Dallas: Discussion Thread

[GLATWT88]

Can you elaborate on the Victoria becoming a laughing stock.

Also, it seems like Victoria wanted nothing to do with the show post her departure. Did something else happen behind the scenes? What's her relationship like with the cast? 

[te.]

She became a billionaire selling beauty products and didn't need to back-track on her decision to leave

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[SoapDope]

I remember people making jokes of "Pam's dream" on late night shows. Also Newhart did the "It was all a dream" joke for it's series finale as a jab at Dallas. Victoria also expressed in interviews that she wanted to leave the show after season 5 because of the decline in writing. The dream season really drove home her point on that.  

Victoria's relationship with the cast was kind of "She felt like an outsider". When the cast discusses her they walk on eggshells when she is brought up. She rarely participates in interviews with the rest of the cast. At times Patrick will praise her and other times he will subtly throw shade at her. John Beck (who played Mark) said in an interview that he preferred working with Linda Gray than Victoria. 

There have been rumors of Victoria being a difficult or to herself behind the scenes. She was the closest to Jim Davis till his death. 

[kalbir]

@SoapDope Also The Simpsons "Who Shot Mr. Burns" referenced it was all a dream.

[Soapsuds]

I'm in awe at how great the remote scenes look in the dream season.

[Soapsuds]

A young Jim Davis

 

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[Chris 2]

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.

[Vee]

What a blunder not to do a proper finale.

[GLATWT88]

I guess it's just my silly hope that somehow these cast members got along, but I'm sure it's like working any other job and some personalities mesh and others don't. 

[te.]

IIRC, she wanted to know it was the actual final episode in order to do a reappearance and they couldn't promise her that as it wasn't officially cancelled at that point. 

[Liberty City]

They should have just kept Margaret Michaels as Pam.  Controversial, yes, but in those few scenes she shared with Ken Kercheval's Cliff, there was a chemistry there and she really channeled that quiet demeanor with some power behind it.  But, I imagine, a long-term recast at that point would have been quite a choice, especially for a primetime series.

[GLATWT88]

I'm home today and have Three's Company on in the background and there's a few Dallas "crossovers." George Petrie (Harv Smithfield) just appeared on an episode and now John Reilly who was on Dallas (1982-83) a few months prior is on an episode of Three's Company (1983-84) playing a Dr. Kenderson, a character with the same name appears on Dallas (1984-85) the following season. 

[Sapounopera]

I wonder whether they ever toyed with the idea of making JR Digger's son. 

[SoapDope]

Thanks for all the info. I did not know about some of that. That explains when Sue Ellen did her movie, she did not include Pam. I figured she would have the them do the scene of when J.R. caused her to fall that caused the miscarriage or show the flashback of it. Victoria was right to leave if they were not willing to pay her the same rate as Duffy. She got screwed because of Duffy leaving and then he gets paid the big bucks to return.

I have come to dislike the Bobby character somewhat. Duffy seemed to get more smarmy/hammy as the show progressed, especially after his return. I always hated how Bobby threw Pam under the bus where Jenna was concerned. Even in the first year, Bobby would drop everything for Jenna and then acted like Pam was being ridiculous when she was a bit jealous. They resolved Charly was not Bobby's in that episode, but then when Jenna returned, they started that crap all over again. I might have cared if Fairchild had returned to the role and it was better written, but Presley did not impress me enough to care about Jenna. 

I also thought it was a mistake to kill off Kristin so fast. She could have driven story for years. Since they did kill her off, they should have had baby Christopher to really be J.R.'s and have Bobby and Pam keep the secret for years. Maybe have little Christopher start to exhibit devious tendencies as he started to grow up. 

[GLATWT88]

I also thought at the time that it would have been more compelling had Christopher actually been JR's but somehow he was still being raised by Pam and Bobby.