Chris 2

Agreed with all of that. But some context on Jock’s death: Jim Davis was still alive in the spring of 1981 when they were writing scripts for the 1981-82 season. They continued to write Jock in those early scripts and sent them to the hospital for Jim to read so he’d know that he had a job to come back to. He loved that job, and I thought it was very compassionate. The idea was that Jock would be on the trip and he would be written lightly, but would be seen in phone calls between Jock and Ellie. That way it would be easy to take Jock out if Jim wasn’t available to film, without having to rip up the first half of the season completely. I do think the helicopter crash was nonsense. Jock could have had a heart attack abroad - he had a history of heart issues.

Agreed on all of that. She did show up for David Cassidy’s memorial service a few years back. David’s nephew Jack posted a picture of Jack and Susan together on Instagram.

Oh god, they stunk. Cousin relationships aren’t as high stakes as sibling ones to begin with (they would have been better off bringing in some stepsiblings via Clayton). And the casting was abysmal - someone who got fired from Three’s Company, and Dack Rambo who had no chemistry with anyone.

I loved Eric Farlow as Christopher. He was as cute as a button. Agree with Vee - they needed to lean into JR and Pam running the business. And it couldn’t just be conflict - it had to be more nuanced, with some conflicts and sometimes teaming up against an external force. But Dallas tended to be more black and white. I also think Pam should have been widowed and in residence at Southfork instead of off in her own orbit with the Pornstache. Clayton should have had some additional family to liven things up. Hey - let’s bring in a stepfather for the Ewings, and he has absolutely no family around to cause any conflict. Brilliant! Ultimately, Peter Dunne and company blew the chance to reinvent the show, resulting in audience tune out and essentially forcing CBS and Lorimar into taking the show backward, not forward. That worked for a season, but the original setup was increasingly running out of gas.

As someone who worked for one of the industry trades early in my career, I can tell you that executives were likely not comparing Dallas’s performance to one specific CBS show (i.e. “losing out to “Murder She Wrote” as CBS’ highest rated series”) as much as they were looking at the year-over-year performance of “Dallas” itself, relative to the entire network. ”Dallas” lost 10% of its audience from the 1984-85 season to the 1985-86 season. And the drop was even worse just looking at the early 1986 episodes, when the ratings just collapsed and the show fell out of the top 10. And in fairness to Lorimar and CBS, they did act, ousting the show’s creative team and bringing back Patrick Duffy and some of the creative team from 84-85. The problem was that Dallas needed to go forward, not backward. What kept Knots Landing fresh was continually bringing in fresh talent both in front of and behind the camera over the years. Dallas didn’t do that well.

I’m glad she turned it down if that’s true. Carol Lynley was an actress of limited range from everything that I saw her in. 100% agree about Jay Thomas - he always came across as an unappealing loudmouth. But as a big LA Law fan, I gotta admit that Susan Day was mannered and stiff on that show, just as she was on Love & War. She was 17 when she started the Partridge Family and much more natural on camera when she was younger. But in fairness to Dey, Love & War was a stinker that no actress could have saved. It was just as bad with Annie Potts. I don’t think Diane English was capable of comedy after Murphy Brown, either.

Pleshette, Van Ark, and Lee have screen presence. Lankford doesn’t. Neither does Houghton. They’re lightweights.

The screen absolutely crackled whenever Hagman and Van Ark appeared together. Some of the Dallas actresses were not his equal, so it was always a pleasure to see him act with an excellent screen partner. JR and Valene did have a scene together in the Dallas series finale, but as we know, that was another dream. They were scheduled to have a scene together in the TNT Dallas revival, but Hagman passed away before he could film it, so Linda Gray sat in for him. But you could tell the dialogue was written for JR and Val.

I don’t believe the Dallas Ewings ever mentioned Valene’s book. But JR was certainly aware of it and didn’t care, which made Sue Ellen’s tell-all movie storyline in the later years all the more ridiculous. The Ewings weren’t these old-monied blue bloods who were trying to keep up appearances in that way. They had seen their fair share of scandal over the years (Digger trying to kill Jock, Jock being arrested for murder, Cliff claiming paternity of John Ross, JR being shot, etc) and knew how to power through it. I don’t think they would have been fazed by Val’s little roman à clef. I pretty much agree with everything else you said re: Mack, Lilimae, the lesbian reference. Jeff Munson seemed to be involved with everyone for awhile and then he just vanished.

They had a great opportunity to let Pam properly mourn Bobby and learn how to be on her own again, and then introduce a new love interest for her.

Mark Harmon and Cristina Raines were a real-life couple, too. And I remember them speaking fondly of each other even after they were no longer together.

I thought Sid’s death was handled so well for the reasons you mention, Vee. I contrast it with Dallas after Bobby “died”. Pam mourns the love of her life for about 30 seconds and then jumps back into bed with The Pornstache (Mark Graison). Dallas couldn’t stand for any of its women to be without a man. That’s also why we got romantic black holes like Jack and Jenna, and Ray and Jenna. But I digress. The story of the Fairgates that year was compelling to me. I agree that it was some of the other story choices that damaged S3.

I think Ann Marcus was actually rehired in the back half of season 13 after John Romano was sacked and production was shut down. There was speculation of cancellation during season 3 but I’m sure Lorimar would have used its power as the producer of top-rated Dallas to keep Knots on the air if it had come to that. And maybe it did. I remember one of the critics referring to it, during season 3, as “turgid”.

On “Dallas”, Ellie told Gary and Val to pick a house that Bobby had been developing during his time in construction. So that would lead us to believe that Seaview Circle was a relatively new development. But when Knots proper started, it was clear that the other residents had been living there for a while. Another topic: Kenny is a complete ass. He quits his job as Ciji’s producer, and then shows up the next day and tries to pretend he didn’t quit, a la George Costanza from “Seinfeld.”

They didn’t invite Amanda?

I was annoyed that Karen and Sid let that old witch go on and on in front of Eric and sat there doing nothing. I would have thrown her out so fast her head would have spun.

I imagine that Plex’s streaming service is run on a shoestring. That’s why we have the interlacing problems, the commercials dropped into odd places, and the audio dropouts.

I think the difference is that Sisters never had the critical acclaim of LA Law, I’ll Fly Away, or Homicide. And it never had the ratings of a Law and Order or ER. I do believe it likely that NBC began interfering in it, but that’s because it wasn’t a critics darling or a big ratings success. Now, why Sisters wasn’t critically acclaimed is another question. I thought it was similar in tone to thirtysomething which was a big critics darling. Maybe a little more whimsical, but I don’t see a huge difference in the quality of the two shows. Interesting about Sada Thompson. I can see her as the complaining, somewhat bitter matriarch. she perfected that character type on Family.

Sela Ward won an acting Emmy, but I don’t think I’d call Sisters an “Emmy winning show”. The show itself never won an award, like for drama series or writing. Swoosie Kurtz was nominated once or twice, and I think it got nominated for hair or costume design. If one of the cast members getting an acting award makes something an Emmy winning show, then Dallas and the Bionic Woman are Emmy winning shows too. And Coach!

JR’s appearance in season 4 is fantastic, especially the book signing scene.

CBS strangely gave Dallas a two year renewal in the spring of 1989. Apparently they had other issues to deal with. And they were very hands off with the show, particularly for the last season. So Katzman and Hagman were allowed to run the show into the ground. Contrast this with Knots, where David Jacobs temporarily shut down the show in its penultimate season for a reset because he felt the showrunners had lost their way. Frankly, they should have shut down Dallas during the 1987-88 season, because that’s when there was a big plunge in both the ratings and the show’s quality.

BTW, I’m not trying to claim there wasn’t sexism at Lorimar. Leonard Katzman of “Dallas” clearly cut the women first: Charlene Tilton, Linda Gray, Susan Howard. Victoria Principal was paid about half was Patrick Duffy was paid during their final season together on the show (he got a huge raise to return). Which was patently ridiculous. She was willing to stay for salary parity with him and the producers not only declined it, but released a statement saying she was let go. Victoria is not one to put up with that kind of crap and she and her lawyers forced them to retract their statement. BTW, Les Moonves, was only in charge of Lorimar’s TV movies and miniseries in 1987, when McCashin and Harris were let go. It’s unlikely that he had a hand in that decision. David Jacobs and Michael Filerman were given a budget to produce the show, and it was likely their choice who to cut.

In the season that Constance McCashin and Julie Harris were let go, there were five female regulars and three male. So it’s not surprising that it would be the women who were let go during that season if there were budget cuts, especially since one was older and serving a different purpose than the rest of the regular cast. Lilimae was there mostly to serve as a Greek chorus; she wasn’t a romantic lead. As much as I liked her, if someone had to go, it made sense that it was her. Of the regular cast members to appear in the opening credits: Alec Baldwin, Tonya Crowe, Julie Harris, James Houghton, Kim Lankford, Claudia Lonow, Constance McCashin, John Pleshette, and Doug Sheehan all were let go, as opposed to leaving of their own volition. Four men and five women. It’s hard for me to see that they targeted the women over the men especially since the women almost always slightly outnumbered the men in terms of regular cast. The only one you can really argue is controversial is McCashin. I do agree that it was a different story on Dallas. The regular cast breakdown by the numbers, by season: Season 1: Four women; four men Season 2: Five women; four men Season 3: Four women; four men Season 4: Five women; five men Season 5: Six women; four men Seasons 6 and 7: Six women; five men Season 8: Five women; four men Season 9: Five women; three men to start, then 3 and 3 Season 10: Five women; three men Season 11: Four women; four men Season 12: Four women; five men Season 13: Six women; four men Season 14: Five women; three men

Donna Mills as Abby and Joan Van Ark as Valene make the show for me. They always give compelling, disciplined, thoughtful performances even when the scripts aren’t the best. I’m old enough to remember Donna Mills always playing these mousy little victims pre-Knots, so it was just fun to see her play against type. I like Karen too, but I think Michele Lee goes into hysterical mode a bit too often.

LOL. Charlene is definitely an actress with a limited range; the weak link of the original Dallas cast. I thought they missed the boat there by not casting someone with more screen presence. I thought they softened the Lucy character because Charlene didn’t have the chops to pull it off. Think of what the character would have been like if someone like Pamela Sue Martin had played her. The plan was for Julie Harris to recur as Lillimae and visit occasionally. But she apparently wasn’t willing to do that, so that’s why we eventually got Aunt Ginny.