Katzman - more bad than good?

James from London

James from London

International Treasure
David Jacobs has always given Katzman credit for the success that DALLAS became and I tend to believe he knows of what he speaks. I'm also sure there's a lot more that went on behind the scenes in the later years that we will ever be privy to -- there was a whole network involved in the decision making, not just one man.
 
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cws

cws

Formerly kcmimichar
James from London said:
David Jacobs has always given Katzman credit for the success that DALLAS became and I tend to believe he knows of what he speaks. I'm also sure there's a lot more that went on behind the scenes in the later years that we will ever be privy to -- there was a whole network involved in the decision making, not just one man.
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Too bad we will never know what in behind the scenes. The show has been off the air for GULP, 30 years. I can't believe nobody will talk about it.
 
Snarky Oracle!

Snarky Oracle!

Telly Talk Supreme
Some producers do good work and then burn out and lose focus or objectivity. It's hard to believe the same producers who made the first two excellent seasons of DYNASTY were the same ones who churned out the incompetent crap which followed.

With time, Katzman seemed to develop contempt for the audience (Susan Howard called it "abuse") just as the DYNASTY brass seemed contemptuous of its actors.

Anyway, Katzman produced the last few seasons of GUNSMOKE and did a great job, but he had a hand in firing Amanda Blake because she didn't want Miss Kitty to be brutally beaten and raped yet again.

The season which opened with "Who Shot JR?" was adequate plot-wise, but was dry and drab. Once David Paulsen wandered into the show -- someone whose narrative skills Katzman seemed to respect -- DALLAS regained a focus it might never have had Paulsen not been hired. And once Paulsen was gone, just one year after Victoria exited, DALLAS was never quite right again.

The decision to go overtly satirical might have been one of the reasons Paulsen wanted to leave DALLAS. When he quit, Larry said it was a good thing because Paulsen "doesn't have a sense of humor." After that, DALLAS emerging sense of humor tanked the series... David Jacobs has said that while these kinds of shows can have humor and satire going on underneath the surface, it must be played "absolutely straight" on the face of it... which is why the nuDYNASTY is so sneer-inducing, even though in some ways it's more competent than the original.

The jury will probably always be out on Lenny Katzman. He also hated Bradford May's camerawork, and didn't seem to like anything which smacked of artsy-ness.. which may be why, as others have stated before, that DALLAS ceased to grow creatively in the last-half of its run.

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Luke_Krebbs_Ewing

Luke_Krebbs_Ewing

Telly Talk Champion
Leonard Katzman was his own worst enemy.

Whilst he was a decent writer and Producer, he just allowed Dallas to stagnate without any decent forward thinking creative control.

The season after Victoria Principal and Susan Howard's departure is where the creative storyline rot began to set in. That whole Mummy Pam storyline is cringeworthy and ill thought out. It was a character assassination on Pamela Barnes Ewing and not only did it tarnish the character of Pam but it tarnished the show itself.

I don't think Dallas ever fully recovered after Victoria Principal left. It really needed a lift to reinvigorate it once she left. I've often considered that if they had actually kept Steve Forrest on the show as a recast Jock Ewing, we might've been spared the substandard storylines of the last few seasons. :)
 
Snarky Oracle!

Snarky Oracle!

Telly Talk Supreme
Via The Void said:
Leonard Katzman was his own worst enemy.

Whilst he was a decent writer and Producer, he just allowed Dallas to stagnate without any decent forward thinking creative control.

The season after Victoria Principal and Susan Howard's departure is where the creative storyline rot began to set in. That whole Mummy Pam storyline is cringeworthy and ill thought out. It was a character assassination on Pamela Barnes Ewing and not only did it tarnish the character of Pam but it tarnished the show itself.

I don't think Dallas ever fully recovered after Victoria Principal left. It really needed a lift to reinvigorate it once she left. I've often considered that if they had actually kept Steve Forrest on the show as a recast Jock Ewing, we might've been spared the substandard storylines of the last few seasons. :)
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I can forgive the not-quite-right tone of the 87/88 season because they didn't have the usual spring hiatus planning time to plot things out. But Pam's goofy exit was dire (and just what was mummy getting revenge for??) and Jack Scalia received too much screen time. So the pacing was off.

After that, Art Lewis and certainly Howard Lakin were no replacements for Paulsen.
 
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J

Jock Ewing Fan

Telly Talk Star
Via The Void said:
Leonard Katzman was his own worst enemy.

Whilst he was a decent writer and Producer, he just allowed Dallas to stagnate without any decent forward thinking creative control.

The season after Victoria Principal and Susan Howard's departure is where the creative storyline rot began to set in. That whole Mummy Pam storyline is cringeworthy and ill thought out. It was a character assassination on Pamela Barnes Ewing and not only did it tarnish the character of Pam but it tarnished the show itself.

I don't think Dallas ever fully recovered after Victoria Principal left. It really needed a lift to reinvigorate it once she left. I've often considered that if they had actually kept Steve Forrest on the show as a recast Jock Ewing, we might've been spared the substandard storylines of the last few seasons. :)
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I think that these observations are quite accurate.

I think to some extent, Katzman lacked a strong production team in later years, and the void was filled by Hagman and Duffy. While both were superb in their roles, actors are not necessarily the best judges of the production/scripting side of the process.
Or Katzman may have been an example of the "Peter Principle" - rise to the level of one's incompetence.
I still think series 10 was quite good, series 11 was more good than not, Season 12 has a good story arc with the Range war, but the rest of the season was middling.
I didn't like the small town fiasco at all. The pre dream season JR would have unleashed a furious revenge.
I sometimes wonder if Susan Howard, whose politics are conservative, was let go because of her beliefs and values.
It would be a shame if that was the case.
I don't know what to think about VP. I always suspected that she resented JR and Bobby's status in the show.
She did return to network TV in the short- lived (11 episodes aired) forgettable "Titans"
Then Miss Ellie became Jessica Fletcher in her last season?
Seasons 13 and 14 were substandard, sometimes uninspired,and maybe Katzman or not, the show had run its course,
 
K

Karin

Moderator
Staff Member
That is an interesting question. I think Katzman helped making the show into the success it was. I remember reading an interview once where I think it was Deborah Shelton that said that Leonard Katzman had used his own marriage as inspiration for the development of JR/SE. If that is true he certainly succeeded in creating some sort of dysfunctional power couple that people enjoyed watching.

I think Dallas reached it's peak during the 82/83 and 83/84 seasons. Katzman certainly had something to do with it's success.
After that the decline began with the recasting of Miss Ellie, dream season and Bobby coming back in the shower, Pam and Donna leaving etc.

Yes I think most of us can agree that he did some mistakes during the latter seasons of Dallas. But at that point the show was already on a downward spiral.
I think the biggest mistake they made was not knowing when to let go. They should have known beforehand when it was the last season and then brought back the people who had been let go to give Dallas a proper send-off.

Or maybe even gone out while they were on top. But if they had done that the show would have been at least 4 seasons shorter, maybe even 6 and I did find some enjoyable bits in all seasons.

So I guess the place where the show should have ended was after the 89/90 season. Letting Lucy, Miss Ellie and Clayton go and killing off April on her honeymoon was the final straw. For a show that used to be about two families to suddenly only be the JR-Bobby and Cliff show just didn't work. :(

Although to be honest, the first time around when I watched Dallas I wanted to watch more after the 90/91 season as I totally loved James and Michelle.

Still over all I think he did more good than bad.
 
cws

cws

Formerly kcmimichar
Karin Schill said:
That is an interesting question. I think Katzman helped making the show into the success it was. I remember reading an interview once where I think it was Deborah Shelton that said that Leonard Katzman had used his own marriage as inspiration for the development of JR/SE. If that is true he certainly succeeded in creating some sort of dysfunctional power couple that people enjoyed watching.

I think Dallas reached it's peak during the 82/83 and 83/84 seasons. Katzman certainly had something to do with it's success.
After that the decline began with the recasting of Miss Ellie, dream season and Bobby coming back in the shower, Pam and Donna leaving etc.

Yes I think most of us can agree that he did some mistakes during the latter seasons of Dallas. But at that point the show was already on a downward spiral.
I think the biggest mistake they made was not knowing when to let go. They should have known beforehand when it was the last season and then brought back the people who had been let go to give Dallas a proper send-off.

Or maybe even gone out while they were on top. But if they had done that the show would have been at least 4 seasons shorter, maybe even 6 and I did find some enjoyable bits in all seasons.

So I guess the place where the show should have ended was after the 89/90 season. Letting Lucy, Miss Ellie and Clayton go and killing off April on her honeymoon was the final straw. For a show that used to be about two families to suddenly only be the JR-Bobby and Cliff show just didn't work. :(

Although to be honest, the first time around when I watched Dallas I wanted to watch more after the 90/91 season as I totally loved James and Michelle.

Still over all I think he did more good than bad.
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I can't believe he would tell people his own marriage was the basis for JR and Sue Ellen WOW!! I too agree 89/90 should have been the last year.
 
Bobby Southworth

Bobby Southworth

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I said a while back, after viewing season 14, and then going back and watching 13, that 13 is where it should have ended, so I totally agree. No more Miss Ellie, Lucy, April being killed off after nearly 3 seasons of the build up to their marriage. It was yet another slap in the face to the remaining viewers. Dallas might have taken a nose dive after the dream, or after Pam's horrendously written departure, but it still retained some of the original feel, until season 14. It was what it was by that point. Take it or leave it, but I still enjoyed some of the story lines during seasons 11-13. Katzman did more good than bad. He was the producer during the heyday. Yes, he made some major miscalculations in later seasons, but without him, you wouldn't have had the glory days of Dallas. Who knows what the show would have been without him.
 
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cws

cws

Formerly kcmimichar
Bobby Southworth said:
I said a while back, after viewing season 14, and then going back and watching 13, that 13 is where it should have ended, so I totally agree. No more Miss Ellie, Lucy, April being killed off after nearly 3 seasons of the build up to their marriage. It was yet another slap in the face to the remaining viewers. Dallas might have taken a nose dive after the dream, or after Pam's horrendously written departure, but it still retained some of the original feel, until season 14. It was what it was by that point. Take it or leave it, but I still enjoyed some of the story lines during seasons 11-13. Katzman did more good than bad. He was the producer during the heyday. Yes, he made some major miscalculations in later seasons, but without him, you wouldn't have had the glory days of Dallas. Who knows what the show would have been without him.
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I liked some of season 11 too. I also didn't like the way Sue Ellen was written out.
 
Snarky Oracle!

Snarky Oracle!

Telly Talk Supreme
I think Howard Lakin agreed that DALLAS was somewhat autobiographical for Katzman. But the closing seasons seemed to be the result of their no longer being able to think of anything else to do -- especially with Paulsen gone, so DALLAS just resorted to winking at the camera and armpit farts.

A few years ago, Patrick admitted that they "lost objectivity" about what qualified as a good story towards the end.
 
cws

cws

Formerly kcmimichar
Snarky Oracle said:
I think Howard Lakin agreed that DALLAS was somewhat autobiographical for Katzman. But the closing seasons seemed to be the result of their no longer being able to think of anything else to do -- especially with Paulsen gone, so DALLAS just resorted to winking at the camera and armpit farts.

A few years ago, Patrick admitted that they "lost objectivity" about what qualified as a good story towards the end.
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It really was a "cartoon" towards the end.
 
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