This is a very good idea, but the sense I always got from "Dallas" is that that Larry Hagman, Capitol, Kathmandu, and whoever else was in charge, would never allow a woman to become that much of a threat to JR. Sure, Kristin could shoot him, but eventually she got her comeuppance, and that's not the same as being smart or powerful enough to really give him a run for his money. The same holds true for Holly. She got him off her back by using sex to draw Sue Ellen into her scheme, but it wasn't her business acumen or money that bested him. She also paid a high financial price for it,, thanks to JR's cunning.
Of course, no one would ever really get the best of JR, but men would always get closer to it then female characters. That's why I never understood the Harleyville sheriff getting away with threatening JR in his own office with impunity. That scene makes no sense from any perspective.
I could be wrong, of course, but that's the vibe I always got from "Dallas" I tend to think that's why a character like Donna or Abby Ewing could never really go head to head with JR. They may not win, but they could face him on his own terms and prove to be credible threats. I always thought there was a goldmine of good storyline to come from having Donna really got to the mat with JR.
Excellent points and I couldn't agree more. Before they got all crazy in the later years, I would have brought Donna back, former Secretary of Energy, wife of a U.S. Senator, someone the family could trust and she walks back to Dallas as the executor to Clayton Farlow's will which leaves his money to the only grandson he ever knew, John Ross, but in Donna's hands, which would include enough shares in West Star to Control it. Now it's not Cliff and McKay JR would come face to face with, but Donna. JR would go after getting rid of her so he could take control of West Star only to find a very competent opponent, one with a history with JR and one who knows what she's doing. Unlike Sue Ellen, she'd be able to look at JR and says, "I'm going to protect that boy from you, even if I have to put you down to do it" and "Don't worry JR, John Ross will inherit Ewing Oil, after I take it from you" and when JR says, "It takes brains to know when to be scared," she interrupts him and says, "Explains why you've never been scared in your life." Plush she'd have brought with her Margret and finally have a young girl growing up near the ranch. So much good material lost for what I'm sure if correct on your part, the shortsightedness of the show runners.
Exactly. For me the loss of Ewing Oil was my personal last Dallas episode. Losing Ewing Oil was worse than the dream explanation. All this haggling over shares of Ewing Oil for years and then it was meaningless. Jock's company gone, Miss Ellie having no more interest in it, Gary&Ray without voting shares... the structure of the show was destroyed.
The loss of Pam was a lot, but without Ewing Oil and the offices it was like taking the Ewings out of Southfork.
To make matters worse, we got a lame replacement withJRE industries and the lamest, pointless break-up of Sue Ellen and JR.
Well said.
JR became pathetic in the later years. Everyone got the better of him, men and women. I wish the Haleyville storyline had happened earlier in the series, only because I wanted to see what JR would do to those people once he got back to Dallas. I’m pretty sure that town would have been wiped off the map.
Yes JR became pathetic but IMO so did the stories and his antagonists. Donna teamed up with Wendell - now that wouldn't have been pathetic and given the JR character a real challenge.
Everybody’s not JR. Lol Why would she have a reason to do something underhanded?
More people would opt to be JR then you think, if you think underhanded is just a JR tactic. Reason: she wanted to make up to Pam and Cliff for abandoning them. Guilt can be a big motivator. She instead of sticking to a will that tied her hands and left everything to his daughter (as you'd probably find more often than not among the very wealthy), ignored his will, kept the document from Katherine and wrote a will leaving "her" estate divided by 3.
Personally the actress was up to the underhanded. I wish she had stayed to show us way more. I could see the real story having been she meet Herbert Wentworth when he building up his company on some great ideas but the momentum of such only gets one so far. She took would was becoming a failed enterprise, Wentworth Tool and Die and created the parent company Wentworth Industries. She understood business on a level which even had to impress JR. She was dealing the Cartel like they were children while dealing with OPEC and revolutionaries in Venezuela. If she'd lived, came and went from the show when needed, I would have loved to have seen JR walk into the offices of West Star after having made a deal which he thinks gives him control of the corporation, having defeated Wendell and gobbled up the Cartel, only to find Rebecca standing there welcoming him, explain to him that he might own a majority of the shares, but her class of shares hold more votes, "In other words, I control West Star and your precious Ewing Oil and everything your daddy lived and died for."
Now that would have given JR a reason to come out swinging - Halleyville certainly didn't.
