Dallas: Discussion Thread

[Chris 2]

I think it was possible to do a good show without Bobby. But in primetime, once the audience starts to decline, it’s very hard to get them back. Dynasty is a good example: they finally fixed the show in season 9, but the audience never returned (the change of night didn’t help). LA Law is another good example: they changed showrunners and lost a few cast members starting with season 6. The audience greatly declined. Even though they eventually fixed the show, the audience never returned.

That’s one of the reasons they brought back Bobby - it got people talking about the show again. The cliffhanger episode with Bobby returning was the the highest rated episode of the season, tying with the season premiere. And the following season premiere was the highest rated episode since Bobby’s “death.” It’s too bad they explained his return away so quickly - they fumbled a chance to hook the audience again. 

[allmc2008]

Anything was better than what they did. They could have shown him tied up after Pam saw Mark killed in her shower and played out what they were going to play out (as much as Katzman was willing). Not sure what the explanation could have been. Had it been totally off the wall they could have toyed with his appearances for 5 episodes or so to keep up the anticipation. Also, that would hook the audience for in the event they came up with one lemon of an idea.

[Vee]

Speaking of Dallas, to this day I don't understand what happened with Victoria Principal and the new show, which seemed to be doing some David Kreizman/GL-style bluffing re: her return up til the end, when it didn't happen after her umpteenth pointed refusal.

[Forever8]

I binged LA Law for the first-time last year when it was on IMDbTV and Season 6 was pretty bad. Who idea it was to have Leland and Grace kiss? Man, that was terrible. 

[Chris 2]

I’ve read that something happened between during the taping for the “Return to Southfork” reunion in 2004 that caused a fissure between her and the rest of the cast. And that when producers were putting together the pilot for the new show in 2011, the other cast members didn’t want to work with her, so she was not asked. I don’t know how true this is. Victoria said at that point that she was asked to appear and mused about whether Pam was alive. The showrunner, Cynthia Cidre, said they decided that Bobby had moved on. But different people had different stories, so I thought this was odd.

In the revival’s second season, the initial interest for the show had died off and ratings were waning. They started hinting of Pam’s return in the story. Jesse Metcalfe even publicly stated that he would like to work with her. So Victoria released a public statement to trade site Deadline stating that while she couldn’t control what the writers did after her exit in 1987, as far as she was concerned Pam was dead, and she wouldn’t be making a “desperate reappearance” on the new series. I bet that went over big with her former colleagues.

When they did a DVD rerelease a few years ago, one of the special features was a joint studio interview with Duffy, Gray, Kanaly, and Tilton. Victoria wound up phoning in (though she did not appear on screen). Duffy bantered with her and she laughed that big laugh of hers and seemed to enjoy reminiscing about the show.

So honestly, who knows what went on.

[Khan]

I think people missed Bobby greatly, but I don't think the producers trusted the show and its' cast enough to let it evolve without him.  They wanted DALLAS to remain a global phenomenon, even though the law of averages dictates that every long-running, successful series will fade eventually.

Nor did the several other course corrections in seasons past that ended up being short-lived and inconsequential.  There reached a point when its' audience realized the Shapiros and Pollocks didn't know HOW to fix their own show, so they moved on.

That's what was so great about KNOTS LANDING, IMO.  David Jacobs and his team regularly took risks, and not all of those risks paid off; but you could count on them to recognize when they've gone off-track and do their utmost to fix things before they got TOO out of control.  It only really faded during S13 when the show had become so unrecognizable.

[j swift]

The latter seasons are given short shrift, but I enjoyed a lot of the post-dream stuff.

For example, I think not enough credit was given to the characters of April and Michelle.  I'm sure many would bemoan the fact that they pulled focus from the Ewings.  But, I look back and think that it is remarkable that they appeared virtually from thin air, they were really charismatic, and they represented a more modern woman than either SueEllen or Pam.   If the show was going to sustain long term, they needed the fresh take that those characters provided.  

I also really enjoyed Carter McKay's wife Rose.  She was allowed some complexity that provided some depth for a character that could have just been a prototypical bimbo younger wife.  The undercurrent of S&M seemed so taboo at the time, and I wished she stayed longer.

On the other hand, I could have done without any story related to Cally or James.  Cally seemed as if she was from a totally different decade with her sweet drawl and country clothes.  I know she was raised in a rural town, but by 1988 most young people were far more informed than Cally.  Her willful innocence made it seem creepy that she slept with JR.

[Paul Raven]

I really liked Callie /Cathy Podewell. My memories are fuzzy but yes, maybe she could have been a little smarter written.

Giving JR an illegitimate child was a natural and it probably could have happened sooner. 

Never liked Sue Ellen and Valentine lingerie. That was dead end that took her out of the Ewing circle.

She should have got involved in something that could affect Ewing Oil-maybe some environmemtal thing.

Same previously with Lucy and Mitch. Lucy should have married a businessman involved in the oil business.

[Chris 2]

For that matter, Clayton Farlow should have been more of a direct business rival of the Ewings. It would have made his marriage and life at Southfork much more interesting. And he should have had other children - maybe a troublemaking daughter who could have turned up at Southfork. Instead, they kind of wrote him into a corner.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Chris 2

[j swift]

The fact that Afton was Mitch's sister and they did so little with that connection seems like a lost opportunity.

[DemetriKane]

If the character wasn't an Ewing they didn't care to give the family a stable viewpoint. I don't necessarily think clayton needed another child; he already had a son who was capable of being thorn to the jr but of course stripped him of his manhood tried the best to make him unrootable 

[Planet Soap]

unsure if this is posted here but this youtuber summarizes and analyzes several Dallas episodes:

 

[Chris B]

Cynthia Cidre was a moron. She didn't watch the original show, didn't research the history and seemed to resent it. After the ratings drop off during season one, she gradually started bringing soap elements into the show, with season three being a full on soap. I feel like Victoria Principal was used to build buzz. Victoria has always been clear she wouldn't play Pam again. She certainly wasn't going to come back to a Dallas crime series with 30 seconds of screentime. There were far too many characters and actors willing to work for them to do that stupid mess. 

[Khan]

Agree.  And even if, by some miracle, VP had agreed to return, I guarantee the resulting story would have been disappointing, especially in the hands of Cynthia Cidre, who would have been among the LAST people I would have hired to run the revival series.

[Chris 2]

Agreed. As disappointed as I was that Dallas didn’t end with Pam and Bobby together, it would have been far worse to see Cynthia Cidre try to write a Pam return. It was bad enough in the revival how Bobby acted when Christopher got confirmation of Pam’s death. Sue Ellen expressed her condolences to Bobby, and he coldly replied, “I mourned Pam a long time ago.” C’mon - this was the love of his life. He proclaimed when he proposed a second marriage to her years earlier, “I never stopped loving you, and I never will.”