An aging cast

[Crimson]

I think Katzman said that if he knew it was going to run as long as it did, he wouldn’t have burned through story as quickly as they did. But that just would have made it slower.

As if the pacing of 80s TV wasn't slow enough; they'd have had to hit daytime TV levels of pacing. "Something happened! Let's slowly talk about it for 4 weeks."

 

[the-lost-son]

As if the pacing of 80s TV wasn't slow enough; they'd have had to hit daytime TV levels of pacing. "Something happened! Let's slowly talk about it for 4 weeks."

Right. The writing got dumber. In the later years you could miss several episodes, but that was no problem because it was so slow and tedious anyway. There were no unexpected twists and turns and they had to speak constantly about what was happening recently. TNT Dallas did the same when each episode someone else got Jr's letter and gave his/her two cents about it.

Here is another example:
The show once managed to portray Asian oil leases, off shore drilling and tundra torque drill bits (in a simplified version though).
Now there is con men Casey Denault whose storyline can be anticipated months before:

 

[Pamela_E]

I hated the pairing of JR and Cally, young enough to be his grandaughter and it made JR look like a pervy/dirty old man, it didnt sit well with me at all

However if it was Kimberley Cryder/Mandy or that ilk it would have been more believable

The fact JR would be with a younger woman was believable but it was perhaps the tone that was jarring.

JR Ewing had been the scary monster in the show, suddenly the tone changed. We stepped into comedy and parody perhaps too far. Maybe that was them acknowledging the cast were older and with that came a shift.

It would be like turning Michael Myers into a slapstick character for laughs, rather than a scary psychopath.

There was always a sense of humour to JR, but it was dark humor. At the start of this storyline it was blatant, plus probably really offensive (a bit like when Eastenders went to Ireland).

I'm sure many of us secretly hoped JR would be back to his old ways when Cally revealed she wasn't pregnant, but instead he laughed it off. This was the man who at one time felt his legacy was really important.

But I feel Cally did successfully create a character many cared about.

I also liked her relationship with April and Lucy.

Of course there were many directions they could have taken the show.

But times were changing.

I always wondered if the tone was wrong and if becoming more PC and moralistic was right.

Such as was it right that JR got his comeuppance at the end of the series or should they have done away with the moral side and have him win over everyone.

 

[Karin]

I might be in the minority here but I began watching Dallas at the age of 11. It was season 11 (DVD) then. I could relate to Charlie, John Ross and Christopher. I also loved the younger characters like Lucy, April, Cally, James and Michelle.

Larry Hagman (*1931)

During the late eighties I started to have a hard time that JR had still so many affairs. I know there are plenty of real-life examples, but when JR married Cally, it was cringeworthy. She could have been his granddaughter.

I agree that they were mismatched. But since Cathy Podewell was born in 1964 she was actually not young enough to be his granddaughter. There was a 33 year age gap. So I would say she was young enough to be his daughter. Also I didn't realize until I was in my 20s just how big the age gap between JR and Cally was.

Such as was it right that JR got his comeuppance at the end of the series or should they have done away with the moral side and have him win over everyone.

That is an excellent question. I know I would have preferred a different ending. Although JR was a bad guy, he was the guy we loved to hate, not just hated. So I know I would have preferred a happy ending. I just couldn't stand the idea of JR killing himself in the end, that was in fact the reason why my sister and I began writing on our Dallas fanfic in 1994. To fix the bad ending. But then the story took on a life of it's own as Dallas is really a never ending story. There is so much built in drama in the original characters that David Jacobs created. So if you do a character driven story it can just go on and on and on.

 

[Sarah]

I always found in hard to believe that JR would have stuck with Sue Ellen for so long as she got older. He was the kind of man that would have traded her in for someone younger like Mandy instead of keep returning to his ex wife. Also, portraying Bobby as Mr Irresistible Action Man might have washed early in Dallas's run but by the time he was well into his middle age it became less credible.

You're feking lucky I like you.

Even if Sue Ellen did age, her personality made her beautiful - unlike Mandy even who (only 8 years younger in reality) had an ugly personality that made her STINKIN regardless of her age. Sue Ellen could keep her personality and grace, would be home wrecker Winger had no hope once her alleged looks (bland as fek) were gone! She makes my piss boil!!!!!

Don't believe that about JR for a second either. Sue Ellen was his true love and you're not giving him enough credit bad as he could be at times. Not everyone basis love and relationships on tits and airheads. (Disclaimer: Not you Angela although I will slap your behind next time we meet).

 

[Angela Channing]

You're feking lucky I like you.

Even if Sue Ellen did age, her personality made her beautiful - unlike Mandy even who (only 8 years younger in reality) had an ugly personality that made her STINKIN regardless of her age. Sue Ellen could keep her personality and grace, would be home wrecker Winger had no hope once her alleged looks (bland as fek) were gone! She makes my piss boil!!!!!

Don't believe that about JR for a second either. Sue Ellen was his true love and you're not giving him enough credit bad as he could be at times. Not everyone basis love and relationships on tits and airheads. (Disclaimer: Not you Angela although I will slap your behind next time we meet).

Sarah, we have never agreed on JR, Sue Ellen and Mandy from the first day I joined this forum but that has never stopped me from liking you. :fondle:

I don't disagree that Sue Ellen was beautiful, fascinating and intelligent but that wasn't why JR kept going back to her, it was because of the lack of imagination of the scriptwriters and producers. In real life there are so many serial adulterers who leave their wives for younger women and I would have found that more credible than JR and Sue Ellen staying together after the way he treated her. I think he should have married Mandy and eventually do the same thing to her: leaving her for a younger woman.

JR did love Sue Ellen but that wasn't enough to keep them together; remember he arranged for Sue Ellen to catch him shagging Kimberly Cryder because he valued his marriage to his wife less than his business dealings. It was a strange type of love that realistically couldn't sustain a marriage.

Getting back to the subject of this thread, giving JR a younger wife would have been one way to address the aging Dallas cast and create more possibilities to develop new storylines.

 

[Seaviewer]

That said, I'm a little bit of a defender of Cally; at least she was played by a decent and game actress, and the JR/Cally marriage was an intentional mismatch -- it wasn't by accident.

Exactly the point I was going to make. The fact that JR was manoeuvred into a position that he couldn't get out of seemed amusing at the time but in hindsight it was the beginning of him becoming the loser of the final seasons.

 

[Chris2]

They would have been much better off having Sue Ellen become powerful or rich in her own right and wind up being a thorn in JRs side (a la Blake and Alexis) rather than having them continually reconcile. I guess she sort of eventually did, but her little lingerie business and dumb movie wouldn’t have scared JR in the old days.

 

[Herofan]

I agree the aging had an impact. I have a question: was J.R. being played the same age as Larry Hagman or younger? Larry was 47 when the show started.

I think they could have kept J.R.’s hair dark and it could have made him retain a younger look, but they seemed to want to highlight his aging and ho with the gray hair.

 

[tommie]

David Jacobs once said that Knots Landing was more difficult to produce than Dallas because you had to find reasons for the neighbors to interact instead of stopping to speak with each other (like many people do).

I think in the long run a show like Knots Landing is easier to produce because if you have a character that does something so horrible that other characters wouldn't interact with them realistically you can just write them out and have someone else move in. The issue with a show about family is that if one cast member opts to leave it ends up leaving a huge hole in the canvas that's hard to replace as there's only so many long-lost siblings/cousins/etc that you can realistically put into the show.

 

[the-lost-son]

I think in the long run a show like Knots Landing is easier to produce because if you have a character that does something so horrible that other characters wouldn't interact with them realistically you can just write them out and have someone else move in. The issue with a show about family is that if one cast member opts to leave it ends up leaving a huge hole in the canvas that's hard to replace as there's only so many long-lost siblings/cousins/etc that you can realistically put into the show.

During school breaks I worked as a mailman in the village of my parents (where everybody knows everybody).
It was a complete surprise to me how many people (out of the 500 households I delivered) stopped speaking to their neighbors (for unknown or minor reasons) and obviously were therefor unwilling to accept any parcels for each other.

In regards to TV productions I agree with you. If you try to mirror real life I tend to agree with David Jacobs.

 

[Rove]

I hated the pairing of JR and Cally, young enough to be his grandaughter and it made JR look like a pervy/dirty old man, it didnt sit well with me at all

It just creeped the hell out of me. In fear of hiding under the bed covers from @Sarah it might have been best to keep JR and Mandy together. I envisage JR and Mandy actually being in love and settled at Southfork. Rather than Sue Ellen create some business to hurt Mandy I would have preferred to watch a mature Sue Ellen lead a consortium of business leaders to improve the lives of Dallas citizens in some form of charity work.

With an aging cast I would have liked to see Sue Ellen grow in maturity rather than her constant battle with the bottle. While alcoholics fight this issue their entire lives we didn't need to see Sue Ellen fall off the wagon every other season. I thought her fight with the bottle during the "Dream Season" was Linda's best work and it felt the character had turned a corner.

I would go so far in allowing Mandy - again hiding behind the bed covers from @Sarah - having JR's baby. Allow this couple to have a blossoming relationship until one of JR's business deals hurts someone and somehow Mandy gets caught in the cross fire and is killed, leaving a grieving JR to raise their child. Sue Ellen discovers a side to JR she hasn't seen for some time and both she and JR rekindle their relationship and Sue Ellen returns to Southfork.

Anything would have been better than Cally.

 

[tommie]

The issue with Cally is that they basically played her up as the child bride, which is why it became so creepy.

JR potentially marrying a younger woman who is naive, an outsider and would be shocked at the world she was entering wouldn't actually be a bad idea in itself and might even introduce someone who the average viewer could relate to, but they clearly played up the creep factor.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Mandy gets caught in the cross fire and is killed,

Perhaps you should’ve put this part in the first line of your post if you wanted @Sarah to keep reading?

 

[Barbara Fan]

The issue with Cally is that they basically played her up as the child bride, which is why it became so creepy.

JR potentially marrying a younger woman who is naive, an outsider and would be shocked at the world she was entering wouldn't actually be a bad idea in itself and might even introduce someone who the average viewer could relate to, but they clearly played up the creep factor.

And they picked someone who couldnt act her way out of a paper bag

I always see JR as Donald Trump



Trump married Ivana, JR marries Sue Ellen, beauty queen, trophy wife but they get older and get dumped
meanwhile their husbands aquire dodgy hair lol

They look for a younger model of wife number 1
Melania, Mandy or anyother of JRs mistresses younger than Sue Ellen

But noy an iccky child bride - that was toe curling!!

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

A great cast though, I'm sure we can all agree on that? I hope!

 

[Sarah]

A great cast though, I'm sure we can all agree on that? I hope!

View attachment 28727

View attachment 28728

Best ever. No one like them then, now or ever. (The original cast I mean not some of the blow ins lol!)

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Sadly one member of the core cast sadly passed away during the show's run and whose character's storylines eventually became so pivotal to the show's longevity through the legendary battle for Ewing Oil.

I'm talking about the late great Jim Davis. God rest his soul.

I absolutely adored him as Jock Ewing. May He Rest In Peace.

 

[darkshadows38]

it is quite shocking and just plain feels weird that we have cast in their 60's,70's, 80's and maybe even 90's now. compared to how young some of them were back when it started.

 

[stevew]

This thread is not meant to be offensive. Dallas' cast aged really well, but nonetheless during such a long run age is a factor which has its influence if certain storylines work or don't. Lenny Katzman said in the early 90s that the show was produced with the same care like a decade before. But still the ratings decreased. I think age was one reason that some plots did not work (starting around 1986).

Here are some of the shows cast members with their birth years.

Larry Hagman (*1931)
Linda Gray (*1940)
Patrick Duffy (*1949)
Victoria Principal (*1950, probably)
Barbara Gel Geddes (*1922)
Steve Kanaly (*1946)
Priscilla Presley (*1945)
Ken Kercheval (*1935)

During the late eighties I started to have a hard time that JR had still so many affairs. I know there are plenty of real-life examples, but when JR married Cally, it was cringeworthy. She could have been his granddaughter.

The same goes for Cliff in the late 80s. His fights with JR started to remind me at Waldorf&Statler of the Muppet show. Once a heated, intense rivalry and now two 60 year old ones arguing about who got the bigger office.

Miss Ellie having a crying fit like a teenager (because Clayton spends time with Laurel Ellis) although she is a 70 year old grandmother.

Even Bobby&Pam remarrying in 1986. Both are in the middle of their 30s. It was a big issue 9 years ago when their parents had a bigger influence in their life's and the feud was still strong. But now as middle aged people and Jock, Digger and Rebecca gone, it didn't feel like a big thing anymore.

On top of that the young characters are too young. Christopher and John Ross are uninteresting/annoying because nobody wants to watch 12 year old ones arguing about card games or having trouble with their stepmums.

Interestingly, the producers addressed this age issue once, when JR's doctor told him to reduce the liquor at his age.

Do you agree? Do you think age contributed to success or failure of certain storylines?

In retrospect, I would have loved a time jump like Desperate Housewives did where all the children got old enough to have a real personality. Then you could have continued the saga in the next generation (like TNT tried). But time jumps were probably hard to sell in a series which dreamed a full year.

I do get your point, but there are certainly plenty of real life examples of men like JR now and then. The thing really is real life or not did it work for the show and I agree that it did not. By the time you get to the movies and JR starts with sex I was totally unimpressed. It's not like we saw Angela Channing bed hopping. It just doesn't make good tv. And I agree with JR and Cliff - it should have been left for comic relief on occasion, no more.

As for Miss Ellie, I did get her point, her insecurities and I thought that was palatable as a side sorry and maybe many older women did relate and did appreciate it. But again, at best a side story. With BBG health issue, I so no reason for story lines beyond occasional appearance. "JR leave me out of this. I have nothing to do with Ewing Oil any more, keep all this fighting at the office." That should have been it - certainly much better than brining on Donna Reed - just make her a reoccurring cast member, no need to story lines.

And Bobby and Pam getting back together for me was more a bit deal that the characters were able to put so much behind them and give it another go, more than the big deal of a Romeo and Juliet story it once was, but I agree there was a bit of a feel for me of "get over it already." That age issue was a big thing with Dallas TNT as well - I kept thinking "get over it already - grow up" so I certainly see what you're saying with the original.

Again, I didn't mind the younger kids stuff because it was just side line stuff. I agree I don't want too much of that kind of thing. There roles were just reoccurring and way to young to be the meat of the show.

I don't agree with the time jump. BUT they didn't need it. They had Lucy. If they had played her character right, much of the show could have been about her and those her age. J . R. finally gets to sit in Jock's seat, he's married to Sue Ellen and the drama between them is over - they settle into the patriarch and matriarch roles. Lucy, done with school is trying to find her role in the business, holding onto 10% of the company. Jack could have been younger, what role would he play? I wouldn't have minded James if the story had been better and more interesting - even a long lost kidnapped son story would have been an improvement.

Over all I get your point - there was a huge age gap with JR having kids so late in life. By the mid eighties JR should have been Jock in one form or another and something around that should have been in play with people in their 20's and 30's taking the reins as the next generation. Of course the fact that no matter what they do John Ross is the heir apparent would be a thorn in everyone's side.