They escaped at the right time!

[titan1978]

How mad could she get?  She married his dad, and didn’t she have a relationship with Billy too?

 

Did Josh have a relationship with her other sister?  These people haven’t met a relative they would not [!@#$%^&*].

I agree.  Her Billie wasn’t suited for those stories.

I don’t know.  For me, even Jenny would have been out of place by the time we get to heaven, the old west, eterna, and the overall high action, super couple, glamour and wealthy trappings of his middle to late periods as EP.  The salt of the earth type characters suffered.
 

Even with everything that happened to her, Karen Wolek seemed like a real human being.  The grit, the mistakes and her suffering through them.  Her selfish choices. Her love of Jenny and Larry and her complicated relationship with Marco.

 

But the Luke of Marland and Falken Smith had a telekinetic sword fight after they were gone, and Labine was able to reestablish him as less of a cartoon.

[Soaplovers]

I think Karen Wolek would have been ok in the mid to late 80s of OLTL... she certainly would have had Tina's number and been an ally/friend to Vicki.  Judith Light in other roles proved capable of playing high camp 80s... so I think she would have been up to the challenge with anything thrown at her..imho

[Franko]

That's true. I guess I was just scared about the idea of, say, Jo being possessed, having a psychotic lookalike, time-traveling, etc.

[Gray Bunny]

Someone in another thread said Reilly hated writing for Days (allegedly, I would disagree, at least not during his 90’s era). If he had stayed at GL and eventually became headwriter all on his own, forget Amish Reva; we’d have gotten Devil In A Red Dress Demon Reva! 

[SoapDope]

I think Victoria Principal was right to ditch Dallas in 1987, especially after that stupid dream reveal. Patrick Duffy coming back really messed things up a lot. Principal really wanted to leave a season or two prior and gave the show heads up. The writing was on the decline and she has stated that she feels the first 5 seasons are the best.  She's right. Those awful later years was like watching a train wreck. Most of the original cast was let go and stupid characters that nobody cared about came and went. 

[Khan]

 

Well, it did, and it didn't.  I'll agree that the way Leonard Katzman handled his return was dumb.  Even if DALLAS had slipped in the ratings in Duffy's absence, people still watched, and they were still invested in the storylines.  To tell them "forget all that, it was just all a dream" was telling them, in a sense, they had wasted their time.  However, if you agree that Duffy's presence was sorely missed and still sorely needed, then he needed to come back.

 

Plus, I think Larry Hagman made it clear he wanted Duffy back, "or else"  -- meaning, of course, he, too, would have left the show.  Was refusing to bring him back under any circumstances really worth losing the show's signature character?  Frankly, I'm not so sure.

 

 

IA.  The writing certainly went into decline once Arthur Bernard Lewis and David Paulsen -- IMO, the show's best-ever writers -- had left.  Katzman might've been a terrific producer, but as a writer, he sucked.

[DRW50]

 

I didn't know until recently that apparently Hagman had also hit the roof over (was it Katzman?) trying to refuse to let Linda Gray direct episodes, to the point where she might have been let go. 

 

I guess something clearly had to give, but it's unfortunate they just abandoned what worked in the dream season, which in the long-term alienated fans once the early boost of Bobby's return faded.

[Khan]

 

Yeah, it was Katzman who'd refused.  Say what you will about Philip Capice, but I feel like he would've been more sympathetic to Linda Gray's desire to direct.

I've gone over and over (and over) the decision to dismiss that entire, Bobby-less season as a dream, and I always arrive at the conclusion that the producers had no other alternative. 

 

For reasons I will never understand, we seem to hold primetime shows in general to a higher standard of reality than we do daytime ones.  Ergo, if we always take umbrage with a character whom we saw die onscreen being brought back from the dead on a DAYTIME soap, imagine how those watching a PRIMETIME soap -- which would have included people who generally don't watch soaps -- would feel about their show doing it?

 

Furthermore, if the team had decided instead to bring back Duffy as a twin or lookalike, they would've run the risk of viewers rejecting him in that new role.  Viewers (and Hagman) missed Duffy, and they missed Bobby, too.

 

Years ago, someone suggested DALLAS should've gone in a more fantastical/sci-fi direction, making each subsequent season a figment of various character's imagination.  I'm sure that individual was kidding, but I don't think plan that would've worked either.  For one thing, DALLAS would have remained forever stuck in 1985, with nothing evolving from season to season.  For another, if you keep pressing the reset button on your show's characters and storylines, pretty soon, viewers will stop watching, because they'll know there's no point in watching anymore if everything will be undone by the end of the year.

 

(Are you paying attention, Ron Carlivati? 

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[SoapDope]

David Jacobs said that when he was approached with the" Bringing Bobby back from dead as a dream storyline", he told them "It was a bad idea" and that" viewers will eventually bolt". Patrick Duffy's wife actually came up with that idea. Victoria Principal and her character became bit of a laughing stock. Even the Newhart show made fun of it by having that show all be a dream. In 2019 people still talk and joke about it. 

 

I also hated the way they wrote off Pamela Barnes Ewing and then getting a look a like actress to have her die off screen. People had invested 10 years in the show at that point and it was a big let down. Having Pam away working in Paris or wherever with phone calls would have been better than what they came up with. 

[DRW50]

Sorry if she was already mentioned, but I'd have to say Donna Mills. If anything she stayed two or three seasons too long (which she has also said, I believe). Abby was one of the most complex characters ever on a primetime soap and you could tell that the Lechowicks just did not get her. 

[Khan]

 

ICAM.  In my head, Pam never died; and in the last episode (of the original series), Bobby left Dallas (and DALLAS) to reunite with Pam in Europe.

 

It's a shame David Jacobs and Earl Hamner never worked in daytime.  They were the two most devoted to the idea of storytelling being rooted in emotional, relatable truth rather than in spectacle and gimmick.  The CBS soaps -- and the ones produced by P&G in particular -- would have benefited greatly from their expertise.

[titan1978]

She always needed something to be striving for and the chance at getting caught in whatever under handed means she employed to get to her goal.  Gary, Apaloon, Lotus Point, etc.

 

I think once the affair with Gary starts through Peter’s death was a near perfect run of stories for Abby.  The show as well, but Abby really starts to meander after that.

[SoapDope]

Jacobs and Hamner were incredible writers. I have been watching some episodes of Family on youtube that an uploader has kindly been posting every few days and David Jacobs wrote a lot of them. The memorable 2 parter where Willie marries his dying girlfriend was written by him.

[will81]

Couldn't they have just had Bobby in a coma the whole time. The dream season could still have happened as the events would be based on other characters visiting him in the hospital and telling him what was going on, so it would still be a dream. To explain why everyone mourned his death, well that part of his brain believed he was dead. Not every little thing in the dream season would have to be accurate, but they could have salvaged 99% of it and kept the continuity going.

 

Seems odd they wouldn't have thought of this, might have still made the audience groan, but I think it would have been easier to recover from this.

[Khan]

 

IOW, couldn't they have done what I'm sure Ron Carlivati plans to do with the time jump on DAYS?  Yes, I guess they could've, but it still feels like taking enormous creative license or asking the audience to suspend an incredible amount of disbelief.

 

That was always what we were to ask at the start of each new season: "How far will [Abby] go?".