Dallas: Discussion Thread

[SoapDope]

If your a good writer/ producer/show runner that is hired to do a revival of a iconic series,  why would you not make sure to brush up on the history ? Cidre sounds like a arrogant hack. I think I read that David Jacobs said he offered to be a consultant and she said no thanks. 

[Khan]

I think Cynthia Cidre was afraid that David Jacobs wouldn't allow her to place her own stamp on the characters.  Clearly, she didn't want the revival series to be a carbon copy of the original - which is more than fair, I think.  After all, twenty years (give or take) had passed between the end of the original series and the start of the revival.  Times had changed; and so, too, had our expectations for drama, as well as our general attitude toward wealthy people and people who work in the oil and gas industries.  Producing a DALLAS revival set in the present-day but with an '80's approach or mentality would have been disastrous.  (Not that I think Jacobs would have wanted the revival series to be stuck in the past.  If anything, his criticisms about the revival series stemmed from the fact that it was TOO reliant on J.R., Bobby, Sue Ellen, etc., and not progressive enough for the early 2012's.  But I think Cidre was worried - needlessly worried, but worried - that Jacobs would have been overly protective of the original franchise to allow for some re-interpretation.)

Still, just because it was no longer the Reagan era, that didn't mean Cidre had to kick the melodrama to the proverbial curb.  You can be modern with your storytelling and still give your audience a good, old-fashioned, soapy time, lol.

Of course, it's easy for me to say this in MY position, because I'm as far away from the industry as you could get, but I don't think I could take on the task of running a revival of ANY series, iconic or not, unless I was familiar with the original series and, more importantly, I held an affinity for it.  You want me to spearhead a KNOTS LANDING revival or reboot?  Fantastic!  When do I start?  But, if you're asking me to do the same for FALCON CREST - well, I'll have to think about that, lol.

[Soapsuds]

I had forgotten Marj Dusay was on Dallas. It's a treat to see her in HD.

[te.]

To be honest, I think she was more hired on the basis of Cane, which was pretty much compared to Dallas when it debuted and seen as a bit of a victim of the 2007-08 writers strike. I thought that show was pretty good and works as a mini-series type of deal.

I think the biggest issue with TNTDallas was that they never quite figured out what it would be and I get the feeling TNT might've been pushing it into the crime drama direction; as much as Cidre might be blamed for some decisions that went wrong, it's easy to forget that she's not the only one making decisions. 

(Personally, I'll never get why they cast the wooden wonder Jesse Metcalfe as Christopher - their biggest mistake as he was never going to be able to be the second lead.)

[Khan]

That's true, @te..

I also agree that Jesse Metcalfe was a poor choice to portray Christopher.  IMO, he's not even "Hallmark-good," lol.

[Soaplovers]

Problem with the new Dallas was Cynthia Cidre did see it more like a crime drama..when the show should have been more like a family drama at heart.

She did say that she wrote character driven scenes..but TNT forced her to cut them.  And she admitted not knowing that if Sue Ellen won her race to be governor that she would be in Austin..not Dallas (however, two governors of Illinois lived in Chicago and not in Springfield...so I could have seen the show doing the same thing with Sue Ellen).

 

 

[Chris B]

Cynthia Cidre was a disaster. As many have said, she wanted to write a crime procedural and didn’t understand how to write a continuing storyline. There were moments and scenes that were good, but that’s it. Like Val’s two scene return, but none of the character based stories they introduced were developed. 
 

I was only in the third season when they’d squandered all of the audience that they were forced to write it as a soap and it did improve, but those first two seasons were painful. 

[Khan]

I always saw DALLAS as being like a modern equivalent to the Arthurian legends or the Icelandic sagas.  Nothing about it could be small in scale; it always had to be EPIC.

[kalbir]

I'd say the heart and roots of Dallas is that of a western. That's why it has such a masculine energy, in the sense that it was the more male-focused primetime soap and appealed more to the male audience than the others.

As for TNT Dallas, it was effectively over when Larry Hagman passed away.

[Soapsuds]

Interesting that Peter Dunne was writing Dallas too in 1985 when he was still on Knots.

[Khan]

I agree.

[Melroser]

It's a shame that reboots are done by people that have never watched the original. That was the case with Melrose 2.0, too. People return to these shows because they want to feel like they're watching their favorite show(s) again. When the show runners don't even understand what the feel of the original was, it can only turn off fans and end in disaster. 

[Khan]

You have to remember, though, that TV writers and producers often have little time outside of their hectic production schedules to watch their own shows, let alone others'.  But I do think anyone taking on the assignment of running a revival or reboot should sit down and familiarize themselves as much as they can with the original series before doing anything else.

[Broderick]

I agree that Dallas, at its best, was fundamentally a "modern-day Western".

When doing a re-boot, you're probably best served by keeping the underlying THEME of the program -- what made it unique and popular -- and then updating that theme for a newer audience. 

There's no reason a crime drama aspect couldn't work -- as long as the crime/drama elements were secondary to the family dynamics and the "epic Western" theme.  

[kalbir]

@Broderick I've never watched Yellowstone but from what I've read, it seems like what TNT Dallas should have been but wasn't.

Edited May 25, 2023 by kalbir