Fixing the "dream" solution

[Spooky Owl!]

Oooo. Interesting. That look! Did he tell her he knows when she was born??

Which is why she slaps him. To knock that knowledge out of his head and to move it up to Christmas 1952, the birth time the show established just before JR was shot -- which makes Pam even younger than Victoria claims to be (if such a thing is possible).


"'The first American baby born in Japan after the end of WW2'...? For godssake, honey, do your math..."

 

[Sea - Boo! - Er]

Why blow up SueEllen if it's clear it's a dream in the next scene?

I suspect that they only blew her up because the knew they wouldn't have to follow it up.

the hospital pronounced him too soon?

Well, yeah.

The med team could've rushed in and worked CPR on him to revive him. There was still time to do that.

What I've always said. Just like The Bionic Woman.

Hidden away for what purpose?

Because his recovery was uncertain and he didn't want to put the family through the trauma of seeing him die twice.

 

[Rove]

Phillip Capice was a great showrunner and his work proves it.

To me it seems Phil had a great understanding of telling a good story with a solid family foundation. This is why the first several seasons stand up so well compared to the last few when Leonard Katzman had total control.

 

[Rove]

Dallas without Bobby permanently?

Bobby's death is exactly what Dallas needed to inject some new life into the series. After several highly successful years the death of a major character in any series can create new dramas which characters can feed off for a few more years. Just look at what occurred after the death of Jim Davis and the way the writers used his character to set Dallas on a path of great viewing.

Patrick made the mistake in telling the writers to kill off Bobby. Patrick wasn't returning. He thought his career was suited for something else. No one can blame him for wanting to try new things. I'm assuming actors wish to expand their resume in fear of being typecast but I never saw Bobby as being one dimensional. As an actor I would have thought Patrick was pleased the way Bobby was evolving but clearly he still thought there were greener pastures. So Patrick said I'm done with Dallas. The writers decided to kill the character off.

So the scene was set. I had high expectations of what was to follow and the writers didn't disappoint. The reveal of Bobby's Will was brilliant. Let's not have Miss Ellie, Clayton or Donna take control of Bobby's stake in Ewing Oil...let's put Pam right in the thick of it. No way was JR going to settle for that.

There was no need for Jack, Angelica Nero or Pam looking for gems - or whatever the hell that was. The story was right there, the drama just waiting to be written was there. That Barnes woman was in the hen house and how was the fox (JR) going to GET HER OUT.

This season could have been explosive. A knock-down, dirty war between the Ewing and Barnes family...and to top it off we had the rightful Miss Ellie back. Oh how this season could have taken Dallas to a different level of excitement. But the older bro' was missing his younger bro'. Never mind how it was going to be done, just get it done.

 

[Chris2]

It always makes me sad when I think about it and read posts like this. Patrick’s leaving could have rejuvenated the show for years (a la Shelley Long leaving “Cheers”).

 

[Rove]

Dallas without Bobby permanently?

Would you be okay if I killed off Bobby in my return continuation @Sarah ? I've always imagined different scenarios if given the opportunity to resurrect Dallas. One of them is a funeral scene. It's a tried and true formula but it never fails to hook in an audience. I now see the character of Bobby as tainted. His character is why I still have a love/hate relationship with Dallas all these years later.

In some regard a continuation of Dallas requires a new lick of paint. I would wish to distance myself far from that failed experiment TNT Dallas. I'd keep some aspects of it. The character of Pam was closed with some dignity. I'd keep Christopher dead and Bobby is about to be buried next to him on Southfork. There is no mystery surrounding Bobby's death...he just died. There is no Ann, Emma, Cliff, no Ryland or Ramos remnants.

Meanwhile...back at Southfork, a smug John Ross believes he has it all. We now see he is happily married with twins: a boy and girl. Sue Ellen as matriarch resides at Southfork to help run the ranch. I'd give anything to see a feisty Sue Ellen (now in her 80's) back on horseback surveying the land. All seems content until a smart, handsome young man arrives with grit determination to reclaim his position within the family...welcome home Lucas.

But let's get back to fixing the dream solution

 

[Karin]

Would you be okay if I killed off Bobby in my return continuation @Sarah ? I've always imagined different scenarios if given the opportunity to resurrect Dallas. One of them is a funeral scene. It's a tried and true formula but it never fails to hook in an audience. I now see the character of Bobby as tainted. His character is why I still have a love/hate relationship with Dallas all these years later.

In some regard a continuation of Dallas requires a new lick of paint. I would wish to distance myself far from that failed experiment TNT Dallas. I'd keep some aspects of it. The character of Pam was closed with some dignity. I'd keep Christopher dead and Bobby is about to be buried next to him on Southfork. There is no mystery surrounding Bobby's death...he just died. There is no Ann, Emma, Cliff, no Ryland or Ramos remnants.

Meanwhile...back at Southfork, a smug John Ross believes he has it all. We now see he is happily married with twins: a boy and girl. Sue Ellen as matriarch resides at Southfork to help run the ranch. I'd give anything to see a feisty Sue Ellen (now in her 80's) back on horseback surveying the land. All seems content until a smart, handsome young man arrives with grit determination to reclaim his position within the family...welcome home Lucas.

But let's get back to fixing the dream solution

I wouldn't be watching the show you just proposed. Killing off Bobby again is a really bad idea.
But I agree that a funeral is a good starting point for a Dallas revival/continuation. Only I think the natural choice would be Cliff's funeral. I mean Ken Kercheval has left us since Dallas TNT went off the air and they ruined his character. So the only way to sort of redeem Cliff would be to have him dead and explain away his crazy actions on Dallas TNT by that he was suffereing from some disease that affected his brain.

Bobby's death is exactly what Dallas needed to inject some new life into the series. After several highly successful years the death of a major character in any series can create new dramas which characters can feed off for a few more years. Just look at what occurred after the death of Jim Davis and the way the writers used his character to set Dallas on a path of great viewing.

Yes and let's look at JR's death in Dallas TNT. They knew Larry was sick with cancer and yet they had no plan for how to deal with if he died. So JR's untimely death really hurt the show instead of the opposite when Jock died.

 

[Rove]

I think the natural choice would be Cliff's funeral.

I've also considered Cliff's funeral as a starting point. The funeral would take place at a public cemetery. As the service ends and people begin to walk away the camera pans out and offers us a wide view of Cliff, Pam and Christopher's final resting place.

Killing off Bobby again is a really bad idea.

I see your point. Do you propose having Lucas return could reignite the drama within the Ewing family? Lucas could certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons. What would his relationship be with Bobby? Surely as a young adult, Lucas would have been informed by Jenna and Ray, Bobby is his father. Nothing was mentioned by Ray during his brief stints on TNT Dallas.

 

[stevew]

There have been multiple threads about "fixing" the dream season, but wanted to ask three specific questions:

1. How would you have brought Bobby back from the dead (as Bobby, not a twin or a double). Don't forget, we WATCHED him die onscreen. So was there a way to bring him back that would make sense?

2. How would you have "saved" Sue Ellen? We saw her get off that elevator and we saw the building explode.

3. What you do with Jenna? Bobby would be with Pam one would presume. Donna and Ray still happily married. So would you put her with Jack? Or just write her off?

I mean, we all rag on "the dream" but was there any other plausible way to do season ten with Bobby and Sue Ellen alive and Jenna as a viable character?

Let me take a stab at this:

1) Bobby would wake up from a comma in a hospital room where Miss Ellie and JR placed him, unable to agree to pull the plug they staged his death, flat lining, only to tuck him away from the family.

2) I would jump 1 year into the future: Bobby has recovered from the comma and Sue Ellen was hurt really bad in the explosion and so had spent the year recovering.

3) I would have had Jenna leave Dallas and go back to Europe.

 

[DallasFanForever]

1) Bobby would wake up from a comma in a hospital room where Miss Ellie and JR placed him, unable to agree to pull the plug they staged his death, flat lining, only to tuck him away from the family.

Interesting idea but I just think it’s way too out of character for Miss Ellie. Her agreeing to stage Bobby’s death stretches the imagination a little too far for me. I could’ve accepted Bobby’s death being staged over it being a dream but there would have to be a different reason for it. Miss Ellie and JR not being able to agree on pulling the plug just isn’t enough in my opinion.

 

[stevew]

Interesting idea but I just think it’s way too out of character for Miss Ellie. Her agreeing to stage Bobby’s death stretches the imagination a little too far for me. I could’ve accepted Bobby’s death being staged over it being a dream but there would have to be a different reason for it. Miss Ellie and JR not being able to agree on pulling the plug just isn’t enough in my opinion.

I see your point, but I do think that with the money to afford such a thing, and face with the very real choice to pull the plug or leave him in a comma, I could see the scenario wouldn't be a good choice. In fact I could see that she might choose it even with out JR's help (maybe with Clayton's), going to visit her son in a vegetative state state day after day. Or I could see JR doing it without Miss Ellie, making the call on his own, not allow them to pull the plug on his brother. The decision would be Miss Ellie's, but I could also see her saying to the doctors, I can't deal with this, talk to J.R. I do get your point, but I feel it is plausible, considering that not much else works, and the dream idea was just a bad idea. The skipping a year also lets all parties heal in a significant enough way that we can move on. It would have also allowed Knot's Landing and Dallas to remain on the same page.

 

[DallasFanForever]

I see your point, but I do think that with the money to afford such a thing, and face with the very real choice to pull the plug or leave him in a comma, I could see the scenario wouldn't be a good choice. In fact I could see that she might choose it even with out JR's help (maybe with Clayton's), going to visit her son in a vegetative state state day after day. Or I could see JR doing it without Miss Ellie, making the call on his own, not allow them to pull the plug on his brother. The decision would be Miss Ellie's, but I could also see her saying to the doctors, I can't deal with this, talk to J.R. I do get your point, but I feel it is plausible, considering that not much else works, and the dream idea was just a bad idea. The skipping a year also lets all parties heal in a significant enough way that we can move on. It would have also allowed Knot's Landing and Dallas to remain on the same page.

I’m admittedly not crazy about this idea but do I like it better than the dream? Yes I do. I’m just not a fan of the dream at all but I do respect how some people do like it. It takes guts liking something that most others hate. I’ve always said that whether you love the dream or hate it, you can’t deny its impact. Here we are 35 years later still discussing it so like it or not it has its place in TV history.

 

[Sea - Boo! - Er]

There's not any need to skip a year; the year passed as we saw it while he was in the coma.

 

[Jock's Ghost]

Patrick wants to leave. Cool. But he doesn't tell us what happens to Bobby.
The scene plays out as we know it, except the driver is mysterious.It's still Katherine, but no one finds out. She lives to cause problems for another day. She smiles satisfied as she watches pam scream and Bobby hang on for life.
Bobby is badly injured.
The cliff hanger is just a flatline.
Season 8 opener, staff rushes in, hes brought back...
COMA.
Even though Patrick is gone, Bobby remains.
JR, Miss Ellie , ray and even Gary show up periodically to speak and use these moments to tell the audience their thoughts etc. Mainly JR.
Season finale Bobby wakes up for Pamela who tells him about Mark's return.
The season in which Patrick returned is used for Bobby to regain his strength.
Season finale ends with pam and Bobby's wedding. Bobby vowed he wouldnt get married unless he could walk down the aisle.
Katherine arrives in an attempt to make peace. Pam tells her to piss off. Katherine vows to have her revenge.
At the reception, tKatherine tries to kill pam, again. Enters the party with a gun and intends to fire first at Pam then the entire crowd after she sees Pam and Bobby dancing. Kathrine fires!
Freeze frame.
Season opener, the first season after Victoria originally left.
Katherine has shot several, mostly no name extras and Pam, who is merely grazed.
One casualty-JENNA WADE, who is rushed to the hospital, she dies but her child lives. The season would invovle drama of taking on the new baby and adopting Charlie.
Pam is now played by MargretMichael's. .
End of first episode of the new season.
Donna Reed was an ok, not great choice, but the other recasts worked great; Kristin, Jenna, Gary.

Recast was the only solution as Pam was a valued character. By recasting her nothing is lost. It's better than to sabotage a show for the sake of one actor whose return was ultimately destructive and creatively insulting.

I just saved Dallas. Too bad they didn't in 1986.

 

[Jock's Ghost]

The dream should have started after Katherine drove him over and before he was in the hospital. Still a dream. But the dream wouldn't skip over the traumatic event itself (which explain why someone is dreaming of explosions etc.). Just the outcome of it could have been different. Restarting in the hospital with Bobby awakening from coma - with the same cast as in the death scene, except BBG instead of DR). Maybe days, weeks or months later. Accepting that some stories in the "dream season" actually happened to his surprise (Jenna and Jack getting closer, Mark's return, Angelica Nero - Jamie's death, but not Sue Ellen bombed). As a viewer I felt mostly betrayed that the car accident and his death in the hospital were erased. But I would have accepted a dream that acknowledged at least the car accident. It wouldn't have mattered if most of the stories from the dream turned out to be real. Of course they needed a writer and director to find a style for an outstanding episode, where a therapist would lead Bobby slowly to what actually happened. Everything to make it more real instead of destroying a whole year of Dallas. I don't think my idea is original because films who use the dreams routine often use the most traumatic scene that starts the cycle. Pamela though just went to bed, dreamt and woke up. That was terribly anticlimactic. My idea wouldn't save the ties to Knots Landing but could've saved Dallas's credibility a bit.

That's a good idea. Not sure why they didnt see it. The accident caused the dream, not just a bad for no reason. Keep the accident, Bobby is crippled , resolve the rest. It made no sense she would dream about Sue Ellen.
Actually should have opened with Pam in a nuthouse. She lost it when Bobby was hurt. The only thing she hallucinated was Bobby's death. The rest happened. This approach would have worked much better as Pam had issues before. No need to burn the rest of the show down.
I would have added a scene showing Bobby's body wheeled away. Shes in the hallway crying, watching. He goes into the elevator as the doors close slowly, she briefly sees Bobby get up....
This was the season Patrick was gone.
This would have worked had Patrick returned or not, Pam waz going to be portrayed as losing touch. Had he not returned, shes just crazy unable to cope with his death. Had he returned she was in an emotional traumatic state, she hallucinated it.
Or a third scenario is Bobby fakes his death after a season earlier of witnessing a murder and the FEDS need his testimony.... in order to keep the Ewings safe, he fakes his death. Although, this scenario feels the most contrived as Bobby wouldnt dare hurt his mother , pam or even JR this way, especially Christopher.
It's just sad how all of the solutions Ive read on here were all better.

 

[Piggyrella Sanderson]

Bobby's death is exactly what Dallas needed to inject some new life into the series. After several highly successful years the death of a major character in any series can create new dramas which characters can feed off for a few more years. Just look at what occurred after the death of Jim Davis and the way the writers used his character to set Dallas on a path of great viewing.

Patrick made the mistake in telling the writers to kill off Bobby. Patrick wasn't returning. He thought his career was suited for something else. No one can blame him for wanting to try new things. I'm assuming actors wish to expand their resume in fear of being typecast but I never saw Bobby as being one dimensional. As an actor I would have thought Patrick was pleased the way Bobby was evolving but clearly he still thought there were greener pastures. So Patrick said I'm done with Dallas. The writers decided to kill the character off.

So the scene was set. I had high expectations of what was to follow and the writers didn't disappoint. The reveal of Bobby's Will was brilliant. Let's not have Miss Ellie, Clayton or Donna take control of Bobby's stake in Ewing Oil...let's put Pam right in the thick of it. No way was JR going to settle for that.

There was no need for Jack, Angelica Nero or Pam looking for gems - or whatever the hell that was. The story was right there, the drama just waiting to be written was there. That Barnes woman was in the hen house and how was the fox (JR) going to GET HER OUT.

This season could have been explosive. A knock-down, dirty war between the Ewing and Barnes family...and to top it off we had the rightful Miss Ellie back. Oh how this season could have taken Dallas to a different level of excitement. But the older bro' was missing his younger bro'. Never mind how it was going to be done, just get it done.

Oh there is always need to have somebody with such huge talent hanging around Southfork...

 

[Sarah]

Would you be okay if I killed off Bobby in my return continuation @Sarah ? I've always imagined different scenarios if given the opportunity to resurrect Dallas. One of them is a funeral scene. It's a tried and true formula but it never fails to hook in an audience. I now see the character of Bobby as tainted. His character is why I still have a love/hate relationship with Dallas all these years later.

In some regard a continuation of Dallas requires a new lick of paint. I would wish to distance myself far from that failed experiment TNT Dallas. I'd keep some aspects of it. The character of Pam was closed with some dignity. I'd keep Christopher dead and Bobby is about to be buried next to him on Southfork. There is no mystery surrounding Bobby's death...he just died. There is no Ann, Emma, Cliff, no Ryland or Ramos remnants.

Meanwhile...back at Southfork, a smug John Ross believes he has it all. We now see he is happily married with twins: a boy and girl. Sue Ellen as matriarch resides at Southfork to help run the ranch. I'd give anything to see a feisty Sue Ellen (now in her 80's) back on horseback surveying the land. All seems content until a smart, handsome young man arrives with grit determination to reclaim his position within the family...welcome home Lucas.

But let's get back to fixing the dream solution

Of course - sounds interesting! Go for it! :love6:

 

[Sarah]

That's a good idea. Not sure why they didnt see it. The accident caused the dream, not just a bad for no reason. Keep the accident, Bobby is crippled , resolve the rest. It made no sense she would dream about Sue Ellen.

Why? I've dreamt about her nearly every night for most of my life. :love4:

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Which is why she slaps him. To knock that knowledge out of his head and to move it up to Christmas 1952, the birth time the show established just before JR was shot -- which makes Pam even younger than Victoria claims to be (if such a thing is possible).


"'The first American baby born in Japan after the end of WW2'...? For godssake, honey, do your math..."

So Pam was the first American baby born after the war.

Good gawd! I thought when God created Adam he took one of his ribs and then created Victoria Principal!

This information is staggering. I'm staggering up the stairs to the toilet as we speak although that's probably due to the vodka I've drunk!!

 

[Sarah]

So Pam was the first American baby born after the war.

Good gawd! I thought when God created Adam he took one of his ribs and then created Victoria Principal!

This information is staggering. I'm staggering up the stairs to the toilet as we speak although that's probably due to the vodka I've drunk!!

I think that’s what we’re supposed to think -in the beginning there was Adam and Victoria