Khan

Not enough!!

I agree. Even gutsier, of course, would have been to kill off J.R., but we know that was never gonna happen, lol.

It cannot be overstated how much of SaBa's success for a time was due to A Martinez and Marcy Walker. When MW left, followed by AM, the show was as good as dead.

LOL!! I'd go REALLY deep cut and expose "Nexie"* as none other than SUNSET BEACH's Virginia Harrison. ("Hide your turkey basters, y'all!") (*As in, "Not Lexie.")

Frankly, "a problem" is putting it too mildly. When it comes to the soaps, we're practically unicorns! In fact, I'd venture to say your chances of finding a literal unicorn on any soap are greater than finding even one character of color doing the heavy lifting on any soap that isn't BTG.

This is DAYS. I'm not even convinced that that IS Lexie.

I know it would drive me nuts, lol! I'll never forget reading in Ann Marcus' memoir, "Whistling Girl," how the KL cast was already pulling similar antics by S3, goofing around during script readings, until Julie Harris showed up for work. Then, Marcus wrote, the rest of the cast would knock it off and start behaving more professionally. How Leonard Katzman chose to handle VP's exit was just...sigh...I can't describe it, lol. I mean, why go to the trouble of recasting Pam (with the explanation that she was disfigured in that accident) when you don't plan to bring her back permanently? And then you cover your ass there by revealing she has terminal cancer and doesn't want to be a burden on her loved ones? HUH?? Why didn't you just have her die instantly at the scene, or later at the hospital? Why put Bobby (and us) through all that other crap? Like I said, I can't describe it, lol. I agree. TPTB got it in their heads that attention spans had shortened and that viewers were no longer as patient when it came to telling a story as they had been. (IDK whether their assessment was correct, though. I think viewers will always be patient with a story that rewards them for being smart and doesn't bore the crap out of them.) I would say so - if not shortly before then. Of course, like @Vee , I, too, found a lot of DALLAS "repetitious and plodding," but I'm also someone who thinks the show peaked with the Mickey Trotter storyline. AMEN. That's why I keep watching KL: to remind myself when a TV show wasn't afraid to entertain its' audience.

I agree. TPTB always underestimate how valuable deep friendships like Stu and Jo's are to viewers. If not for Stu and Jo, SFT would've been over and done with way before 1986.

What a nice article! Thanks, @Paul Raven ! Obviously, I'm glad everything worked out and Eileen/Myrtle was able to return. Hers was such a warm, welcoming presence. No matter how bad the show got, as long as she was still there, you still had something to look forward to.

I'm probably wrong, but I feel like the storyline with Jenna and Naldo had not a little bit to do with DALLAS' ceding ground to DYNASTY.

It could be BS, but like my mom always says, "Actions speak louder than words." (She also says, "The same people you meet going up the ladder are the same people you meet comin' back down;" and "Go! Follow your rainbow!". My point being, she listens to too much Teddy Pendergrass and Millie Jackson).

If anything, I think she stayed a year or two too long. DALLAS was going off the rails way before The Shower Heard 'Round the World, lol.

From what I understand, Robert Young spent much of his life feeling depressed over his film career. He felt the studios never saw him as anything but modest and bland...which is heartbreaking, and oh-so-typical of an industry that likes to box people into this-or-that category and never allow them to display all sides to their talents. I only hope that, in his final years, Young knew how much his work on "Father Knows Best" and "Marcus Welby, M.D." meant to viewers who thrived on seeing calm, reassuring figures on their TV screens every week.

I feel like it could've been, although, I admit, I can't remember when "Dharma & Greg" premiered.

I've always believed that VP never cared for the "boys' club" mentality that permeated the DALLAS set and allowed Larry Hagman, in particular, more power than he should've had. VP just wanted to come in, do the work and then go home.

Don't get me wrong: soaps SHOULD cater to women, just as most television should cater to women, because women hold the "power of the purse," as it were. But it seems to me, at least, that most shows either take WOC for granted or assume there are too few of 'em to worry over; and whenever the black community has called out writers and producers over the obvious lack of representation, like what happened with Lena Dunham or Marta Kauffman, the response is always the same: "Well, I don't know any Black women, so I don't feel comfortable writing for them on my show." As if Black women dwell only in the land of Narnia or something. It's maddening.

I, too, remember Pedro and the impact he continues to have on a generation that still remembers when an HIV diagnosis was an automatic death sentence. It's sad what "The Real World" would devolve into in the years to come, but Pedro's story might have been the show's and MTV's bravest hour.

We laugh, but I'm sure longtime Y&R fans could tell you that it was mesmerizing stuff. "I Dream of Jeannie" mask and all, lol.

ICAM. We're literally the ones who keep this genre going; yet, how do TPTB reward us for our loyalty? Here's a hint: they don't. Frankly, I've reached the conclusion that network daytime drama isn't "for us" and never will be, despite BTG's recent renewal. If we want continuing dramas that reflect our society - and those of other, marginalized groups within this country - we're gonna have to create those dramas elsewhere, not on any "traditional" networks.

Y&R did this so much better with Vanessa Prentiss:

Another suggestion: Susan Sullivan. Basically, you could've said that, in the years away from Springfield (and from Alan), Elizabeth re-discovered her passion for photography and became a fashion photographer like Annie Leibovitz or Richard Avedon.

Well, that, and she and then-Co-EP Tom Langan got along about as well as Ike and Tina, lol.

I agree: it is horrible. But not surprising. Between our current political climate and the problems that come with having so few LGBTQ+ characters on soaps, I feel like the genre is just retreating in general. I wouldn't be surprised if, in a year or two from now, we're back to where we were in the '80's, with mostly white, all-heterosexual casts.

There's a reason why, all these years later, I still think of Cliff Warner whenever I see Peter Bergman on Y&R; and he's been on Y&R a lot longer than he was on AMC.

Maybe. But wasn't "Yellowstone" about the cattle industry? (IDK, I never watched the show, lol). DALLAS wasn't just a TV series; it was an epic. David Jacobs and Leonard Katzman put so much into it: Greek tragedies, Icelandic sagas, Arthurian legends, Victorian literature, classic Westerns, you name it. At its' best, watching the original series was like watching a Tennessee Williams play unfold every week, with all the psychosexual drama and twisted family dynamics you'd expect from such a production. If you're going to revive something like that, therefore, then you've gotta bring it. Cynthia Cidre didn't. Whether she didn't LIKE that kind of epic storytelling, or she didn't know how to write or produce it, what she ended up giving fans was very tepid, harmed by the fact that the characters she added to the Barnes/Ewing feud, including the fully grown John Ross and Christopher, were tepidly written and tepidly cast. (Frankly, I wish they had asked someone like Pamela K. Long to helm the reboot instead. I feel like she would've understood better how to write a show like DALLAS that was, at once, modern and timeless).