Dallas: Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

Pat Colbert Dead, Dora Mae on 'Dallas' — Obituary (tvline.com)

[Soapsuds]

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[DRW50]

Charles Cyphers Dead: 'Halloween' Actor Was 85 (deadline.com)

Cyphers played Bertram Pogue in two episodes.

[DRW50]

These may have already been posted via other outlets, but just in case they haven't:

The Tyrrell Historical Library Collection - PM Magazine Episode (1981) (texasarchive.org)

The Tyrrell Historical Library Collection - On the Set of Dallas (1980) (texasarchive.org)

https://texasarchive.org/2011_02110

https://texasarchive.org/2011_02108

[SoapDope]

Dentyne (1969): with Victoria Principal. I saw this in a B&W kinescope of an episode of American Bandstand which was dates it to 1969. Here is the original color version. 

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[DRW50]

"Freshest mouth in town."

They knew what they were doing.

[SoapDope]

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[kalbir]

1989/90 Dallas was regularly being beaten by Perfect Strangers at 9 pm and with the March 1990 move to 10 pm it was regularly being beaten by 20/20. Fall 1990 at 10 pm it was regularly being beaten by 20/20 and 1991 return to 9 pm it was being regularly beaten by Perfect Strangers. I was floored when I saw that twice in 1991 the 9 pm time slot winner was Family Matters. It's one thing for big bad Larry Hagman to get knocked off the throne at CBS by sweet unassuming yet savage Angela Lansbury, but another thing entirely to get beaten in the time slot by Urkel.

CBS owned Friday from 1980-1985. Miami Vice had 1985/86 as the new hotness but then NBC messed up their Friday line up in Fall 1986. ABC launched TGIF in Fall 1989 and it became a 1990s staple.

Edited August 25, 2024 by kalbir

[SoapDope]

Dallas was circling the drain during those final years. I guess Katzman felt as long as Hagman and Duffy were still around viewers would continue to watch whatever stupid crappy storylines they were throwing out there. 

Duffy returning to the show was a huge mistake. They bent over backwards to pay him an outlandish amount of money so Hagman could go back to the boys club/ playground behind the scenes at the cost of losing the rest of their original cast. Katzman had rid of Capice and did whatever he wanted. 

I found Duffy downright insufferable after his return. He had this smug arrogance about him and bled over into his portrayal of Bobby.  

[Khan]

Thank you for reminding me, @kalbir, I totally had forgotten that, lol.

ICAM.  Like you said, @SoapDope, Larry Hagman had his onscreen sparring partner back, but I think the audience was pissed off at the suggestion that they had wasted an entire season of their lives watching that show.

[kalbir]

You're welcome @Khan 

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Like I pointed out before, it's quite telling that none of the long-time female cast members were part of the main cast in the final season.

[Chris 2]

CBS strangely gave Dallas a two year renewal in the spring of 1989. Apparently they had other issues to deal with. And they were very hands off with the show, particularly for the last season. So Katzman and Hagman were allowed to run the show into the ground. Contrast this with Knots, where David Jacobs temporarily shut down the show in its penultimate season for a reset because he felt the showrunners had lost their way.

Frankly, they should have shut down Dallas during the 1987-88 season, because that’s when there was a big plunge in both the ratings and the show’s quality.

[te.]

I assume it must've been a way to control costs - as you said, they had bigger issues to deal with and agreeing with a certain licensing cost from Lorimar probably seemed like a good deal. Of course, Lorimar just kept hacking away at the shows cast to try and keep a profit on the show ultimately not even using the cheaper cast members in all episodes of season 14.

[kalbir]

We all know Fall 1987-Spring 1991 was CBS primetime third place mess era. I don't know what was going on in the business end at CBS but in the programming end there was Nielsen people meters, 1988 writer's strike, and the primetime line up fell into either aging/fading shows or new shows that weren't showing much growth.

Dallas goes off the rails in the aftermath of Pamela disappearance and was effectively over with Sue Ellen departure.

[Broderick]

Dallas sent viewers an unintentional subliminal message after the dream season:  "Don't take any of this seriously.  We don't know what we're doing. We're writing by the seat of our pants."

I was glad to have Duffy back (and thrilled to have Barbara Bel Geddes back on the show), but my interest began to wane drastically after the dream season, because there was no longer any pretense of "art" or "carefully plotted stories" after such a transparent reversal.