Chris 2

All I know is that they were disappointing. Our ABC affiliate would never carry Edge of Night at 4:00 pm, but they were owned by Metromedia, which forced them to put “Rituals” on at 4:00. And it really hurt their late afternoon ratings. The NY Metromedia station showed it in primetime. I just remember how cheezy it seemed. The title was terrible, the concept was not compelling, and even the intro seemed old hat. It just came across as a soap that wasn’t good enough to get on one of the major networks.

Warren Lockridge?

Robin is still a very beautiful woman.

LOL I remember Kay “Call me Kayo” O’Brien. I think it had something like 13 episodes. Same with Lady Blue. “Falcon Crest” must have done really poorly for Lifetime for them to prefer such short-lived series and rerunning the same episodes every two and a half weeks.

Sue Ellen was very naive to think that JR would let her waltz out of Southfork with a Ewing grandchild. Wasn’t she paying attention to what happened to Valene and Lucy?

The other problem is that it was trying to be a glamorous soap about rich people living in Florida. Even back then, we knew that if you had any kind of money, you got the hell out of Florida.

David Jacobs hiring his ex-wife’s husband reminds me of Jack Webb, who hired his ex-wife (Julie London) and her husband (Bobby Troup) to star on “Emergency”. Very civilized! David Jacobs gave us two great - and very different - TV shows. What a legacy!

I wish they had consulted with David Jacobs. They actually offered him a consultant position (which likely would have been in name only) in return for giving up his rights to be credited as the series’ creator on the revival. He refused. Good for him. I actually wish they had gotten Jacobs to assume the showrunner position after the dream season, rather than luring back Leonard Katzman. Katzman had guided the show to great heights, but he was out of gas.

No. Perhaps there was one from the show’s early days in the 50s or 60s. But Mary Stuart was not billed in the opening in the 70s and 80s.

It went to Lifetime very quickly - the late 80s - within a year or two of being rolled out in broadcast syndication. Our local affiliate dropped it after a year or so of airing it at 9:00 am, but it quickly turned up at 8:00 pm weeknights on Lifetime.

The Lorimar soaps were pretty much a bust in broadcast syndication. Falcon Crest lasted I think a year before it wound up on Lifetime.

Yep - he would have been better and you could have seen Sue Ellen with him. There was no chemistry between Peedur and Sue Ellen. “I love you, Mrs. Ewing.” Ugh.

Lucy was scammed by Spider-Man? I don’t remember that at all.

The Sentell house was on higher ground. However, a power line went down and set off a fire that pretty much destroyed it. There used to be a clip on Youtube where Sunny had to break the news of the fire to Liza and TR, who had been looking forward to going back home. And we later saw Liza walking through the charred remains and saying quietly, “I’m so sorry Travis, for what happened to our home.” It would have been more powerful with Sherry Mathis playing Liza instead of Louann Gideon, but it was still good.

That must be one of the final episodes for Randall Edwards as Delia. I believe Ilene Kristen returned around this time.

Angela is definitely the least fun of the 1980s soap villains (JR, Alexis, Abby). I think the challenge was the writing. The other big soap villains had vulnerabilities: JR knew his parents loved his brothers more than they loved him; Alexis couldn’t get past behind dumped by Blake; and Abby was not an all-out villain, but just someone who wanted to make enough money so that she wouldn’t have to be dependent on anyone. They seemed more human. Angela, by contrast, was just a tough old bird. She didn’t really love anyone enough that she couldn’t live without them. No one really got close to her. She wasn’t particularly humorous or sympathetic. She just went about her business in a kind of joyless way and acted annoyed a lot. I never even thought she took much pleasure in running that vineyard and winery. She wanted to keep control of it, but I never saw a lot of passion about running it.

Yeah, Robert Foxworth was considered to play JR Ewing. Dallas never would have gotten past its first short season with that casting. Larry Hagman had the wonderful gift of being able to make an unlikeable character likable. Foxworth wasn’t even able to make a likable character likable.

Angela never pronounces Jacqueline’s name right, but she often mispronounces her own family name (“Geobirdy”) so what do you expect? Season 6 is too campy for my taste, with all the stunt casting. Kim Novak couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. The way the Chase/Maggie breakup was handled was a huge turnoff. And I thought the synthesized music was out of place. That said, Season 5 was kind of a snooze so I understand why they brought in a new producer. I just wish it had been someone who would have kept some continuity with previous years instead of making such jarring changes. The producer, Jeff Freilich, bragged about having never watched any of the previous episodes. And the show went completely off the rails in season 7, the last of his tenure. I hated the Jeff Wainwright story. Figures that’s the one thing Freilich did keep from season 5.

The CBS promo department was occasionally misaligned with the programming dept in those days. I remember during the first Sharon Gless season of “Cagney & Lacey,” the “brought to you by” bumpers were still using the theme song from the Meg Foster episodes, a completely different tune.

Margaret Ladd as Emma is the MVP of the entire series, IMHO. Emma is the only character in the Channing family who can talk back to Angela, who has a major soft spot for her younger daughter.

Yes, that’s the schedule the Boston and NY affiliates followed. The cool table posted earlier is off by an hour for some of the affiliates.

I know that Dallas loved the status quo and that’s why JR and Sue Ellen’s first divorce didn’t take. But I loved seeing her stand up to him and his threats in order to protect her child (John Ross was much better off with her than at Southfork, where he would have been raised by his grandmother). I wish Sue Ellen hadn’t gone back to him. And realistically, I don’t see how she could have after all the threats he directed at her when he wanted to get John Ross away from her. I would have rather had her find happiness with someone else.

I always thought they should have gotten Gregory Harrison to join as a Bobby substitute - whether as Jack or someone else. He is a similar type as Patrick Duffy and would have looked good with Victoria Principal. He was finishing up his run on Trapper John MD as the dream season began.

Agreed 100%. Dallas couldn’t stand for any of the women to be single, so Pam hopped into bed with Mark about 30 seconds after Bobby died. And Mark was happy to be with Pam even though he knew that he would always be second fiddle to Bobby. There was no reason to resurrect Mark. All he did was take up space which could have been better filled with a new love interest for Pam later on.

I think the challenge with the Ewing cousins is that cousin relationships are never as charged as sibling relationships. And neither Jack nor Jamie were particularly well cast. Jenilee Harrison simply wasn’t a great actress. And Dack Rambo had this coldness to his performances and didn’t have chemistry with anyone. If they needed more family members, they would have been better off giving Clayton a couple of more children. They never utilized him properly - he was a total cipher, who pretty much gave up his entire life to move to Southfork to devote himself to Ellie. Where were his friends or other family members (beyond Dusty and crazy Jessica) and business dealings?