Snarky Oracle!
Telly Talk Supreme
Lorimar should have paid through the nose just for having created the whole fiasco.
Yes, she would have. Barbara never wanted to leave in the first place.pete lashmar said:
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What ultimately killed Dallas?
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Lorimar should have paid through the nose just for having created the whole fiasco.
Laurie Marr
Telly Talk Well-Known Member
Pam’s departure and Cliff’s descent into aimless schizoid buffoonery killed the core dramatic thrust of the show. That and the fatal writing flaw of trying to engineer drama between characters rather than relying on rich characterisation to fuel the drama. The writing sucked.
tommie
Telly Talk Hero
Yup, she essentially asked for a lighter work load and they supposedly felt they needed to have Ellie on the show in a full time capacity, hence recasting. Of course, they barely used Donna Reed ultimately so it makes no sense,
Jimmy Todd
Telly Talk Mega Star
From what I read, including comments by Susan Howard, it seems Donna Reed was not treated particularly warmly by the rest of the cast.
Luke_Krebbs_Ewing
Telly Talk Champion
Yeah I've read that to.
I've also read that when she died the only person to go to her funeral from Dallas was Susan Howard.
I stick by my statement that she was treated abominably and didn't deserve it. At least she won the lawsuit. May she Rest In Peace.
Lastkidpicked
Telly Talk Dream Maker
What killed Dallas? Maybe nothing. They captured lightning in a bottle, and like everything else, you can't keep that level of energy forever.
Look at the great seasons. The lead up to the "Who Shot J.R." storyline. Watching people one by one get steamrolled by J.R. and vowing revenge. It made us look forward to the next episode each time.
Lines such as,
"I'm gonna kill J.R."
"You'll have to stand in line behind everybody else."
And then look at the Contest for Ewing Oil storyline. We did a rewatch a couple summers ago and I just couldn't wait to get on these boards to talk about it. We had to FORCE ourselves to wait a day in between episodes because we wanted to see what would happen next.
Then time and years went by. @James from London says it better than I can when he states "There is no sense of urgency" .
That really sums it up. Some of the storylines in the later years are actually pretty good. But there is nothing to keep you on the edge of your seat waiting for the next episode.
To put a finer point on it-- when Dallas was good, it was REALLY good.
It was a helluva ride!
Look at the great seasons. The lead up to the "Who Shot J.R." storyline. Watching people one by one get steamrolled by J.R. and vowing revenge. It made us look forward to the next episode each time.
Lines such as,
"I'm gonna kill J.R."
"You'll have to stand in line behind everybody else."
And then look at the Contest for Ewing Oil storyline. We did a rewatch a couple summers ago and I just couldn't wait to get on these boards to talk about it. We had to FORCE ourselves to wait a day in between episodes because we wanted to see what would happen next.
Then time and years went by. @James from London says it better than I can when he states "There is no sense of urgency" .
That really sums it up. Some of the storylines in the later years are actually pretty good. But there is nothing to keep you on the edge of your seat waiting for the next episode.
To put a finer point on it-- when Dallas was good, it was REALLY good.
It was a helluva ride!
CBS screwed Dallas a bit too, when they moved the timeslot of it towards the end to make room for Over My Dead Body.
That show was an attempt by CBS and Universal Television to repeat their successes with The Equalizer and Murder She Wrote.
In publicity for OMDB, EW was trying desperately to sway the Murder She Wrote comparisons with his show because it was pointed out the premise was the same (because it was about a mystery novelist solving murders in San Francisco,like Jessica Fletcher basically) but it didn't help him that Universal cast Jessica Lundy as his sidekick, giving the cynics more ammunition when you consider the first name of Angela Lansbury's character.
CBS thought it would be such a hit given their previous shows with Universal that it gave OMDB the 9pm slot and shunted Dallas to 10pm. Sadly it wasn't to be (as everyone saw it as a MSW clone no matter what Edward said), and Dallas got hurt in the ratings as a result of being moved, probably peeing off the fans (and Lorimar) in the process.
Quickly, they pulled OMDB and returned Dallas back to 9pm. The remaining OMDB episodes were burnt off at a later date.
That show was an attempt by CBS and Universal Television to repeat their successes with The Equalizer and Murder She Wrote.
In publicity for OMDB, EW was trying desperately to sway the Murder She Wrote comparisons with his show because it was pointed out the premise was the same (because it was about a mystery novelist solving murders in San Francisco,like Jessica Fletcher basically) but it didn't help him that Universal cast Jessica Lundy as his sidekick, giving the cynics more ammunition when you consider the first name of Angela Lansbury's character.
CBS thought it would be such a hit given their previous shows with Universal that it gave OMDB the 9pm slot and shunted Dallas to 10pm. Sadly it wasn't to be (as everyone saw it as a MSW clone no matter what Edward said), and Dallas got hurt in the ratings as a result of being moved, probably peeing off the fans (and Lorimar) in the process.
Quickly, they pulled OMDB and returned Dallas back to 9pm. The remaining OMDB episodes were burnt off at a later date.
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tommie
Telly Talk Hero
I don't think they treated Dallas badly there to be honest - it was clearly falling in the ratings for the past few seasons and wasn't providing a decent lead in for whatever show they'd put at 10PM. I probably would've done the same thing if I was doing the CBS schedule at the time.
Crimson
Telly Talk Star
I think that's pretty much it. DALLAS had a great 7 year run and even stayed decent for a few years after that; most shows, particularly serialized fiction, sputter out around 5 to 7 seasons. Aging shows face a dilemma: stay the same and get stale, or change and probably alienate the fans. DALLAS tried a little of both, and neither really worked.
I'm sure there are hardcore faithful fans who would happily be watching Season 44 ("The 147th Battle for Ewing Oil!"), but for most viewers enough is enough after a point.
pete lashmar
Telly Talk Addict
I'm currently on another re-watch and what always stands out for me is just how good the show was for so long.
At the moment I'm on season 4 (5 DVD) and Pam has just ambushed Bobby as he arrived back at Southfork with Christopher, which was a great cliffhanger. But thinking forward, as a fan, I know that the best is yet to come for the show and it's very rare that 5 years in a drama can keep the viewers glued like Dallas did.
With Jock's death and the fight for Ewing Oil just around the corner, the writers and cast were on fire at this point, Dallas was absolutely at the top of it's game.
Looking back now it must of been hell to keep the momentum going and it's such a shame that when the show ended it wasn't even slightly a shadow of it's former self, it was dying a death in front of the smallest viewing figures it had ever achieved. Quite a come down for the daddy of all soap operas.
Yes there are some great plots and storylines in later series, but for me I would have re-molded the last 10 episodes of season 9 (10 DVD) -
Wendell would cause the end of Ewing Oil (as seen in the following season) and I would have re-worked Pam's crash as being fatal and then Bobby leaving Southfork with Christopher. The End.
Well...until the TV movies...
At the moment I'm on season 4 (5 DVD) and Pam has just ambushed Bobby as he arrived back at Southfork with Christopher, which was a great cliffhanger. But thinking forward, as a fan, I know that the best is yet to come for the show and it's very rare that 5 years in a drama can keep the viewers glued like Dallas did.
With Jock's death and the fight for Ewing Oil just around the corner, the writers and cast were on fire at this point, Dallas was absolutely at the top of it's game.
Looking back now it must of been hell to keep the momentum going and it's such a shame that when the show ended it wasn't even slightly a shadow of it's former self, it was dying a death in front of the smallest viewing figures it had ever achieved. Quite a come down for the daddy of all soap operas.
Yes there are some great plots and storylines in later series, but for me I would have re-molded the last 10 episodes of season 9 (10 DVD) -
Wendell would cause the end of Ewing Oil (as seen in the following season) and I would have re-worked Pam's crash as being fatal and then Bobby leaving Southfork with Christopher. The End.
Well...until the TV movies...
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Pamela_E
Admin Emerita
I'm near the end now of my rewatch and its a shame some of the new characters didn't come in earlier
Imagine James had come into the show much earlier when JR was married to Sue Ellen. That would have even really exciting. Sue Ellen all threatened, her reaction towards John Ross.
Also the character of Debra Lynn and baby Jimmy. She had the earthiness of early Pam and was streetwise. Unlike dippy Cally. Shame she came in towards the end as she had potential.
The show did go off the rails with its storylines. I though the Dimitri storyline was bad enough but Miss Ellie and Clayton who done it mystery was bad.
Also JR in the asylum went on way too long. Nice idea but just fell a bit flat with the comedy.
So no surprise people gave up on it.
Imagine James had come into the show much earlier when JR was married to Sue Ellen. That would have even really exciting. Sue Ellen all threatened, her reaction towards John Ross.
Also the character of Debra Lynn and baby Jimmy. She had the earthiness of early Pam and was streetwise. Unlike dippy Cally. Shame she came in towards the end as she had potential.
The show did go off the rails with its storylines. I though the Dimitri storyline was bad enough but Miss Ellie and Clayton who done it mystery was bad.
Also JR in the asylum went on way too long. Nice idea but just fell a bit flat with the comedy.
So no surprise people gave up on it.
Luke_Krebbs_Ewing
Telly Talk Champion
I blame the writers partially for diluting the nastiness of JR's character down.
They turned him into a buffoon who more than often got beaten and lost out to other less worthy characters.
They turned him into a buffoon who more than often got beaten and lost out to other less worthy characters.
Barbara Fan
Admin
For me they are some of the reasons why Dallas died, Characters I didnt care about with some very bad, weak acting thrown in for good measure
I kept waiting for Jack Nicolson and Nurse Ratchett to appear
By then it was RIP Dallas - lets dig out the DVDs to rewatch the glory years S1-6 original, classic Dallas, cast, acting, storylines x
pete lashmar
Telly Talk Addict
On my umpteenth re-watch and will stop at the end of season 10 (11 DVD) - and even season 10 is stretching it for me nowadays.
Angela Channing
Telly Talk Veteran
"Ellie She Wrote" was one of the absolute worst storylines ever in Dallas. It made the Marinos shipping storyline look like Shakespeare.
Taylor Bennett Jr.
Telly Talk Winner
while we’re on god-awful storylines, it must be said the Haleyville nonsense made a below-average episode of the Dukes of Hazzard look like Citizen Kane
(and now I'm tempted to go back and watch those episodes just to see if there's any combination of intoxicants and low expectations that could enable me to appreciate their brilliance - who knows, I might find myself rolling on the ground in hysterics at the madcap antics of Japhet and Boaz or whatever the hell their names were!)
(and now I'm tempted to go back and watch those episodes just to see if there's any combination of intoxicants and low expectations that could enable me to appreciate their brilliance - who knows, I might find myself rolling on the ground in hysterics at the madcap antics of Japhet and Boaz or whatever the hell their names were!)
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Pamela_E
Admin Emerita
That's why I think it would have been different if characters had come in earlier.
I think it would have made a big difference to the character of James if he had interacted with Sue Ellen and Miss Ellie at an earlier stage in the shows history.
@Barbara Fan can you remind me why Barbara didn't return for the final season?
DallasFanForever
Telly Talk Supreme
I do agree with this and I feel this is true with many of the characters from the later years. If the James storyline had been done years earlier it would’ve had a much better chance of succeeding. That’s why I blame the writing of those later seasons more than I do the actors and the characters themselves.
I agree it's ridiculous how James never shared a single scene with Miss Ellie!
Also JR having an illegimate son would have affected Sue Ellen more than it did Cally. Although poor Cally felt a bit weird about it since she was about the same age as James. I sometimes wonder if they planned a Cally/James romance but then scrapped the idea.
Also JR having an illegimate son would have affected Sue Ellen more than it did Cally. Although poor Cally felt a bit weird about it since she was about the same age as James. I sometimes wonder if they planned a Cally/James romance but then scrapped the idea.
Snarky Oracle!
Telly Talk Supreme
The fact is, IMHO, there is almost no plotline that you can't do -- short of flying saucers -- depending on how it's executed. But when a series is just slinging sloppy ideas to the audience, sloppily rendered, even the most potentially-inspired story or new set of characters just can't work.
The reason DYNASTY got so bad, after Season 2 or 3, weren't the story ideas but their implementation where the dialogue flow became goofy and the actors became overly-constrained causing them all to seem victims of a group-rate lobotomy. FALCON CREST was always a show that could get away with being crazier (and that's where the UFO should have happened) but even that show started to feel too stupid when plots, however expectedly wacky, became too wink-at-the-camera facetious (like what happened to Melissa, once perhaps FC's most popular character, was made increasingly mentally-ill for the purposes of "laughs").
At least KNOTS played it straight until the end, which is why its ratings outstripped DALLAS and DYNASTY by the end of the '80s, even though budget limitations saw the core KNOTS characters replaced by a daytime soapy barrage of younger people in its closing years.
Cally, James, Michelle, Vanessa -- even ELLIE, SHE WROTE and Lady Jessica's unladylike murder-spree -- could have worked had the final seasons of DALLAS remained character-based and not shifted into the whimsical, 'oh-what-the-hell' tone that it did.
At the end of the day, these programs were essentially family dramas, and when they got away from that, they mostly all fell apart.
The reason DYNASTY got so bad, after Season 2 or 3, weren't the story ideas but their implementation where the dialogue flow became goofy and the actors became overly-constrained causing them all to seem victims of a group-rate lobotomy. FALCON CREST was always a show that could get away with being crazier (and that's where the UFO should have happened) but even that show started to feel too stupid when plots, however expectedly wacky, became too wink-at-the-camera facetious (like what happened to Melissa, once perhaps FC's most popular character, was made increasingly mentally-ill for the purposes of "laughs").
At least KNOTS played it straight until the end, which is why its ratings outstripped DALLAS and DYNASTY by the end of the '80s, even though budget limitations saw the core KNOTS characters replaced by a daytime soapy barrage of younger people in its closing years.
Cally, James, Michelle, Vanessa -- even ELLIE, SHE WROTE and Lady Jessica's unladylike murder-spree -- could have worked had the final seasons of DALLAS remained character-based and not shifted into the whimsical, 'oh-what-the-hell' tone that it did.
At the end of the day, these programs were essentially family dramas, and when they got away from that, they mostly all fell apart.
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