What Was He Going To Say??

[DallasFanForever]

Dang, in one season we had Alex Ward, Clint Ogden, and Leslie Stewart.. Bland, bland, and more bland. It's amazing that I still love season 4 because of Jock and the strength of the earlier episodes, but incredibly, the show was starting to slump just several episodes after JR's shooter was revealed. Don't get me wrong, there were good things throughout the whole season, but they really got some things wrong, especially in choosing love interests, or potential or actual affairs for the main characters, other than Dusty, of course.

It’s a letdown season for me compared to the previous one. Not a bad season, but measured against the one before and what was to come the next few years it’s not as good. That’s just my take.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

Dang, in one season we had Alex Ward, Clint Ogden, and Leslie Stewart.. Bland, bland, and more bland

as a professor of mine in school would say, “wall-to-wall vomit!”

 

[LMLDallas78]

but incredibly, the show was starting to slump just several episodes after JR's shooter was revealed.

That's the thing, Dallas was far too good far too soon and couldn't ever quite live up to that again, no matter how they tried. No way could that hysteria ever be recaptured again.

but they really got some things wrong

Yes they did and that's not just with the gift of hindsight talking. Most of the same people and those storylines were disliked first time round as well as today.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

It’s a letdown season for me compared to the previous one. Not a bad season, but measured against the one before and what was to come the next few years it’s not as good. That’s just my take.

it just had a ton of things going against it from the start, and the bad vibes continued all through the season:

- Musicians’ strike - repetitive stock cues that worked for the haunting early episode(s) in an arty, perhaps too-slow way that got old quickly. (At least it wasn’t cornpone John Parker.)

What was preventing them from purchasing rights to more stock music (maybe even something in a major key occasionally) once they realized the strike would last more than a couple of episodes? Still a mystery to me!

-The “Who Shot JR? “reveal: the most-watched episode ever, but filmed on the cheapo soundstage for secrecy (understandable, but an impediment to gravitas), and kind of sloppy and not all that well-acted on top of that. An unprecedented opportunity to hook new viewers and they mailed it in.

-Terrible love interest threats to JR and Bobby. Alex Ward and Clint Ogden are (intentionally, maybe?) no match for the Ewing Brothers, leagues below Dusty Farlow and Mark Graison.

- Leslie Stewart - why was JR obsessed with marrying someone blatantly, illogically undermining him and then outright trying to ruin him - in a drab, sexless manner no less, as opposed to Bond girls Holly Harwood and Angelica Nero ?

-Jim Davis’s illness and the divorce story - once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The poor guy could barely stand and yet he and Ellie are suddenly getting divorced after decades over a land deal about 1/100th the size of Ewing Oil? Jock’s intimidating physical vigor was the foundation of his character and mystique, and that’s completely gone by the indoor scenes at Lucy’s wedding.

An increasingly frail Jock’s going to give it all up - JR’s motivation and the source of all conflict of the first few seasons - for a stupid-ass resort on the Louisiana border? Yeah, it was really about Ray and Gary, but still… they should have changed course when they realized how sick Jim was. It looks like they did, anyway, in the last 3 episodes or so, with the abrupt reconciliation and “second honeymoon”.

Save the Takapa storyline for the dynamic Pat Powers!

Wasn’t the Asian deal fallout enough for the Ewings? It was at least as serious as BD Calhoun, right? A full-on sovereign government overthrow!

(I still liked it, though, but the show took a couple of years to peak again after that)

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

it just had a ton of things going against it from the start, and the bad vibes continued all through the season:

- Musicians’ strike - repetitive stock cues that worked for the haunting early episode(s) in an arty, perhaps too-slow way that got old quickly. (At least it wasn’t cornpone John Parker.)

What was preventing them from purchasing rights to more stock music (maybe even something in a major key occasionally) once they realized the strike would last more than a couple of episodes? Still a mystery to me!

-The “Who Shot JR? “reveal: the most-watched episode ever, but filmed on the cheapo soundstage for secrecy (understandable, but an impediment to gravitas), and kind of sloppy and not all that well-acted on top of that. An unprecedented opportunity to hook new viewers and they mailed it in.

-Terrible love interest threats to JR and Bobby. Alex Ward and Clint Ogden are (intentionally, maybe?) no match for the Ewing Brothers, leagues below Dusty Farlow and Mark Graison.

- Leslie Stewart - why was JR obsessed with marrying someone blatantly, illogically undermining him and then outright trying to ruin him - in a drab, sexless manner no less, as opposed to Bond girls Holly Harwood and Angelica Nero ?

-Jim Davis’s illness and the divorce story - once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The poor guy could barely stand and yet he and Ellie are suddenly getting divorced after decades over a land deal about 1/100th the size of Ewing Oil? Jock’s intimidating physical vigor was the foundation of his character and mystique, and that’s completely gone by the indoor scenes at Lucy’s wedding.

An increasingly frail Jock’s going to give it all up - JR’s motivation and the source of all conflict of the first few seasons - for a stupid-ass resort on the Louisiana border? Yeah, it was really about Ray and Gary, but still… they should have changed course when they realized how sick Jim was. It looks like they did, anyway, in the last 3 episodes or so, with the abrupt reconciliation and “second honeymoon”.

Save the Takapa storyline for the dynamic Pat Powers!

Wasn’t the Asian deal fallout enough for the Ewings? It was at least as serious as BD Calhoun, right? A full-on sovereign government overthrow!

(I still liked it, though, but the show took a couple of years to peak again after that)

Good summary.

Jock and Ellie never would have wanted Leslie at Southfork. Even so, JR never would have wanted someone as drab as Leslie
(except in a badly written storyline)

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Dang, in one season we had Alex Ward, Clint Ogden, and Leslie Stewart.. Bland, bland, and more bland. It's amazing that I still love season 4 because of Jock and the strength of the earlier episodes, but incredibly, the show was starting to slump just several episodes after JR's shooter was revealed. Don't get me wrong, there were good things throughout the whole season, but they really got some things wrong, especially in choosing love interests, or potential or actual affairs for the main characters, other than Dusty, of course.

It’s a letdown season for me compared to the previous one. Not a bad season, but measured against the one before and what was to come the next few years it’s not as good. That’s just my take.

Yes, this...

- Musicians’ strike - repetitive stock cues that worked for the haunting early episode(s) in an arty, perhaps too-slow way that got old quickly. (At least it wasn’t cornpone John Parker.)

Musical score is sooooooo important. It's not just obligatory background noise.

And the tracked, uncredited stock score from John Scott not only slowed the season down, it went on for far too long. It should never have gone past "The Prodigal Mother" with Pam's episode-ending freeze frame the end of it --- at the very latest!

 

[Toni]

Yes, this...



Musical score is sooooooo important. It's not just obligatory background noise.

And the tracked, uncredited stock score from John Scott not only slowed the season down, it went on for far too long. It should never have gone past "The Prodigal Mother" with Pam's episode-ending freeze frame the end of it --- at the very latest!

Disagree. "The Prodigal .." deserved a great score by Broughton or Warren instead of those bum-bums! In my mind I add the Rubin score of Crash of 82 to this episode. Sort of full circle...

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Disagree. "The Prodigal .." deserved a great score by Broughton or Warren instead of those bum-bums!

Ideally, of course, you're right. But I could tolerate the stock score up until that point. Afterwards, no.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

Musicians’ strike - repetitive stock cues that worked for the haunting early episode(s) in an arty, perhaps too-slow way that got old quickly. (At least it wasn’t cornpone John Parker.)

"The Prodigal .." deserved a great score by Broughton or Warren instead of those bum-bums! In my mind I add the Rubin score of Crash of 82 to this episode. Sort of full circle...

now that I think of it… I really want to see/hear Runaway from the early standalone period with the creepy, artsy stock music of season 4 - it could be just the thing to transform that episode from painfully corny to a masterpiece of psychological horror

 

[Toni]

now that I think of it… I really want to see/hear Runaway from the early standalone period with the creepy, artsy stock music of season 4 - it could be just the thing to transform that episode from painfully corny to a masterpiece of psychological horror

Nah, it deserved the main theme of "B.J. and the Bear"...