Ray and Jenna Season 10

[Chase Gioberti]

Zero chemistry. They take up way too much screen time. Ray’s a desperate fall back guy. Friend zoned. Doesn’t even mind. It’s painful to watch.

Charlie’s acting doesn’t help either. Bad child actress. She should have called Olivia Cunningham.

 

[James from London]

I loved their relationship in that season: their shared history as Bobby and Pam's cast-offs ("I guess all God's children got something in common") and the subsequent friction between Bobby and Ray, Jenna and Donna, and Jenna and Pam ("There's a new time coming, Jenna, for all of us"), which was a great antidote to the previous season where everybody seemed to tearily love each other.

 

[A Nightmare on Jimmy Todd Street]

I loved their relationship in that season: their shared history as Bobby and Pam's cast-offs ("I guess all God's children got something in common") and the subsequent friction between Bobby and Ray, Jenna and Donna, and Jenna and Pam ("There's a new time coming, Jenna, for all of us"), which was a great antidote to the previous season where everybody seemed to tearily love each other.

James, I love your perspective on these shows. Seriously, you always make keen observations that shed new light on them.
The parts of the Ray and Jenna pairing I didn't care for are how the children were presented. Bobby and Miss Ellie's lack of "ownership," for lack of a better word, over Lucas seemed out of character. Also, @juschill is right about Olivia Cunningham. Tonya Crowe is the only actor who could play a surly teenager without making me want to fast forward.
The other reason is I missed Donna with Ray.

 

[James from London]

Tonya Crowe is the only actor who could play a surly teenager without making me want to fast forward.

Funny, I feel kind of the opposite. I really like Olivia as a wiser-than-her-years prepubescent and from Season 10 onwards when she calmly plays her mother at her own game and then starts playing house with Harold, but the histrionic version in-between not so much. (She was a very useful plot device during the Peter Hollister hoo-ha though.)

 

[Chase Gioberti]

Did younger actors just not practice their craft back then? Shalene McCall makes any of the cast of Cobra Kai seem like Peter O’Toole or Meryl Streep by comparison. Dallas was a popular show. Was she the best there was? Nobody better?

 

[Jock-O-Lantern]

I actually think Charlie might have been a better actress than Jenna. Just saw a scene where they were arguing about Ray when he was going through the divorce with Donna and was told to stay away from them. Charlie actually out acted Jenna in that scene.

 

[Jock-O-Lantern]

Did younger actors just not practice their craft back then? Shalene McCall makes any of the cast of Cobra Kai seem like Peter O’Toole or Meryl Streep by comparison. Dallas was a popular show. Was she the best there was? Nobody better?

I feel that most younger actors are hired mainly for their looks. You notice that most are somewhat attractive? That’s not a coincidence. I even think a lot of them have modeling background.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Ray and Jenna became a problem as a couple when the show began trying to see them as having more of s legit, long-term relationship -- instead of the mutual rebound thing it really was. It soon felt forced (at least, after S10 per DVD count) just as Bobby and April felt forced.

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

Ray and Jenna really got insufferable when they decided Charlie’s rather run-of-the-mill teenage hijinks were acts of shamefully sinful treachery warranting banishment to some kind of Siberian nunnery/prison.. what a couple of maddeningly shrill pious-ass overdramatic hypocrites!

We all know what a thirty-something Ray was up to with schoolgirl Lucy in the hayloft, and don’t tell me Jenna and Bobby were just holding hands and indulging in the occasional peck on the cheek in old man Wade’s barn during their high school days! Hypocrites, I say!

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

I actually think Charlie might have been a better actress than Jenna. Just saw a scene where they were arguing about Ray when he was going through the divorce with Donna and was told to stay away from them. Charlie actually out acted Jenna in that scene.

I’d trust a one year-old Eric Farlow to give a more natural, nuanced, true-to-life reading of just about any dramatic scene than Priscilla. Imagine the fireworks he and Scotty Demarest would have brought to that Laredo interrogation room! “I don’t know! I don’t know! Eggs and toast and chloroform!! *sobs*”

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Ray and Jenna really got insufferable when they decided Charlie’s rather run-of-the-mill teenage hijinks were acts of shamefully sinful treachery warranting banishment to some kind of Siberian nunnery/prison.. what a couple of maddeningly shrill pious-ass overdramatic hypocrites!

Charlie was so despicable, though, that even her breathing seemed an affectation of unmitigated evil.

 

[Jock-O-Lantern]

Ray and Jenna really got insufferable when they decided Charlie’s rather run-of-the-mill teenage hijinks were acts of shamefully sinful treachery warranting banishment to some kind of Siberian nunnery/prison.. what a couple of maddeningly shrill pious-ass overdramatic hypocrites!

We all know what a thirty-something Ray was up to with schoolgirl Lucy in the hayloft, and don’t tell me Jenna and Bobby were just holding hands and indulging in the occasional peck on the cheek in old man Wade’s barn during their high school days! Hypocrites, I say!

And while Jenna is taking Charlie to her banishment, Ray gets hooked with some crazy woman he just met. Ray was something else.

 

[Chris2]

He’s also a major hypocrite - being all sanctimonious with Bobby and later Charlie, and then goes to bed with Miss TV Fatal Attraction.

Had I been a CBS exec, I would have said to Katzman, “Do we really think that America is interested in the adventures of Charlie and Jenna? Do you think stories like that are how Dallas became one of the top rated TV shows?”

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Ray and Jenna really got insufferable when they decided Charlie’s rather run-of-the-mill teenage hijinks were acts of shamefully sinful treachery warranting banishment to some kind of Siberian nunnery/prison.. what a couple of maddeningly shrill pious-ass overdramatic hypocrites!

We all know what a thirty-something Ray was up to with schoolgirl Lucy in the hayloft, and don’t tell me Jenna and Bobby were just holding hands and indulging in the occasional peck on the cheek in old man Wade’s barn during their high school days! Hypocrites, I say!

Yeah insufferable isn't the word I'm afraid!

I will say it was insufferable having to watch the two of them together, Ray & Jenna I mean. Two bland characters keeping each other company!

Ray of course was a grade A hypocrite. Even when Jock was alive he enjoyed giving little Lucy biology lessons up in the hayloft! I only hope he sat on a bit of hay the wrong way!

As for Jenna & Bobby as teens, its clear that Jenna was besotted by all the Ewing money & the chance to bed the youngest Ewing boy. As I've said before the Wade tramp (not the Winger tramp!) had her own agenda into worming her way into the Ewing family.

I'm glad it didn't work but that's mainly down to the fact that Jock couldn't stand Elvis Presley singing! Here he is ordering Teresa to switch the tuner band over!!

 

[Jock-O-Lantern]

Ray had some nerves. He’s suggest Jenna send HER child out of the country and has an affair the first chance he gets. Most women would have left his ass immediately.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Ray had some nerves. He’s suggest Jenna send HER child out of the country and has an affair the first chance he gets. Most women would have left his ass immediately.

Well Donna certainly did, she got fed up with Ray's insecurities about her successes like her book and buying an oil company.

Although I will admit that I hate that Leonard Katzman split the two of them up.

As I've said in other threads Susan Howard didn't deserve to be dropped from the show. They should've gotten rid of Priscilla Presley instead.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Well Donna certainly did, she got fed up with Ray's insecurities about her successes like her book and buying an oil company.

Although I will admit that I hate that Leonard Katzman split the two of them up.

As I've said in other threads Susan Howard didn't deserve to be dropped from the show. They should've gotten rid of Priscilla Presley instead.

Everybody liked Ray and Donna together -- their own little corner of the show, but Steve Kanaly admitted that although he liked Susan Howard and they got along well, he found Rau duller to play when Ray & Donna were happily married because she would be on one of her crusades and Ray would have challenging lines like: "Sounds like yer doin' the right thing, Donnah..."

Miss Howard should have been around for one more season to help from Washington the Ewings get the family business' name back. But she'd been critical -- publicly -- about the use of The Dream, so, between that and Telepictures slashing the Lorimar shows' budgets, Susan Howard was a goner.

The very fact that Donna was staying in her hotel's "The Arlington Suite" and she was placed in all black at the steaming Southfork Barbecue (or was it the bridal shower??) proved Katzman was out to get her a la "this star is fading fast."

 

[Piggyrella Sanderson]

Everybody liked Ray and Donna together -- their own little corner of the show, but Steve Kanaly admitted that although he liked Susan Howard and they got along well, he found Rau duller to play when Ray & Donna were happily married because she would be on one of her crusades and Ray would have challenging lines like: "Sounds like yer doin' the right thing, Donnah..."

Miss Howard should have been around for one more season to help from Washington the Ewings get the family business' name back. But she'd been critical -- publicly -- about the use of The Dream, so, between that and Telepictures slashing the Lorimar shows' budgets, Susan Howard was a goner.

The very fact that Donna was staying in her hotel's "The Arlington Suite" and she was placed in all black at the steaming Southfork Barbecue (or was it the bridal shower??) proved Katzman was out to get her a la "this star is fading fast."

And then this...

Oleeeee...!​

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Everybody liked Ray and Donna together -- their own little corner of the show, but Steve Kanaly admitted that although he liked Susan Howard and they got along well, he found Rau duller to play when Ray & Donna were happily married because she would be on one of her crusades and Ray would have challenging lines like: "Sounds like yer doin' the right thing, Donnah..."

Miss Howard should have been around for one more season to help from Washington the Ewings get the family business' name back. But she'd been critical -- publicly -- about the use of The Dream, so, between that and Telepictures slashing the Lorimar shows' budgets, Susan Howard was a goner.

The very fact that Donna was staying in her hotel's "The Arlington Suite" and she was placed in all black at the steaming Southfork Barbecue (or was it the bridal shower??) proved Katzman was out to get her a la "this star is fading fast."

Well Susan Howard could see what made a classy storyline & what made a crap one!

Katzman on the other hand thought that a crap storyline was a classy one!

Whilst he mostly made a good job with season ten, the season's after that were all a bit dubious.

Such a shame he became a burnt out hasbeen with no objective creativity!

 

[Spooky Owl!]

And then this...

View attachment 39515

Oleeeee...!​

You found a picture of it...!. Poor melting Susan in the Texas sun -- it's like Uncle Lenny was trying to bake her to death, and entomb her at Arlington.