Chris 2

Agreed. As disappointed as I was that Dallas didn’t end with Pam and Bobby together, it would have been far worse to see Cynthia Cidre try to write a Pam return. It was bad enough in the revival how Bobby acted when Christopher got confirmation of Pam’s death. Sue Ellen expressed her condolences to Bobby, and he coldly replied, “I mourned Pam a long time ago.” C’mon - this was the love of his life. He proclaimed when he proposed a second marriage to her years earlier, “I never stopped loving you, and I never will.”

After the first couple of seasons, Brandon generally came across as an arrogant little turd. I don’t know how much of that was the writing vs the actor.

For that matter, Clayton Farlow should have been more of a direct business rival of the Ewings. It would have made his marriage and life at Southfork much more interesting. And he should have had other children - maybe a troublemaking daughter who could have turned up at Southfork. Instead, they kind of wrote him into a corner.

Doing a Kelly-Brandon-Valerie triangle was the logical next step for the show. I thought it was a big missed opportunity that they didn’t go there, especially since Kelly and Valerie already disliked each other.

I’ve read that something happened between during the taping for the “Return to Southfork” reunion in 2004 that caused a fissure between her and the rest of the cast. And that when producers were putting together the pilot for the new show in 2011, the other cast members didn’t want to work with her, so she was not asked. I don’t know how true this is. Victoria said at that point that she was asked to appear and mused about whether Pam was alive. The showrunner, Cynthia Cidre, said they decided that Bobby had moved on. But different people had different stories, so I thought this was odd. In the revival’s second season, the initial interest for the show had died off and ratings were waning. They started hinting of Pam’s return in the story. Jesse Metcalfe even publicly stated that he would like to work with her. So Victoria released a public statement to trade site Deadline stating that while she couldn’t control what the writers did after her exit in 1987, as far as she was concerned Pam was dead, and she wouldn’t be making a “desperate reappearance” on the new series. I bet that went over big with her former colleagues. When they did a DVD rerelease a few years ago, one of the special features was a joint studio interview with Duffy, Gray, Kanaly, and Tilton. Victoria wound up phoning in (though she did not appear on screen). Duffy bantered with her and she laughed that big laugh of hers and seemed to enjoy reminiscing about the show. So honestly, who knows what went on.

I think it was possible to do a good show without Bobby. But in primetime, once the audience starts to decline, it’s very hard to get them back. Dynasty is a good example: they finally fixed the show in season 9, but the audience never returned (the change of night didn’t help). LA Law is another good example: they changed showrunners and lost a few cast members starting with season 6. The audience greatly declined. Even though they eventually fixed the show, the audience never returned. That’s one of the reasons they brought back Bobby - it got people talking about the show again. The cliffhanger episode with Bobby returning was the the highest rated episode of the season, tying with the season premiere. And the following season premiere was the highest rated episode since Bobby’s “death.” It’s too bad they explained his return away so quickly - they fumbled a chance to hook the audience again.

Chuck Rosin ran the show for the first five years, and his deputies Steve Wasserman and Jessica Klein took over for seasons 6-7, so there was at least some continuity. Season 8 was when they brought in the outsider, Michael Braverman of “Life Goes On,” to be the showrunner. The transition was jarring to say the least and he was fired halfway through the season. I wonder why Rosin left. He never had another showrunner job that lasted more than a handful of episodes. The Ray character never made sense to me. As Larry Mollin said, the show was supposed to be about ordinary kids living extraordinary lives. So why did they think we’d be interested in this bumpkin character? And who the hell was named Ray even back then? Andrea should have been sent away for a semester overseas when Gabrielle became pregnant. Making Andrea a young mother and saddling her with Jesse just destroyed all story possibilities for her.

I pulled out the Barbara Curran book to look at the rankings (she gives those consistently more than ratings). The ratings/rankings actually fell off earlier in the dream season than Pam’s jungle adventure. By the seventh episode of the season in November, it had dropped out of the Nielsen top 10 for the first time since the second season. It hovered around number 10 (sometimes ranking a bit higher, sometimes a bit lower). When the emerald storyline started in January, it fell a bit more (ranking 11-13), and by April, it was regularly ranking 15th. I understand why they panicked and brought Duffy back, but I wish they had thought it through more. But they did need a big event to get the eyeballs back on the show again.

Well said. The show had already begun to get repetitive during Duffy’s last season before his departure, and the ratings were beginning to soften in the latter part of that season. Exploring what happened to Pam after Bobby’s death should have driven plot for years. Pam should have been left in residence at Southfork as Bobby’s widow. She and JR could have battled in the office during the day and at Southfork at night. And it would have been fun to see the two of them reluctantly team up against outside threats. But as you said, they were afraid of Pam as the main protagonist. So they didn’t really explore her going head to head with JR, and they had her jump back into bed with Mark Graison a couple of days after Bobby died. This was another missed opportunity - to eventually introduce a new, better character to be her love interest. They really blew it, so Katzman decided to go back to the tried and true when he returned to the show, even though that setup was running out of gas even before Duffy’s departure. Ah, what could have been.

I think the problem with that ranking is that there are so many episodes and people certainly aren’t ranking every single one and not against each other. So, now that I’ve picked on the methodology, I’ll comment: I’d argue that “Swan Song” is the best episode. It’s such a great wrap up to Patrick Duffy’s first stint on the show. The resolution to the the show’s Pam/Bobby/Jenna triangle is deliriously soapy: Pam is willing to sacrifice her happiness so that Jenna can be with Bobby; Jenna is willing to sacrifice her happiness so that Bobby can be with Pam; and Bobby sacrifices his life for Pam. Bobby and Pam’s reconciliation after two seasons apart is the most romantic and heartfelt scene of the series. Add to that Bobby’s weepy deathbed scene, and you have the best episode of the series.

Kelly doesn’t get better. Only worse. She becomes judgmental and sanctimonious starting in season 5, and it only gets worse. I kept hoping Valerie would pop her in the nose, but that never happened unfortunately.

It’s just in development. ABC has not ordered a pilot yet. Lucci states in the story, “I’m really hoping that this is going to actually go forward.”

The only thing they cared about for Julie in the early 1980s was how to get her off the show. Susan Hayes admits that she was difficult behind the scenes in those days. She should have looked at how unceremoniously Bill and Laura (Doug and Julie’s peers, age-wise) were written out just a few years earlier.

She was a churchgoer as many of her generation were. I don’t know if I’d describe her as “very religious” by the standards of her day.

Alice/Addie/Julie/David never made a lick of sense, age wise. Frances Reid was about 35 years older than the actor playing her great grandson. Once they made Julie the mother of an adult son in the 1970s, that pretty much cut off the possibility that Doug and Julie would have their own child. I know that the Hayeses were unhappy with Doug and Julie primarily existing as Hope’s parent in the early 80s, which is why they were let go. I wonder if SSH made a fuss about David being aged so much in the 70s, because that was the beginning of the end of her time as the show’s romantic heroine.

I thought the decision to make Ray a Ewing was a poor one. That was a card they could have held in their back pocket to introduce a new family member/character when they needed it. Not to blow on an existing character in the early seasons of the show, when they hadn’t yet begun to run out of story.

Ray became so obnoxious in his later years on the show, what with his insecurity about Donna and his obsession with his teenage stepdaugher’s romantic life. During his middle years on the show, after he adjusted to being Jock’s son, he also adjusted to Donna’s career success and was no longer worried about competing with the other Ewing brothers. He became pretty mellow and he and Donna were a nice contrast to all the drama of JR/Sue Ellen and Bobby/Pam. I guess the writers felt that was dull, because then they undid it all.

And then Bobby came back and they couldn’t afford all those fancy clothes anymore.

And GH! She played Tanya Roskov, originally Frisco Jones’ love interest; their love theme was Wagner’s hit “All I Need.” Tanya was ultimately too dull for effective supercoupledom; it was tiring hearing her and dad Boris talk about “the old country”. Once they brought on Kristina Wagner to play Felicia, dull Tanya was paired off with Frisco’s dull brother Tony.

Yep. Season 3 (and season 2) were great. There was a big drop in quality when they sent everyone off to college. Everyone being in the same college was ridiculous, not to mention the political stories, Andrea and her pregnancy, Claire, Greek life. Ugh. I wish they had just had each new season take place during the summer, when the gang was home for college. You could have had a time jump each season. The summer episodes were always my favorite anyway.

She probably staged it.

Bobby loved emeralds. And yeah - that ending with Pam selling out to JR was a head scratcher. Where did they expect to go from there? That would have only made sense if Victoria was leaving the show.

It was also why the producers were willing to kill off Bobby in 1985, aside from Patrick Duffy’s wishes. The liked the idea of fulfilling Jacobs’ original Pam vs the family premise. Too bad they did such a lousy job of it, but that’s something for another post.

It aired at 8:00 pm which the networks considered the “family hour” back in the 1980s. So it wasn’t going to be a full fledged soap as long as it aired in that time period. I considered it more of a family drama as well.

LOL @ the 1982 cast picture above. Was Ron Hale hoping to replace Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones?