the way society had carelessly treated him on account of his shockingly pale appearance.  

The reason he engaged in rough sex is the only women who would sleep with him were hookers.  And whenever he bedded one, he always checked to see if she recoiled when she saw his non-pigmented body naked.  He would then PUNISH her for recoiling, and not only that, he would punish her as a substitute for EVERYONE who'd ever recoiled from him or thoughtlessly made the sign of the cross when he passed them on the street.    

It's a bizarre and complex situation, with underlying motivation that maybe can't be explored in a visual medium like television or film, but is completely understandable when you read it.  

Miss Ellie explains it best in the novel when she and Jock are grieving after his death.  Miss Ellie says, "Jock, we knew of Bond's weakness [the violent sex] and in our own ways, we both used him and took advantage of that weakness, when were *supposed* to be the people who loved him."   

@Vee, And I think you did a VERY good job.  (Although I'm a 'denialist' that Christopher is dead, lol.)  

3 minutes ago, Vee said:

All I'll say is that looking back on my own revival idea now from awhile back, I think instead of John Ross as the villain like the last attempt at a return (something David Jacobs objected to on the TNT show, finding John Ross vs. Christopher in the same moral roles as their parents a retread of J.R. and Bobby) you could do something different. Gary and Val's son Bobby and John Ross would be the central poles of the story, but the main antagonist would instead be J.R.’s younger son by his hick wife (Cally). That son (call him Joshua, or whatever) would be the heavy, raised outside the Ewings and married to a Chinese national wife who is a brilliant international businesswoman and the brains of the outfit. They would have global empire aspirations. So Joshua the younger heir and his wife would still be trying to drill baby drill, while Bobby II is into other energies and concepts and trying to save the earth, married to the female lead, a supposedly reformed environmental radical/activist, possibly one with a past with John Ross. A reformed John Ross would be caught in the middle between the two dueling men in more the kind of role Jacobs suggested for him, a heroic but morally conflicted protagonist torn between his father's way and a better way. I figure that's how you square the circle with the TNT show's continuity (where John Ross was the heavy) while largely ignoring or avoiding referencing any of it much.* Maybe you could even toss in Meg MacKenzie as a side player, a political operator working with/romancing one of the men while utilizing her Sumner connections.

The frame of reference for my idea was always the socially conscious political drama/soap opera of the last recent season of Borgen on Netflix, where climate change and oil (in Greenland) and fighting over those dwindling resources in a hazardous time were the central issues. Here, a vicious heat crisis would scour Texas a la the UK's horrible heatwave this past year, with people dying in the streets; call it divine retribution for the Ewings. The key veterans would appear in supporting roles or cameo (I did like the idea of Sue Ellen having run for office from the revival show). And maybe you can excavate ol' Pam from the dead after all near the end as the emotional climax to the thing if you somehow got Victoria Principal to agree, which would probably never happen. Anyway, do it all in 8-15 episodes and call it a day. It would be a dark story, with elements of soap but it would not be meant to continue on.

*(Of course, if it ignored the TNT show entirely then you could make up whatever, like the antagonist being John Ross' own adult technocrat son, or Christopher or whoever else, so I dunno.)

Well, I like that.  I especially like reversing the roles, or at the very least having John Ross as the character who is most torn and conflicted between 'good' and 'bad', with him swinging from first one side and then to the other, depending upon what the particular issue is, or who is currently exerting the most influence over him.  He's a character who has SEEN bad, and he's a character who should KNOW good.  I feel his characterization was squandered a good bit in the revival.  

7 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

@Broderick thanks for posting that. Wow heavy stuff. Can't imagine our Miss Ellie being a party to anything like that. I guess Julie Grey and the red file was patterned along those lines and Roberta was softened into Amanda. The Roberta/Bobby connection was wild.

I think they missed the boat with Amanda -she could have had some secrets locked away like Roberta. Did she really have any story apart from being a minor roadblock to Jock/Ellie?

With Amanda, I believe the idea was that Jock was willing to "throw away a sick wife" at the very time Miss Ellie was learning she had breast cancer.  Once the breast cancer scare had been handled, there was no longer any need for the "ghost" of Amanda to hang over the marriage.  Another prematurely "burned" story, in my opinion, that didn't yield much growth or development for any of the characters (although it did lead to that jaw-dropping scene in which Amanda brushed Jock aside and ran to Bobby, believing him to be the "real" Jock.)   

28 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Would love to know what the deal was. 

I believe there were three problems.

(1) Bill Bell was extremely opposed to the hour-long format, and he was forced to do it against his will.  He felt the network was taking a currently successful product that was at or near the top of the ratings and endangering its potential for future success.  

(2) His reluctance to move forward with the expansion led to a great deal of procrastination in planning for the inevitable

(3) His team didn't fully understand the process.  Kay Alden has indicated there was difficulty deciding how many characters should be used in any specific episode, how many different storylines should be presented within the hour, how many additional writers needed to be employed, and how the additional work should be delegated.  

Granted, all you had to do was turn on a show that had successfully made the transition and see how it was being managed.  But I don't believe Bell wanted to emulate another show (GH, AMC, or OLTL -- specifically).  The shows he was most likely to study were probably World Turns, Guiding Light, and Days -- all of which had ultimately struggled some, though not as much as his own show ended up struggling.  

[In my opinion, his BIGGEST problem was that he didn't successfully merge the new characters and new storylines with the existing characters and storylines.]

@Vee, I'm certainly interested.

About the novel -- I wouldn't want to leave the impression that Miss Ellie "watched" as Bond Whitson violently raped Jock's troublemaking mistress -- she didn't.  Miss Ellie told Bond, "Do what you gotta do, Bond" and quietly left the apartment building where Roberta lived.  As she pushed the elevator's down button to leave the 10th floor, Miss Ellie told herself, "It ain't no worse than cuttin' the head off of a coiled-up rattlesnake; it's just somethin' that has to be done before somebody gets bit."  

Roberta & Jock's storyline in the novel was actually the "prototype" of what we ultimately saw on television when Jock Ewing revealed to Miss Ellie that he'd been married previously, and his first wife, Amanda, was still alive but institutionalized.  

The way it unfolded here was that shortly after WWII, some of the larger oil companies began sending lobbyists to Washington, to influence legislation making it easier for them to acquire smaller independent companies, such as Ewing Oil. 

Jock Ewing began making frequent trips to Washington (on behalf of the cartel, known as the "Texas Independents") to counteract the effects of lobbyists from the big companies.  Jock's attempts at lobbying were FAR more difficult, of course, because he lacked the influence and connections of the big companies.

Jock decided to play dirty. 

He sucked-up to a corrupt, overweight, sleazy, Bible-thumping, Southern Baptist, United States Congressman from Texas -- Frank Kelly.  While visiting the Dallas area, Frank Kelly suggested to Jock, "Maybe you could fix me up with a sweet-lookin' little whore, as long as she ain't a damn Messican." Jock and his Albino protégé, Bond Whitson, set-up two young local white-trash girls to service the Congressman.  The girls readily agreed to the job for a small amount of money, although one of the girls stipulated, "As long as you don't expeck me to do it with that Albino, on account of I already done it with him once, and he like to scared me half to death.  He's ROUGH with his women." 

Jock arranged for the two girls and the drunk Congressman to have a three-way, and Bond took pictures.  Jock then threatened to pass the photographs around to Congressman Frank Kelly's constituency of Southern Baptists, unless Congressman Kelly introduced legislation favorable to the Texas Independents. 

Using blackmail, Jock now had a U.S. Congressman in the backpocket of the cartel. 

Miss Ellie was at home giving birth to JR the night the photographs of Congressman Kelly were taken, the symbolism being that JR Ewing was brought into the world on a night filled with backstabbing, double-crossing, and corruption. 

Congressman Kelly had a secretary in Washington named Roberta, who always batted her eyes, smiled at Jock, and placed her perfumed body near Jock whenever he visited Congressman Kelly's office to issue his blackmail demands to Kelly. 

Jock knew that he shouldn't sleep with Roberta -- he'd never even considered being unfaithful to Miss Ellie -- but Roberta was a great temptation, and she successfully seduced Jock, beginning a five-year affair.  Each time Jock flew to Washington to lobby or to blackmail Congressman Kelly, he visited Roberta.  Meanwhile, Roberta began compiling a dossier of every dirty deal, every corrupt transaction, every bribe that Jock was a participant in.  She ultimately had an envelope of blackmail material on Jock that was bigger than Jock's envelope of blackmail material on Congressman Kelly. 

When Miss Ellie was giving birth to Baby Number Three, Roberta called Southfork from DC and said, "Hi, I'm Mr. Jock Ewing's secretary in Washington.  Mr. Ewing asked me to call and give Mrs. Eleanor Southworth Ewing the message that the new baby is to be named Robert or Bobby.  Thank you.  Good-bye."  

After Bobby was born and a little time had passed, Miss Ellie became aware of the entire escapade -- that she'd been tricked into naming her son for Jock's mistress and the mistress was in possession of damaging information that could ruin (and potentially bankrupt) Jock Ewing. 

Miss Ellie's first impulse was to throw Jock off Southfork and raise JR, Gary, and Bobby on her own.  But after agonizing over the situation and hearing Jock's pleas for forgiveness, she said, "Jock, I'm mighty disappointed in you.  I'm gonna have to go away for a little while, but don't worry about me -- I'm takin' Bond with me as my escort."

Bond didn't want to be a part of what was about to happen, but he would do anything for Jock & Miss Ellie.  When Bond was young, everyone laughed at him -- the whites, the blacks, and the Mexicans alike -- because of Bond's snow-white hair, his colorless skin that "looked like the underbelly of a snake", and his pale eyes that "looked like a rabbit's eyes but had the empty expression of a diamondback rattler".  Jock overheard people making fun of the kid -- adults and children alike -- and Jock had enough of it.  He took pity on the boy, brought him to Southfork and gave him a room over the garage.  Miss Ellie didn't think she'd be able to tolerate having the "strange-looking creature" lurking around the house, but after a few days, she forgot he was any different from anyone else.  Jock bought him some sunglasses so he could hide his pale eyes when he wanted to, some gloves to cover his pale hands, and long-sleeved shirts to cover his colorless arms.  The superstitious people around the ranch still avoided Bond (or made the sign of the cross when he passed) but Jock and Miss Ellie didn't appear to notice anything unusual about Bond, and he was eternally grateful to them. (Even Congressman Kelly observed, "I don't know what that thang is you've got drivin' your car, but that damn sure ain't no Messican!")  The only thing that worried Miss Ellie were the whispered stories from the ranch hands that Bond had a VERY VIOLENT & SAVAGE sex life, injuring and maiming the few prostitutes who were willing to take his money and have sex with him.  

So Miss Ellie and Bond paid a visit to Roberta in Washington. Miss Ellie's instructions to Bond Whitson were, "Do whatever you've gotta do.  But get that envelope of information she's got on Jock, and shut her damn mouth up." 

A few hours later, Bond came out of Roberta's apartment with the incriminating envelope.  Roberta was found wandering around in Virginia the following day, her mind completely gone from the harrowing ordeal she'd endured with Bond.  Jock was notified that his "secretary" had suffered a complete mental breakdown and needed to be institutionalized.  Jock told Miss Ellie he felt obligated to pay the sanitarium bills himself, considering the relationship he'd previously had with Roberta, and Miss Ellie nodded.  "I speck that's the least you can do."   

Jock and Miss Ellie's marriage was soon back to normal -- and on equal footing now -- with Jock understanding that Miss Ellie had the guts and brains to take control of a hopeless situation and that Bond would do whatever Miss Ellie asked. 

(Bond Whitson was eventually stabbed to death by a prostitute with whom he got too rough, which led to period of grief and anguish that Jock and Miss Ellie could barely even speak of, and led to another drunken binge from young Gary.)   

7 hours ago, Khan said:

Instead of doing a revival or continuation series, WB should have done a reboot, one that was more complex and more in keeping with David Jacobs' original conception.  

You ought to write your script outline 

Once the memory of the WB revival becomes more distant, there will doubtlessly be a hunger at some point for a (streaming) reboot.  

We've probably all got ideas of what should be handled entirely differently this go-round, what should be omitted entirely, what should be elaborated on.  

@Franko, I told it backwards (from the novel) about the first Mrs. Gary Ewing -- Vera Rodriguez.  (Flipped through my tattered copy this evening to be sure I said it correctly; I didn't.)  Jock and Miss Ellie did not drive Vera Rodriguez away from Southfork.  It made no difference to them that she was Mexican.  If she made Gary happy, that's all Miss Ellie cared about.  What actually happened is young Gary pitched one of his drunken teenage benders, and Miss Rodriguez immediately went home to her parents and told them she wasn't going to live with a raging alcoholic.  Every "whip-stitchin' member of the Rodriguez tribe" showed up at the ranch, "yammerin' in Spanish" that Vera was NOT getting a divorce, as it was against the Rodriguez family's religion.  Miss Ellie passed around enough Southworth/Ewing money to pay for an annulment and assuage the Rodriguez family pride; Senor Rodriguez then loaded up his daughter & took her home. 

Gary still wanted to be married -- even though Vera Rodriguez was firm that she wasn't planning to live with him as long as he drank -- so he soon married Maureen/Valene. 

[I just remembered the CASH PAYOUT from the Ewings, and I was thinking it was to get rid of Vera.   It wasn't; it was to compensate the Rodriguez family for Gary's alcoholism -- the severity and intensity of which had taken young Vera completely by surprise.]

33 minutes ago, Vee said:

KL was his first love.

And it showed!  Knots Landing had some missteps obviously, but it consistently stayed true to its suburban Scenes From a Marriage cul-de-sac origins that Jacobs had initially planned for it.  

Dallas, on the other hand, was all over the place at times.

I expect Dallas was a tremendous pleasure to write, produce, and direct in its infancy and right on up through that episode which was *supposed* to end the 1979-1980 season (Digger's death), before CBS asked for the additional episodes that led to "House Divided".  From that point on, the show seemed to be a struggle and a headache, with big egos, big salaries, pressure to remain on top, pressure to catch every new cultural aspect of the decade, etc.  

That seemed to be about the time Jacobs said, "Y'all can have this.  I'll go work in suburbia."  

I'd have done the same thing.