What was the plan for Mark?

[Grangehill1]

If the shower scene hadn’t have happened. Was Mark meant to be dead on the shower floor? I’ve heard that was meant to be the cliffhanger but others have said Ellie finding out Ben Stivers was Jock was the cliffhanger?
So if Mark wasn’t killed off what was the plan for him on Season 10? Would he have been promoted to main titles? Would they really have killed another one of Pam’s husbands so soon after Bobby ?

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Mark lying dead in the shower was a myth.

The real season nine cliffhanger before it was cut out was Miss Ellie discovering Jock's belongings with Ben Stivers revealing to her that he was really Jock!

I've heard that they were planning to kill Mark off in season ten if Patrick Duffy had not come back.

And Steve Forrest would've remained on the show as a recast Jock Ewing

 

[the-lost-son]

I've heard that they were planning to kill Mark off in season ten if Patrick Duffy had not come back.

I agree with your post, the bit above is new to me.

In the end of the dream season, JR found some information that Mark was involved in a university prank resulting in the death of a student. Mark's father got it hushed up, but murder is under the status of limitation.

So it's safe to assume that JR tried to gain some advantage by that knowledge. It's more than likely that Mark's background got explored and that this whole business went to court. I love that storylines of old sins haunting till the present (hutch Mckinney, burning southern cross etc.) so I would have loved that storyline. It's always a treat to get a "white knight" character to court and it would have spiced up the character. Some disliked him, because he was rather one-dimensional.

Another storyline obviously were his health issues which were never sorted out. I think he wouldn't have lasted more than 1-2 years though.
But I can't see how his death benefitted the story. So maybe he just stayed around like Clayton.

Personally I would have liked him around much longer. I would have prefered anything instead of the dream solution. Another triangle now Pam married to Mark.

AAdditionally more business conflicts with Ewing Oil. I never got it why Pam sold Christopher's part of Ewing Oil to JR. She should have been in the middle between Mark and JR.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I agree with your post, the bit above is new to me.

In the end of the dream season, JR found some information that Mark was involved in a university prank resulting in the death of a student. Mark's father got it hushed up, but murder is under the status of limitation.

So it's safe to assume that JR tried to gain some advantage by that knowledge. It's more than likely that Mark's background got explored and that this whole business went to court. I love that storylines of old sins haunting till the present (hutch Mckinney, burning southern cross etc.) so I would have loved that storyline. It's always a treat to get a "white knight" character to court and it would have spiced up the character. Some disliked him, because he was rather one-dimensional.

Another storyline obviously were his health issues which were never sorted out. I think he wouldn't have lasted more than 1-2 years though.
But I can't see how his death benefitted the story. So maybe he just stayed around like Clayton.

Personally I would have liked him around much longer. I would have prefered anything instead of the dream solution. Another triangle now Pam married to Mark.

AAdditionally more business conflicts with Ewing Oil. I never got it why Pam sold Christopher's part of Ewing Oil to JR. She should have been in the middle between Mark and JR.

Let's not forget he told Pam he was in remission. And that there was no cure.

If Patrick Duffy had not returned then sadly Mark would've died in season ten.

It's possible that they could've found a cure. Had the character been liked long term then I think Lorimar would've tried to keep him on the show.

Unfortunately it's all academic now as Patrick Duffy returned and the storylines of that year with the exception of Jock Ewing's return were all erased.

However Jock's return suffered not just from the fan backlash of the time but also that there were effectively two resurrections from the dead that season which probably contributed to Steve Forrest being dropped mid season in favour of Patrick Duffy's return as Bobby.

 

[Grangehill1]

I don’t think they would have killed Mark. Jamie would have been killed off and I can’t see them killing mark as well.
Victoria still would have left at the end of season 10. Maybe Pam and Mark would have left together at the end of season 10? That makes sense

 

[Grangehill1]

Let's not forget he told Pam he was in remission. And that there was no cure.

If Patrick Duffy had not returned then sadly Mark would've died in season ten.

It's possible that they could've found a cure. Had the character been liked long term then I think Lorimar would've tried to keep him on the show.

Unfortunately it's all academic now as Patrick Duffy returned and the storylines of that year with the exception of Jock Ewing's return were all erased.

However Jock's return suffered not just from the fan backlash of the time but also that there were effectively two resurrections from the dead that season which probably contributed to Steve Forrest being dropped mid season in favour of Patrick Duffy's return as Bobby.

I keep reading this. There was no fan backlash at the time. The only backlash was against the dream. Viewers were excited about Wes being Jock.

And the first 12 episodes or so of each series was always shot in Dallas therefore come the barbecue episode it was always known Wes was leaving. And the episodes Hadn’t even transmitted

 

[DallasFanForever]

Let's not forget he told Pam he was in remission. And that there was no cure

The scene right before Pam and Mark’s wedding was always a little telling to me. He brings up his illness for the first time since the beginning of the season. That tells me they were planning on revisiting it at some point. That’s why I think it’s highly plausible they were going to kill him off again at some point.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I keep reading this. There was no fan backlash at the time. The only backlash was against the dream. Viewers were excited about Wes being Jock.

And the first 12 episodes or so of each series was always shot in Dallas therefore come the barbecue episode it was always known Wes was leaving. And the episodes Hadn’t even transmitted

Sorry buddy but there was a fan backlash against Steve Forrest playing Jock.

The news of Forrest playing Jock leaked whilst the season was still being filmed.

Fans unfortunately hit the roof. They were upset at Jim Davis's role being recast and believed it was an insult to him.

That's why mid season instead of Wes being confirmed as actually being Jock, he was abruptly written off.

To get him off the show they didn't mention his X rays being identical to Jock's again so they concentrated on the results of the polygraph instead.

Make no mistake in both instances of the character, Ben Stivers & Wes Parmalee the intention was for him to really be Jock Ewing.

 

[Grangehill1]

Sorry buddy but there was a fan backlash against Steve Forrest playing Jock.

The news of Forrest playing Jock leaked whilst the season was still being filmed.

Fans unfortunately hit the roof. They were upset at Jim Davis's role being recast and believed it was an insult to him.

That's why mid season instead of Wes being confirmed as actually being Jock, he was abruptly written off.

To get him off the show they didn't mention his X rays being identical to Jock's again so they concentrated on the results of the polygraph instead.

Make no mistake in both instances of the character, Ben Stivers & Wes Parmalee the intention was for him to really be Jock Ewing.

I’m sorry but I disagree. There was No fan backlash. By your way of thinking don’t you think they would have changed the dream resolution. That leaked before transmission as well and they still
Went with it. That caused huge backlash in the media.

We’re talking the days before the internet. What did the fans do? March on Lorimar? It simply isn’t true.

The season was structured specifically to write out Wes in the barbecue episode which is what they did.

 

[Grangehill1]

And news of Wes being Jock didn’t leak whilst the series was being filmed. Steve forest had also appeared in the previous series as another character playing Jock. Was there fan backlash then? No. A different producer came along and reused the same actor with a different name , next season in the same storyline. Wouldn’t they have binned the storyline after season 9 if they’d been fan backlash????

 

[Grangehill1]

We can safely say The Dallas producers rarely did anything to keep the fans happy particularly in the latter half of the series.

Jenna and Ray?
Splitting up JR and Sue Ellen again
The dream
Conundrum
The Pam exit mess
The new characters in season 13

All of that caused fan backlash and the producers didn’t care or change a single thing.

 

[Monzo]

Would Sue Ellen have survived the explosion without major injuries? Do you have any idea what would have happened to the Ewing Oil building after the explosion?

 

[Pamela_E]

I agree with your post, the bit above is new to me.

In the end of the dream season, JR found some information that Mark was involved in a university prank resulting in the death of a student. Mark's father got it hushed up, but murder is under the status of limitation.

So it's safe to assume that JR tried to gain some advantage by that knowledge. It's more than likely that Mark's background got explored and that this whole business went to court. I love that storylines of old sins haunting till the present (hutch Mckinney, burning southern cross etc.) so I would have loved that storyline. It's always a treat to get a "white knight" character to court and it would have spiced up the character. Some disliked him, because he was rather one-dimensional.

Another storyline obviously were his health issues which were never sorted out. I think he wouldn't have lasted more than 1-2 years though.
But I can't see how his death benefitted the story. So maybe he just stayed around like Clayton.

Personally I would have liked him around much longer. I would have prefered anything instead of the dream solution. Another triangle now Pam married to Mark.

AAdditionally more business conflicts with Ewing Oil. I never got it why Pam sold Christopher's part of Ewing Oil to JR. She should have been in the middle between Mark and JR.

I don’t think they would have killed Mark. Jamie would have been killed off and I can’t see them killing mark as well.
Victoria still would have left at the end of season 10. Maybe Pam and Mark would have left together at the end of season 10? That makes sense

I always question if Victoria would have left if Patrick had not returned. I know what she says but it felt like unfortunate timing and also rather quick.

I too wonder why they had Pam sell her shares to JR, what were they planning having JR as sole owner?

The unfortunate thing is that the one voice we don't have in all of this is that of Phil Capice. It's such a shame he never provided some insight into what was going on and what the thinking was going forward.

 

[Angela Channing]

I too wonder why they had Pam sell her shares to JR, what were they planning having JR as sole owner?

Much of what was planned before the knew Bobby would return was incorporated into the storylines they used in the season after Pam woke up from her dream. So I think they wanted JR to have sole control of Ewing Oil so once he had no one who could put a brake on his actions he would lose the company. So he could work with BD Calhoun and ultimately lose Ewing Oil to WestStar. It would have shown that JR needed Bobby, Jock or Pam to control his excesses and without them his shortcomings would be more obvious.

 

[tommie]

We can safely say The Dallas producers rarely did anything to keep the fans happy particularly in the latter half of the series.

Exactly. If they wanted to go ahead with it they would've, fans reactions be damned. I think they just felt it was a bit too much to have both Bobby and Jock return in the same season; plus it was a left-over storyline from the old crew. Add that Steve Forrest had signed on to do the Gunsmoke movie, so he would've had to have been written out temporarily anyway. I think the storyline played out according to Paulsen's plans from initially planning the season. Maybe they had plans on possibly bringing him back in case they felt it worked well enough on set and with the press.

Much of what was planned before the knew Bobby would return was incorporated into the storylines they used in the season after Pam woke up from her dream. So I think they wanted JR to have sole control of Ewing Oil so once he had no one who could put a brake on his actions he would lose the company. So he could work with BD Calhoun and ultimately lose Ewing Oil to WestStar. It would have shown that JR needed Bobby, Jock or Pam to control his excesses and without them his shortcomings would be more obvious.

Yes, and I think this would've tied into Jock coming back obviously.

 

[Chris2]

I was a big fan of the show in its original run. There was no backlash in the US about a potential Jock recast that I remember. Starting with the 1985-86 season, people were losing interest in the show and it just didn’t have the buzz that it once had. Patrick Duffy returning to the show in 1986 did generate interest and buzz, and the way they brought Bobby back was polarizing. But that was it as far as I remember. I think there could have been backlash about a Jock Ewing recast had it been done a few years earlier, closer to Jim Davis’ death and while the show as still on top of the ratings. But by 1986, people in the US just didn’t care that much anymore.

Dallas scripts were written far in advance. They started plotting the next season in the spring. When Patrick returned, they had to throw a lot of stuff away. My hunch is that the returning Uncle Lennie liked the Jock imposter story enough to keep it and was likely salvaging whatever he could of already-developed story outlines, but changed the ending because he didn’t want another resurrection. And I suspect that he and the writers were too sloppy and or time-crunched to remove things like the x-rays matching.

But honestly, who knows. I’d love to ask the questions directly of David Paulsen and others on staff at the time.

 

[DallasFanForever]

And I suspect that he and the writers were too sloppy and or time-crunched to remove things like the x-rays matching

This was where they went wrong with this storyline. If it was never intended for him to be Jock then they shouldn’t have supplied so much overwhelming evidence to the other side. Giving him matching X-rays and having him pass a lie detector test were mistakes in hindsight. They gave him way too much credibility, only to have him finally admit he wasn’t Jock and just leave. The abrupt ending to the storyline didn’t match what they had built up all those weeks. If they never intended for him to be Jock I’m fine with it but then his exit should’ve been written differently.

 

[Sarah]

Would Sue Ellen have survived the explosion without major injuries? Do you have any idea what would have happened to the Ewing Oil building after the explosion?

Sue Ellen was apparently going to be blinded in the explosion

 

[Grangehill1]

This was where they went wrong with this storyline. If it was never intended for him to be Jock then they shouldn’t have supplied so much overwhelming evidence to the other side. Giving him matching X-rays and having him pass a lie detector test were mistakes in hindsight. They gave him way too much credibility, only to have him finally admit he wasn’t Jock and just leave. The abrupt ending to the storyline didn’t match what they had built up all those weeks. If they never intended for him to be Jock I’m fine with it but then his exit should’ve been written differently.

I think it was just sloppily plotted. Season 10 is (for me) where it all starts falling apart. It’s also a season very much of two halves. Calhoun and Wes the first half
and then the downfall of Ewing Oil the second half.

Dallas had a history of disposing of characters though without any follow up

Peter Richards vowed to kill JR and we never saw him again
Katherine just disappeared
There’s many more

I think they just weren’t clever enough to come up with a cleverer way of writing Wes out. Even an ambiguous scene (like real Dee on the bench in Neighbours) where the viewer gets a major hint Wes could be Jock and nobody else knows.

I think Steve’s Gunsmoke job came up and they had to hastily end the storyline. Nothing to do with audience reaction

 

[Grangehill1]

I was a big fan of the show in its original run. There was no backlash in the US about a potential Jock recast that I remember. Starting with the 1985-86 season, people were losing interest in the show and it just didn’t have the buzz that it once had. Patrick Duffy returning to the show in 1986 did generate interest and buzz, and the way they brought Bobby back was polarizing. But that was it as far as I remember. I think there could have been backlash about a Jock Ewing recast had it been done a few years earlier, closer to Jim Davis’ death and while the show as still on top of the ratings. But by 1986, people in the US just didn’t care that much anymore.

Dallas scripts were written far in advance. They started plotting the next season in the spring. When Patrick returned, they had to throw a lot of stuff away. My hunch is that the returning Uncle Lennie liked the Jock imposter story enough to keep it and was likely salvaging whatever he could of already-developed story outlines, but changed the ending because he didn’t want another resurrection. And I suspect that he and the writers were too sloppy and or time-crunched to remove things like the x-rays matching.

But honestly, who knows. I’d love to ask the questions directly of David Paulsen and others on staff at the time.

There was no backlash in the UK either. I remember watching at the time. There WAS huge backlash about the dream though