Curse of the Cliffhanger

[Laurie Marr]

Dallas was not the first serialised drama to use a cliffhanger - but it did confect one that became perhaps the most famous in pop culture. I do wonder whether it did damage to the show long term, though. After JR was pumped full of lead there arose an expectation that Dallas would honour the tradition and it did so in increasingly outlandish ways.

The Dallas of 78-83 would have crumbled under the weight of a resurrected Bobby, precisely because for all its soapy elements it maintained the integrity of its core dramatic narrative.

Things looked very different a couple of years later. As the plots culminated in more exotic ways the overall tone of the show shifted too - and not for the better.

 

[darkshadows38]

i think it did hurt it we all know how good the who Shot JR ? storyline was and how big it was though i was only almost 2 years old when that cliffhanger did Originally air.

so i don't remember anything from that year at all let alone a tv show. anyways, the reason i say it hurt it was than they started to try to outdo that episode and while yes some of them cliffhangers are memorable such as the fire for example. but though we had some pretty strong cliff hangers for quite awhile than they i think hurt the show because the fans expected a cliffhanger as well. i think tv shows in itself has been trying to have a cliffhanger as big as the Who Shot JR? that happened in summer of (1980) but it's never been as big or will it ever be in tv history there's been a lot of good ones and with today's shows it's awful that damn near all of them have them i f.. hate them with a passion and my reason is really simple, if you know the show is going to be renewed that's one thing but when you do a cliffhanger than cancel the show you never get that resolve. Twin Peaks as i always use as a good example though we did get a resolve to that one nearly 20 some years later.

showrunners don't always know if they are going to be renewed or not. Legend's one of the Arrow verse shows was cancelled on a huge cliffhanger and that was made in due haste as the showrunner thought they had a chance on coming back they have since regretted doing that cliffhanger. but that's my opinion anyways

 

[pete lashmar]

They had good ones, poor ones and OMG ones. For me, after Who shot J.R..? I would put the fire and who shot Bobby...? and Bobby's death as the OMG ones, Pam's crash was also OMG, but the resolution was very very poor. Who's dead in the pool I found quite poor, as was Sue Ellen's exit. Bobby's resurrection was good but destroyed the viewers trust in the show and Sue Ellen shooting J.R multiple times was good, but the resolution again was down right dreadful and turned the show into a farce.

Did it do damage to the show? No, as a viewer I always really looked forward to the end of season episode, but the decision to recast Ellie & bring back Bobby from the dead did irreparable and long term damage for the show generally in my opinion.

I take the point on cliffhangers being unresolved for shows being cancelled, it really is so damn frustrating. One of the first shows to do it was Farscape with the 2 leads obliterated in a boat but fans were lucky enough to get a mini series the following year to give the show a proper resolution, not all fans are so lucky.

I feel that if a show is on the line about being renewed, extra footage resolving a cliffhanger should be filmed and in the event of not being renewed the footage can be added to home releases or youtube/Instagram etc etc, so fans are not left hanging.

That said, some cliffhangers for shows when they end can be legendary and keep fans discussing it for years....such as Blake's 7 which had probably the greatest end of series episode ever, yet leaves the viewer in complete and utter shock with no resolution at all....and nor should there ever be one.

 

[darkshadows38]

exactly they should film more than one ending, but i can think of one that did just that in one case Castle in one ending that was never used i think Kate died in but i could be wrong on that, one was a cliffhanger in case they weren't renewed but they were renewed but since fans hated not having her in the following season the show was axed really by fans this time and i don't mind that on this time cause the show would not have lasted longer than that one season had it went on further without Kate.

and i agree with you what you said about Dallas well. i've always wished that they really should f.. stop until the last minute to either renewing a show or canceling it.

how hard is it to give the show runners enough time to film either an ending or a cliffhanger. tell them if the show is cancelled before it ends, in short always film 2 endings so you always have one you can use if you are renewed and one if it ends. some shows are smart enough to do that actually.

 

[pete lashmar]

Well TNT spent a fortune filming new footage for their final season just to blow up Christopher and create a big juicy cliffhanger in order to get the network to renew the show....and the new bosses at TNT still cancelled it....why not just screen their original end of season ending and leaving things open??? Killing off Christopher (which a further season would have confirmed) was just a stupid publicity stunt that backfired badly.

 

[darkshadows38]

i haven't seen any of that show outside of the 1st season which i really enjoyed. they killed off Christopher? why?

 

[pete lashmar]

i haven't seen any of that show outside of the 1st season which i really enjoyed. they killed off Christopher? why?

They were not sure they would get a 4th season and so the showrunner Cynthia Cidre asked TNT for more money so they could film a new cliffhanger for the season 3 finale, which would make bosses greenlight a 4th season. They filmed Christopher getting into a truck and it exploded....end of series.....and TNT didn't pick up the series again.

The original ending was (as I understand from memory) John Ross meeting J.R's daughter but not revealing who she was. Cidre misjudged the entire cliffhanger and basically killed off Christopher with the season tagline "Which Ewing will die!?" - fans of the show were not happy and fans who hated the show were even more unhappy, especially as he went the same was as his mother - which they botched up too years earlier.

 

[the-lost-son]

Creating a cliffhanger and a satisfying conclusion has always been and will ever require the most demanding task.

I loved the built-up to Bobby's shooting. All the red herrings indicating JR might be the one to get the bullet only for the Bobster to tumble out of the armchair.
It managed to bring multiple plots together in a single scene, having consequences for each and leaving an audience behind clueless how the story was going to unfold. The first 3-4 episodes were fine, because JR could have been the target. (Katherine as the killer was not that thrilling.) But in total it was great.

Other cliffhangers were lackluster because it was just a single plot culminating in one scene (JR sanatorium, SE leaving) or the outcome was eather clear (JR shot by SE, Cliff in a coma).

I would have loved a cliffhanger with Miss Ellie. Maybe an explosion at Southfork, everyone blaming EwingOil or a guilt striken JR only for Lady Jessica returning.

Ending a TV series on a cliffhanger is a crime though. Alf is a notorious example, (where the main character is arrested in the last scene.) This is totally unnecessary and rather easy to avoid.

Dallas TNT (and CBS Dallas btw) should both have ended with a simple BBQ at Southfork.

 

[darkshadows38]

what they should do while we still have cast still alive is do a tv movie or a TV Movie and just finish off that cliff-hanger and resolve it. some shows do end really good like Boy Meets world for example had a great way to end it i think. not a soap i know but still. yeah sometimes the build up can be good such as in i think Season 8 of Smallviille you had a really good buildup with Doomsday who looked really bad on the show the CGI was really really awful when it came to him and the fight was like it felt like 10 seconds like it was an awful finale for season 8 the rest of the season i loved but the finale was awful.

 

[pete lashmar]

I agree that most shows shouldn't end their runs on a cliffhanger, certainly not with character's lives in the balance, I never watched The Sopranos but the reaction to the final episode was generally "WTF!!!".

However, shows like Lost & Game of Thrones had their audiences in their hands, gripped by unfolding plots - then the writers lost interest and sped things up too fast and they both ended with a very hostile reaction from fans.

With Game of Thrones the writing was on the wall from season 5, characters suddenly got from one place to another instantly whereas when they were following the books it was all at a much slower pace, giving the characters and plots time to develop. The final 2 series in particular were bad, but that final series destroyed the show IMO....it was so so rushed and bad both visually and plot wise.

With Lost the writers got so lazy that they created a magical stream in the penultimate ever episode that gave the show's ending a massively rushed and pointless ending, the sideways timestream plot made very little sense and all the incredible plot work from the past was made completely pointless, You don't always have to answer every question in s show finale, but some would have been nice on this occasion.

As for other TV shows that thrive on cliffhangers I would have to mention Doctor Who, both classic and new have had some awesome cliffhangers over the years.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I think these shows tend to work better -- depending on what one is looking for -- when they proceed in season long chapters, which DALLAS did particularly well in its key years. The cliffhanger becomes the natural end of one chapter and the implicit beginning of the next. So I have no problem with it, especially when it's structured and built to with some degree of artful skill.

Bad or smudgy writing is neither helped nor corrected with the use of the cliffhanger convention. But the cliffhanger, and the annual expectation of it, can give a certain kind of clarity to an ongoing stroryline, particularly when the show is any good and the producers understand their own product.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Most soap episodes end on a cliffhanger anyway, but I think it was the buzz and hype surrounding Who Shot JR?, rather than the scene itself - Julie Grey's death was far more shocking - that made them decide to reserve the more eventful stuff for the season finales.
Of course it's very difficult to create a hype, it's one of those things that happens or doesn't happen.
People love quizes and whodunnits and I guess that's what made WSJR? a very interactive storyline. It wasn't particularly groundbreaking, not even then, but it was the first time it was used in a season-long prime time drama series, a format that itself was relatively new.
Not that the story wasn't good or exciting, but I feel it was also very much the sum of circumstances which, imho, makes this cliffhanger a little bit overrated.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Wasn't the 'WSJR?' season supposed to end with Jock being arrested? Or was it Cliff leaving Digger's gravesite?

How different things would have been...

 

[darkshadows38]

well with LOST they had a huge board of things they did and want to do for the show they had it all mapped out i remember reading in (2008) when they said there was gonna be 2 more years of the show i was pissed at the time i wanted it on longer but i remember reading they had said they had the the rest of the year mapped out they knew what was going to happen next and how it was going to end. no doubt they changed that as time went on how it will end but that was planned.

i don't expect every show to do that but they knew when they were gonna end not all shows know that it was on their terms which you see often. though Supernatural did have it, had the guys not been ready to leave that would still be on the air they loved doing that show so much the President of CW was a massive fan and he told them as long as you want to do it the show is not going anywhere. that never happens or if it does it does it's really rare, having said that i do think as said tv shows should each season film 2 different endings but it all comes down to the network at the end of the day, well viewership of course as well but each season you see some shows get Renewed as Early as Jan. or December even. but for whatever reason some shows wait until the last f.. minute some wait until like June i dunno why but they do and that's not a good idea for their shows because as i said than you can give them time to have an ending and no cliffhanger and it wouldn't piss so many people off bu than that is common sense ya know? we must have not have common sense ya know? that was a well done cliffhanger Dallas post you made

 

[Lastkidpicked]

Very insightful posts!
We have to remember that in the days of the Dallas cliffhanger, there was no internet or other ways to find out what was going to happen.
We a had to wait until Friday night to see the cliffhanger resolved.
It's that week-long anticipation that made the cliffhangers so much fun.

 

[Chris2]

Bobby’s shooting was a great underrated cliffhanger. I remember how surprised we were that it was him in the chair.

The swimming pool cliffhanger would have been better if 1) it hadn’t been leaked to the press a week or two before airing; and 2) it hadn’t been so obvious that it was Kristin. We all knew it wouldn’t be Sue Ellen or Pam.

The fire was exciting and well staged. But we knew it would be resolved in about 10 minutes into the new season, and it was. That was what was so disappointing about Bobby’s return too. It was resolved in two minutes. The best cliffhangers, IMHO, have repercussions for a number of episodes into the new season.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

They had good ones, poor ones and OMG ones. For me, after Who shot J.R..? I would put the fire and who shot Bobby...? and Bobby's death as the OMG ones, Pam's crash was also OMG, but the resolution was very very poor. Who's dead in the pool I found quite poor, as was Sue Ellen's exit. Bobby's resurrection was good but destroyed the viewers trust in the show and Sue Ellen shooting J.R multiple times was good, but the resolution again was down right dreadful and turned the show into a farce.

Did it do damage to the show? No, as a viewer I always really looked forward to the end of season episode, but the decision to recast Ellie & bring back Bobby from the dead did irreparable and long term damage for the show generally in my opinion.

I take the point on cliffhangers being unresolved for shows being cancelled, it really is so damn frustrating. One of the first shows to do it was Farscape with the 2 leads obliterated in a boat but fans were lucky enough to get a mini series the following year to give the show a proper resolution, not all fans are so lucky.

I feel that if a show is on the line about being renewed, extra footage resolving a cliffhanger should be filmed and in the event of not being renewed the footage can be added to home releases or youtube/Instagram etc etc, so fans are not left hanging.

That said, some cliffhangers for shows when they end can be legendary and keep fans discussing it for years....such as Blake's 7 which had probably the greatest end of series episode ever, yet leaves the viewer in complete and utter shock with no resolution at all....and nor should there ever be one.

There is only one programme that I know of that had extra footage filmed in order to bring the show to a proper close.

That programme was the series spin off of Return To Eden.

It originally ended on a cliffhanger of Jake Sanders (Daniel Abineri) being shot accidentally by Jilly Stewart (Peta Toppano) with the character of Stephanie Harper (Rebecca Gilling) being blamed for it as Jake falls down the stairs to his death. The camera zooms in on Stephanie holding the gun before it freeze frames on her as the closing credits come up.

In the case of Return To Eden this was the programmes first season and in order for the show to be syndicated internationally it wouldn't qualify for syndication because the show ended on a cliffhanger which had no resolution. Therefore McElroy & McElroy the shows Producers, brought back some of the show's stars to shoot a five minute denouement which was tacked on to the end of the final episode. The decision to do this was purely financial so that the season could be sold internationally as a complete series.

It was a shame the show got cancelled at the end of it's first full series as it had great potential & is remembered fondly even today. Some of the earlier DVD releases of the series only end on the original cliffhanger but a newer re-release from last year now has the series complete with the final episode containing the revised ending.

Below is the re-edited ending to the final episode:

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

That was what was so disappointing about Bobby’s return too. It was resolved in two minutes. The best cliffhangers, IMHO, have repercussions for a number of episodes into the new season.

Exactly right. You just can't do it like they did it.

The Dream explanation was leaked in advance (Howard Keel said in an August print interview "it's the dream") and it was acknowledged that the leaking was done "to cut the anger" but that didn't work. The audience was simply not prepared for their DALLAS to pull something so cheap and lousy.

CBS should have told Katzman "no" but they didn't. David Jacobs told Katzman that the dream was a terrible idea, and Katzman responded if Jacobs had a better one; clearly, Leonard Katzman wasn't going to listen to Jacobs (who himself has admitted that he would have used a different explanation) as Jacobs had no real control over DALLAS, despite having created the series.

Besides, Katzman wanted, probably vindictively, to wipe out Peter Dunne's admittedly anemic work during the interim Bobby-less season, but doing it in one scene came off as high-handed, desperate, and contemptuous of the audience.

 

[GillesDenver]

There is only one programme that I know of that had extra footage filmed in order to bring the show to a proper close.

Models Inc did that as well.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Exactly right. You just can't do it like they did it.

The Dream explanation was leaked in advance (Howard Keel said in an August print interview "it's the dream") and it was acknowledged that the leaking was done "to cut the anger" but that didn't work. The audience was simply not prepared for their DALLAS to pull something so cheap and lousy.

CBS should have told Katzman "no" but they didn't. David Jacobs told Katzman that the dream was a terrible idea, and Katzman responded if Jacobs had a better one; clearly, Leonard Katzman wasn't going to listen to Jacobs (who himself has admitted that he would have used a different explanation) as Jacobs had no real control over DALLAS, despite having created the series.

Besides, Katzman wanted, probably vindictively, to wipe out Peter Dunne's admittedly anemic work during the interim Bobby-less season, but doing it in one scene came off as high-handed, desperate, and contemptuous of the audience.

Katzman was an idiot. It was a very large F**k You but not just to the audience but to the previous production team!!

He wanted total authority over Dallas at any price & if that just happened to damage the show itself I honestly don't think he cared! I think he hoped to ride it out and the audience would accept it. I suppose some did but quite a few fans noses were put out of joint by the revelation of it all being a dream of Pam's!

It was about power! Which is ironic because that's what's JR's goal was during the series run itself.

Behind the scenes there were power struggles too as I believe Philip Capice & Leonard Katzman didn't always see eye to eye.

Personally I think it was a very bad decision to get rid of Philip Capice and let Leonard Katzman have free reign over the show.

We only really had one great season under Katzman when he took control. That was season ten and even that season has a few flaws. Everything after season ten is when the rot began to set in storyline wise which I have touched on in other threads.

Philip Capice's name on the ending credits of Dallas showed that the series was a quality drama series, yeah including season nine the infamous dream season even though that season lost it's way slightly before it came to a close.

It's sad how Dallas ended up under Katzman, he was just a burnt out writer trying to keep a show going which was clearly past it's sell by date! That might be a bit harsh but unfortunately it's true because he became complacent just re-hashing storylines and introducing ones which made the existing characters behave very much out of character!

He shouldn't have come back! And neither should Patrick Duffy but it's all academic now. Dallas is dead. And even though I love it very much, I will always enjoy my DVD's (and hopefully Blu-ray's) despite the outlandish plot twists which saw season nine wrote off as a dream!





What I do want to say at this point is that without these two characters at the helm of Dallas during it's heyday it wouldn't've been the massive hit it became! Phillip Capice's name on the cliffhanger freeze frame is iconic for Dallas.