Chris 2

LOL. And lives with his mother!

I understand that Daniel Hugh Kelly signed a new contract with the show in January 1981, when his original contract was up. His new contract included an “out” to do a primetime show, and he took advantage of that in the fall of 81, when he left to do “Chicago Story”. The producers left the role open in case Kelly’s new show quickly failed and he wanted to return. It did, but he didn’t.

Once Bobby and Pam reunited in Swan Song, Jenna had outlived her usefulness. Priscilla Presley has her finest moment as Jenna in the scene at Lucy’s wedding where she lets Bobby go (“I really would understand if things weren’t the same.”) The whole situation is soap opera at its best: Pam is willing to sacrifice her happiness for Jenna’s sake (she tells Bobby that he is obligated to marry Jenna after her release from prison). Jenna is willing to sacrifice her happiness for Bobby’s sake. Bobby sacrifices his life for Pam. There was no reason for Jenna to hang around an additional three seasons after this. She had served her purpose. The Presley version of Jenna simply wasn’t built to be a character in her own right; she was merely a plot device to keep Pam and Bobby apart.

The season when Patrick Duffy returned had the smallest YOY rating drop (3%) since before Duffy left. And then Victoria Principal left the bottom really dropped out of the ratings. The dream season producers blew it. The ratings were free falling in the second half of that season. It was only the strength of the ratings in the early part of that season that kept it in the top 10 overall. Most of the Dallas audience was not interested in emeralds, foreign intrigue, and the adoption of special needs children. So CBS and Lorimar panicked and brought Duffy back. They got one more season out of a setup that was already tiring before Duffy left. What a shame. Had they successfully reinvented the show after Bobby died, they could have revitalized the show for years to come. They also had an opportunity to reinvent the show when Pam disappeared. I would have done a time jump, with Bobby remarried and the new Mrs Ewing trying to figure out why no one wanted to talk about wife #1. And the show might have benefitted with an older John Ross and Christopher as well.

Ha I agree. Victoria may also be an introvert, which also makes fan events less attractive. My guess is that she’s happy on her ranch/farm with her animals (she’s been divorced from Harry Glassman for years).

I was watching the remastered episodes on FreeVee and I agree she was stunning during that first year. Her look was very simple and that worked because she was a natural beauty. Then in the middle of the first year she got the shag and started wearing heavier makeup. There’s speculation that she got some work done during the dream season because she missed an episode (during the Colombian emeralds storyline) and after she came back, she never looked the same.

Very well put. My guess is that Victoria is like most people: she does better work when she’s passionate about it. And she probably didn’t like the nervous breakdown material, or the times when Pam merely existed to support Bobby’s storyline (Pam feels neglected by workaholic Bobby and turns to Alex Ward, for example), rather than as character in her own right. JR says at the end of episode 1, “It seems I’ve underestimated the new Mrs. Ewing. I surely won’t make that mistake again.” That, to me, is the series distilled to its very essence: JR vs Pam (with Bobby caught in the middle). I wanted to remind the writers of later episodes to go back and watch that scene!

Agreed - it’s frustrating to see the Pam character like that. Plus, Victoria Principal was still fairly green as an actress. Her acting style changed around the time Pam divorced Bobby and she become a more polished actor. I wish we could have seen Pam’s spunkier characterization from the early days of the show after Principal matured as a performer. We certainly saw signs of it in later years, but not consistently enough. I cringe a a bit when I think about when she went to work at Ewing Oil and felt overwhelmed and needed Mark to help her. Or when she tried to get Jenna to let her adopt her baby. Ugh. Early Pam was confident and wouldn’t have behaved that way.

I think Falcon Crest considered most/all cast members disposable, male or female. Only Wyman and Lorenzo Lamas lasted from beginning to end. I know Knots gets grief for losing Constance McCashin and Julie Harris, but they also dropped male cast members like John Pleshette, James Houghton, and Doug Sheehan. Dallas seems worse by comparison - Charlene Tilton, Barbara Bel Geddes, and Susan Howard all went before any significant male cast members were let go.

I liked the idea of Christopher being JR’s. But Dallas loved the status quo, and Christopher being JR’s would have made it difficult to return to the status quo. Same thing with Kristin having JR’s baby. How would they have gotten JR and Sue Ellen remarried if Kristin was hanging around with a baby? Even Lucas’ messy parentage was resolved cleanly by Bobby basically becoming a deadbeat dad. Had they been able to persuade Principal to stay, they could have killed off Jenna and done a custody storyline between Bobby/Pam and Ray. Again, though: the producers wouldn’t have like that because it would have permanently altered Ray’s relationship with the family. I agree about Bobby becoming less likable upon his return. Part of it was that Duffy demanded that Bobby be stronger when he was revived. Part of it too was the way he treated Pam and Jenna. When you think about it, it was awful that he proposed to Pam before he officially broke his engagement with Jenna. He didn’t need to pair his announcement of his engagement to Pam with his breakup. He could have waited a bit before he started publicly dating Pam. The producers blundered by not properly building the show around Pam as the new protagonist after Bobby died. There was so much story potential there. They didn’t need to bring back Mark (but the love of the status quo and the familiar struck again). And they quickly returned to the status quo when the ratings really fell in the second half of the dream season. They - and Hagman - felt that Dallas was a “man’s show”. And the women were disposable. Too bad, because the second half of the series could have been much stronger without that sexist approach.

These days, Victoria says that she told Lorimar when she signed her two-year contract extension in 1985 that she wouldn’t sign another. But her colleagues say (and some trades reported at the time) that she was negotiating for another extension in 1987. Patrick Duffy got a huge salary increase to return in 1986. Victoria, by some accounts, wanted salary parity with Duffy to sign another contract (she deserved it by the way). She also wanted to sign just a one-year deal. Lorimar didn’t want to pay her the same salary as Duffy and wanted a two year commitment. TV Guide at the time reported that when negotiations broke down with Principal, they had to quickly rewrite scripts to take out the Pam character. So they were expecting her to sign, and that’s why Pam’s exit is so clumsy. Lorimar also initially announced that they had dropped Principal. She was furious about that and got her lawyers involved and forced the studio to retract this. She also said they took her parking space away during her final weeks there as retaliation. Later on, she refused to allow the studio to use her image on the show or in clips (during Sue Ellen’s movie storyline, for example). Larry Hagman had dinner with her a year after she left to convince her to return but she declined. She wouldn’t even come back for a handful of episodes to resolve Pam’s storyline. That’s why Pam was recast for one episode. She as willing to return for the series finale if it wrapped up the story of Pam, but wasn’t interested in the fantasy storyline. She turned down the JR Returns movie. I’m not sure if she was asked to do War of the Ewings. Accounts differ whether she was even asked to do the TNT revival, but when the show started teasing Pam’s return, she released a statement saying that she was not going to do a “desperate reappearance” and that as far as she was concerned, Pam died in her car crash. The studio produced a in-studio mini reunion with Duffy, Gray, Charlene Tilton and Steve Kanaly for the 40th anniversary DVDs. Principal didn’t appear on camera but did call in. She seemed to enjoy reminiscing and had some laughs with Duffy. She also posts reminiscences on instagram. She says she’s proud of the show. I just don’t think she wanted to be part of its long decline.

Afton was pretty effective as a Greek chorus even though the actress herself didn’t have a lot of range. The second half of the series should have focused on JR’s redemption. Not that he would have become some nice guy pushover, but he should have followed the same arc as Jock. That would have been better than JR becoming a loser, played for laughs.

Robert Foxworth has that cold, remote persona in all the roles I’ve seen him in. Clu Gulager, who played the role in the pilot, was worse, but that’s not saying much. A crusader like Chase needs an actor who can infuse the role with some warmth. That’s not Foxworth’s strength. Agreed on Billy Moses, too - he was kind of a stiff. Cole was even worse when he got married to Melissa and started acting like he was 50 years old.

The season 2 finale was great. For once, a major family member was guilty! Unlike the cop-out resolution of Who Shot JR. And having the camera zoom away from the manor house (I think they just reversed the clip from the opening credits) was cool.

Yep, and then you could have retained some of the elements of the coma season, because what were they talking to Bobby about while he was comatose? I agree about the show being Pam vs JR. That was the Barnes/Ewing feud distilled to its essence. Maybe Pam should have been written out like Dynasty’s Claudia. She’s pissed at the family and has a nervous breakdown, lighting candles in her room and naming them after all the people she can’t stand. Then one tips over and lights the room ablaze. Southfork is on fire - again - and Pamela is burned and bandaged up. She flees Dallas when the bandages come off.

They abandoned the season long arcs in season 5, and that was a shame. So we got flavor-of-the-week Apollonia for a few episodes here; Cesar Romero for a few episodes there; the failed Father Christopher addition; etc. Morgan Fairchild was a terrible fit for the show - it was an icky story for an escapist show like FC, and we had no investment in her character at all. She was just off to the side having a story, and with virtually no ties to the rest of the show. Bizarre. Having Chase pushed out of Falcon Crest was also a dumb move (though I can’t remember if it happened in season 4 or 5, but season 5 had the fallout from that decision).

Lorimar wasn’t a mess at all. It successfully pivoted from the waning hourlong primetime soaps to producing very profitable half hour sitcoms (“Full House,” “Family Matters”, “Perfect Strangers”, etc). These shows had much more value in syndication than “Dallas” and “Knots Landing”. Further, when Warner Bros acquired Lorimar, it essentially turned Lorimar into the TV division of WB and named Lorimar’s president, Les Moonves, as its new leader. When the leader of an acquired company becomes the leader of the acquiring company, that’s success. Say what you will about Les Moonves personally, he was a very successful TV executive.

I thought Ken Olin was a good addition and thought they could have done more with Christopher. But I know Olin hated being on the show and removed it from his resume.

Sue Ellen’s movie was about embarrassing JR. But JR was beyond embarrassment, so it really didn’t make sense. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that hate isn’t the opposite of love; indifference is. Sue Ellen’s farewell shouldn’t have been about hating JR or getting revenge on him. It should have been about her finding happiness without the Ewings and walking away from JR, simply not caring about him anymore. That would have been a satisfying exit for her.

Chao Li got added to the opening credits starting in season 6. But the size of his part remained the same.

In the case of Frank, it was a combination of miscasting (Michael Hawkins, Andrew Robinson) and the later casting of ambitious actors who went on to prime time and movies (Daniel Hugh Kelly, Geoff Pierson). With Mary: there was really only one, and that’s Kate Mulgrew. And it was clear early on that she’d be going on to bigger and better things. The other Mary actors were forced onto the creators by ABC, who initially refused to let them kill off Mary. Mary #2 could have grown into the role but was forced out by ABC (not glamorous enough); Mary #3 was possibly the most incompetent soap opera actor I’ve ever seen; and Mary #4 was just dull. The first Siobhan, Sarah Felder, was great and unique. ABC forced the creators to get rid of her (the glamor thing again). Marg Helgenberger, Siobhan III, was good but went on to primetime. The second and fourth actors in the role didn’t work. The first Patrick, Malcolm Groome, left after three years (there was a lot of turnover as the original cast’s three-year contracts expired). None of the three recasts worked, and eventually he came back. The reality is, Ryan’s Hope was about the Ryan family. And if they were going to keep the show about the Ryan family, then recasting the parts of the family became necessary. And the recasts were hit and miss - perhaps more so than is normal.

The problem with Andrew Robinson as Frank is that Frank was meant to be the leading man of the show, and Andrew Robinson is not a leading man type. He didn’t have the looks or screen presence to pull off Frank - he is a character actor. Daniel Hugh Kelly, the third Frank, fit the role much better.

Would you get the damned spotlight out of my eyes!

Paul Burke’s CC was probably the unsexiest man I ever saw on the soaps. At least out of anyone who was supposed to be a leading man.

Season 10 looks different from the earlier seasons because that was the season they started editing the show on lower resolution videotape (it was still shot on film) to save money. The current remaster uses software for seasons 10-14 to upscale them to HD, as opposed to the earlier seasons, where they could just rescan the negatives of the completed episodes. To properly do seasons 10-14, they’d have to reassemble the shows from the original film (if they even still have it). This would be expensive. The later seasons do look better than they’ve ever been. Tyler Banks played John Ross in “Ewing Inferno,” the cliffhanger for season 6. By the time he was rescued from the fire in the season 7 premiere, he was played by Omri Katz. No “severe burns necessitating plastic surgery” explanation, though.