Sue Ellen was very naive to think that JR would let her waltz out of Southfork with a Ewing grandchild. Wasn’t she paying attention to what happened to Valene and Lucy?

It would have opened up some great storylines if Pam, Cliff, Katherine, and Afton all had to share Rebecca's house. Little Christopher was cute when he kissed J.R. with crackers and milk all over his mouth. A lot of people slam this poor child actor calling him ugly. I wished they had kept him instead of the later recast. I found that kid grating.

 

 

So I've been watching some of Season 8 as I prep to finally begin watching the big Dallas/KL creative switcheroo in sync. Is it me or is the whole abrupt Afton/Mandy Winger swap one of the most egregious examples of just how disposable most women on this show are?

Afton wasn't exactly queen of the suffragettes but the audience was somewhat invested in her long-suffering loyalty to Cliff Barnes, the premiere goat-faced fool and anime pervert of '80s primetime drama. Within an episode or two though she is gone and fully replaced in Cliff's life by another comely sexbomb, Mandy Winger, played by Deborah Shelton, last seen as a largely mute male fantasy dream girl for the hapless protagonist of Brian De Palma's classic film Body Double. There is a reason Shelton has maybe five to ten lines tops in that movie before getting slaughtered by a power drill, and Season 8 demonstrates it beautifully. Now, less than halfway into the season Mandy has simply replaced Afton in virtually all aspects of story: Accompanying Cliff to his sister's house to cluck over Pam, agreeing blithely to Cliff's latest doomed scheme against J.R. who she will surely fùck, etc. The only major change is hair color and less personality.

I still have a lot of annoying notes on the close of Season 6 of Knots Landing that I will foist upon this board at some point soon. But there's a reason I take time with that show and dedicate myself to it, whereas Dallas is just silly fluff. It's because so much of the show is an endless Mobius loop of male power fantasy.

Edited September 5, 20232 yr by Vee

6 minutes ago, Vee said:

so much of the show is an endless Mobius loop of male power fantasy.

Dallas has a masculine energy that can be very off-putting, especially when viewed through a 2023 lens.

All 1980s primetime soaps have to be watched with the mindset that they are products of their time and a lot of things are not going to hold up well by today's standards.

5 minutes ago, kalbir said:

All 1980s primetime soaps have to be watched with the mindset that they are products of their time and a lot of things are not going to hold up well by today's standards.

I've watched a lot of '80s shows both then and now, I was born pretty early in the decade lol. I don't have oversensitivity about that. But Dallas often makes most of those other shows look like Designing Women. And it wouldn't be an issue for me if, as I've said before, I didn't feel most of Dallas was extremely repetitive story-wise. You switch a few names out (like Afton and Mandy) and you get the same plots with these characters year after year, and little evolution. I do think the earlier seasons had highlights, and I do still enjoy characters like poor Clayton, etc. It's hard seeing what became of Pam in particular in later years, she started out a firecracker. Sue Ellen is beyond parody at this point for me.

I will say Jamie Ewing at least got a little fire back presenting that oil/land deed at the latest barbecue, though I do think Jenilee Harrison is miscast (imagine if they'd landed the young Demi Moore or something). Yet apparently she too will somehow end up in bed with old pervert Cliff Barnes!

Edited September 5, 20232 yr by Vee

I recognize J.R. and Sue Ellen, but who's the third one supposed to be? Pamela? It looks more like Afton in a red wig.... 

8 hours ago, I Am A Swede said:

I recognize J.R. and Sue Ellen, but who's the third one supposed to be? Pamela? It looks more like Afton in a red wig.... 

Really? I think it looks like Pam 

That's definitely Pam.

I thought it looked a bit like Deborah Shelton, but there's no real reason she'd be on there.

In this 1974 news clip they do a short interview with a male model/actor named Robin Clarke. I thought he looked familiar and then I realized he played the guy(Ed Haynes) who claimed to be Pam's first husband in 1978. He appears at 2:46