What could have been done instead of the "Dream Season"?

[Mustard]

Yes, that's exactly it. The book goes on to say,

Katzman also felt that, during Season 8, "DALLAS had become a women's show." He did not believe DALLAS should "have weak women, but the men have always been the strong characters in the show. The women have been strong in their own right, but they haven't dominated the men."

The writers, said Katzman, "practically ruined J.R. last year. He was deceived by women. They lied to him. If you diminish J.R., you diminish the series."

This is bizarre, not to mention ironic considering what was later done to J.R. in the last 3 seasons. Is Leonard Katzman referring to Angelica Nero keeping everyone in the dark as to the fact that she wanted to kill Jack and J.R. in Martinique, after she had paraded them in public, so that she could claim the inheritance of Dimitri Marinos' estate? That's the behaviour of a ruthless mafia type villain, which Angelica Nero is. Or is Katzman referring to the fact that Angelica came for revenge against Grace, Nicholas, Jack and J.R. after her scheme went sour, and had evaded police forces on different continents for some time before she was arrested?

In Seasons 12-14 DVD, with Leonard Katzman and Larry Hagman as Executive Producers, J.R. is at his weakest ever by a long way. Heck, even in Season 10 DVD (the best season without Philip Capice as Executive Producer), J.R. is humiliated for large periods by B.D. Calhoun, who toys with J.R. in an unprofessional manner for a mercenary who has been betrayed. Or is that okay purely because Calhoun is male? Most strange.

 

[tommie]

But I do believe that once they knew PD was coming back they could have put in a few things that made viewers think - abstract things that confused the viewer in a "What the hell is going on" kind of way...paving the way for the dream reveal.

Yes.

If they had started doing weird stuff a few episodes before it - just random things, things that might happen in a dream, it would've at least been believable (though why Pam would dream about all these people...). As it was it was a fully coherent season - if with quite a few lows past the first ten or so episodes - but telling the viewer to forget about it was a huge "sod off" moment.

But they wrote themselves in a corner. Bobby's death was such a thing they wanted to hammer into the viewers so they couldn't really find a way to bring him back when push came to shove. Personally, I think season nine could've been excellent with the right direction but alas it wasn't going to happen.

 

[ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989]

If they had to bring Bobby back (and believe me I'm against his returning to the show) then it should've been Bobby's coma dream.
The season 9 cliffhanger could've been, that Pam speaks to the nurse about her husband's condition, we the audience think she's referring to Mark, but as she approaches the bed we see it's actually Bobby, slowly waking up.....season 10 could reveal that before Bobby went into Coma Land, he and Pam had a bedside wedding in the hospital.