How insulting was the Matt Cantrell character fiasco?

[Julia's Gun]

Re-watching the dream season again, and I'm really loathing Matt Cantrell.
I hate how he was "re-introduced" by having practically every member of the main cast drooling over him as some long lost great friend of Bobby that we've never heard of.
Even poor Miss Ellie had to say "Matt, great to see you again" as if they've been freinds for years, but this silly paper-thin character has just been created by writers who have already run out of ideas.
Why insult the viewer's intelligence by making us believe he was Bobby's great friend who he had invested in, but all had happened off screen. Yes he is deceiving Pam with JR, but I hate the way his macho ego is forced upon us mid-season and then dominates at the expense of poor bi-sexual Jack, who Larry and Lenny Katzman obviously didn't like and decide to sideline.

Jack and Jenna should have become an item, Pam and JR working together at Ewing oil should have been the main storyline of the season, and Matt Cantrell - along with Angelica Nero (although I love Babs Carrera) - should never even have existed.

This is why the dream season failed...... It was okay up until episode 15. Then it all just falls apart....

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Matt Cantrell did seem to be a "flipping" of the old Guzzler dynamic.

Oh, the Peter Dunne era... He tried some new things. Some of them didn't work.

 

[Mustard]

I liked the storyline.

 

[Julia's Gun]

I liked the storyline.

Care to elaborate at all?

(I'll try to stay calm.)

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

all I know is that I'm absolutely certain that no one on the face of god's green earth ever dreamed (even Pam) that there could possibly be any famous actress named Farrah Fawcett-Cantrell!

(actually, I found the whole emerald thing goofily entertaining, if far afield from classic Dallas. Now the one that they introduced out of nowhere that everyone of course knew all about but never mentioned in the first several years that drove me nuts was the whole Jason Ewing thing. What garbage! They fouled up the whole origin story of the show just to introduce a couple of wildly forgettable cousins noted mainly for looking good by the pool, who were completely gone from the show and never mentioned again within a couple of years. Well-nigh blasphemous!)

 

[Mustard]

Care to elaborate at all?

(I'll try to stay calm.)

It was something different down there in South America with the emerald mines.

I do agree that Jack should have been heavily involved in Ewing Oil at this time, and would have worked well with Pam as being the main ones involved in doing business with Matt Cantrell regarding those mines. Jack and Grace were a better pair than Jack and Jenna. I'd have laid the Jack and Grace affair on a little thicker, as well as Angelica's sense of being betrayed before she kills Grace.

Dallas made a big mistake in not seizing their chances to move on to new dynamics and instead trying to go back to the dynamics that were years in the past.

 

[Mustard]

(actually, I found the whole emerald thing goofily entertaining, if far afield from classic Dallas. Now the one that they introduced out of nowhere that everyone of course knew all about but never mentioned in the first several years that drove me nuts was the whole Jason Ewing thing. What garbage! They fouled up the whole origin story of the show just to introduce a couple of wildly forgettable cousins noted mainly for looking good by the pool, who were completely gone from the show and never mentioned again within a couple of years. Well-nigh blasphemous!)

Jason Ewing was first mentioned in Season 8 DVD. I don't think it fouls up things. Jason didn't get on with Digger, and Jock defended Digger in those days, so Jason went his own way pretty early on by wandering around with his oil work, mostly in Alaska.

 

[Jimmy Todd]

I would have liked if the Matt Cantrell character was on for a few episodes if the plot was Pam figured out it was a scheme by JR, played along for a bit, then confronted JR and pulled the rug out from under him. She could say to him, "I thought you learned nine years ago not to underestimate Mrs. Pamela Ewing? You're slipping, JR."

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I also feel the introduction of the long-lost Ewing brother, Jason, didn't really screw up the backstory -- the umbrella explanation was something I found acceptable.

The emerald mine scenario was something thrown together to explain Pam's one-episode absence (and her oddly-swollen mug upon returning) after Voctoria experienced a real-life medical emergency, ostensibly a back injury.

So, in their defense, they didn't have much planning time.

 

[Angela Channing]

Matt Cantrell did seem to be a "flipping" of the old Guzzler dynamic.

That's a really good observation. I would have found Matt Cantrell a far more interesting and believable character had he been Guzzler recast as Marc Singer.

 

[tommie]

I had completely blocked him out of my mind, which says a lot about his memorability. He was obviously just there because they didn't like Dack Rambo.

 

[Laurie Marr]

All I can recall of him is a tendency to place his hands on his hips in a buccaneering manner.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

That's a really good observation. I would have found Matt Cantrell a far more interesting and believable character had he been Guzzler recast as Marc Singer.

It's nice to think that Guzzler wasn't so clinically depressed to prevent him from getting his act together and developing Marc Singer's bod.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I had completely blocked him out of my mind, which says a lot about his memorability. He was obviously just there because they didn't like Dack Rambo.

Just like Angelica upstaged Pam -- her entry into Ewing Oil perhaps the entire series' biggest wasted opportunity ever.

 

[Chris2]

Bobby loved emeralds.

 

[James from London]

I really like his speech about how much he hated playing football in college. There aren't many DALLAS characters you can imagine saying a line like, "It’s a profane and painful way to spend a Saturday afternoon." It made an interesting counterpoint to his Rambo-esque appearance.

Matt: I never did care much for the game, but Bobby did. He made me try out for the team with him. He made me work harder than anyone else too. He pushed me. He used to say to me, “You can do it, Matt, you can do it!” I used to say to him, “I don’t wanna do it, Bobby, I don’t wanna do it!” Bobby made first-string quarterback,;I made third-string halfback. It couldn’t have worked out better. He did all the actual playing and I was sitting nice and safe over on the bench. After the game, he’d get all the cheers and I’d get all the cheerleaders. Everything was perfect until the first-string halfback flunked math and the second stringer’s family moved to Tulsa. All of a sudden, I found myself in there, actually playing the game. Well, you know Bobby had a great arm, probably the best in the conference. Every time we’d get in the huddle, I’d beg him, “Throw the bomb.” He’d just look at me. He’d grin and call for a run up the middle. Do you know what it’s like to run up the middle? It’s like charging headlong into a long black tunnel full of broken bodies and horrible screams. All you can do is run as hard as you can. When you can’t run anymore, you punch and kick. It’s a profane and painful way to spend a Saturday afternoon. There are actually guys in that tunnel who like it in there. As for me, the only tunnel I ever liked was the tunnel leading out of the stadium.

Pam: I think you liked more than that. Bobby told me you made All-Conference with him twice.

Matt: He made me look good. He made us all look so damn good.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

Jason Ewing was first mentioned in Season 8 DVD. I don't think it fouls up things.

I also feel the introduction of the long-lost Ewing brother, Jason, didn't really screw up the backstory

it didn't derail the show or anything, but why mess with something that was simple and symmetrical and perfect for establishing the premise of the show? All they got out of it was two middling quasi-Ewings and a half-season of ultimately anticlimactic "will the Ewing Brothers lose Ewing Oil?" storyline. When we have Donna Reed exclaiming not all that convincingly, "Why of course! That's Jason!" or something like that, it's clear the show's not quite there in the same way as the previous couple of seasons.

Did Cliff end up with a chunk of Ewing Oil via one of Jamie's many deaths? I don't remember. It also pushed Jock firmly in the direction of sainthood, which I thought made him less interesting, @James from London's "the two sides of Jock" theory notwithstanding.

Hutch McKinney as Pam's biological father is kind of in the same category for me. Originally meant to be the season's cliffhanger, its thunder was largely stolen by JR's shooting, and the whole thing was barely mentioned after that. I guess it served to set the stage for Rebecca and make Pam having a biological child a possibility again, but they didn't have to diminish the Digger's Daughter premise to do that, I think.

It's nice to think that Guzzler wasn't so clinically depressed to prevent him from getting his act together and developing Marc Singer's bod.

The closed-captioners were criminally negligent in omitting 'great' from the Guzzler's line - "if it's not my great body you're after". Note what's missing from Pam's rebuke: a denial of said greatness!

But more seriously, I thought Cantrell was one of the more retroactively plausible "Pam's dream" aspects of that season. It's totally dreamlike to repurpose an old memory (Bobby's old college pal, who happened to come on to her) into something more esoteric and titillating - a chiseled, bare-chested adventurer mining for emeralds in far-off lands in Bobby's memory. The great Dr. Ellby would have had a field day with that one!

 

[Mustard]

I didn't like the Hutch as Pam's biological father bit. It wasn't needed. Digger's deathbed confession should have been of Rebecca possibly being alive. They probably made Hutch the biological father of Pam in order to get rid of the "Pam might pass on neurofibromatosis" stuff, but she didn't have a biological child anyway.

 

[Billy Wall]

I didn't like the Hutch as Pam's biological father bit. It wasn't needed. Digger's deathbed confession should have been of Rebecca possibly being alive. They probably made Hutch the biological father of Pam in order to get rid of the "Pam might pass on neurofibromatosis" stuff, but she didn't have a biological child anyway.

I didn’t like it either. It just created one more scenario that made the Barnes’ look inferior to the Ewing’s.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

I really like his speech about how much he hated playing football in college. There aren't many DALLAS characters you can imagine saying a line like, "It’s a profane and painful way to spend a Saturday afternoon." It made an interesting counterpoint to his Rambo-esque appearance.

Matt: I never did care much for the game, but Bobby did. He made me try out for the team with him. He made me work harder than anyone else too. He pushed me. He used to say to me, “You can do it, Matt, you can do it!” I used to say to him, “I don’t wanna do it, Bobby, I don’t wanna do it!” Bobby made first-string quarterback,;I made third-string halfback. It couldn’t have worked out better. He did all the actual playing and I was sitting nice and safe over on the bench. After the game, he’d get all the cheers and I’d get all the cheerleaders. Everything was perfect until the first-string halfback flunked math and the second stringer’s family moved to Tulsa. All of a sudden, I found myself in there, actually playing the game. Well, you know Bobby had a great arm, probably the best in the conference. Every time we’d get in the huddle, I’d beg him, “Throw the bomb.” He’d just look at me. He’d grin and call for a run up the middle. Do you know what it’s like to run up the middle? It’s like charging headlong into a long black tunnel full of broken bodies and horrible screams. All you can do is run as hard as you can. When you can’t run anymore, you punch and kick. It’s a profane and painful way to spend a Saturday afternoon. There are actually guys in that tunnel who like it in there. As for me, the only tunnel I ever liked was the tunnel leading out of the stadium.

Pam: I think you liked more than that. Bobby told me you made All-Conference with him twice.

Matt: He made me look good. He made us all look so damn good.

ah, another great aspect of "Cantrell as Pam's dream" - the original Guzzler was the established star "big man on campus" who coaxed a less-confident Bobby into gridiron success.