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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Toni" data-source="post: 136161" data-attributes="member: 82">First of all here´s this for the very lovely [USER=18]@Karin Schill[/USER]::love8:Let´s move on. I believe it´s too simplistic to think that all of us fans would act or think the same way, and also that an adult person would react to a TV show like a teenager. We may have an "initial" opinion of a character from our first watch which may completely change with the passing of years.I dislike all about April for the abovementioned reasons but also because she kind of represents the decline of "Dallas". I don´t mean the obvious: her role of replacement for Pam. I mean a few things that are part of April´s character development and subplots. For one, she was introduced as the ex-wife of the son of a character who didn´t exist in the Ewingverse until Donna Reed´s appearance (go figure!): Jason Ewing. So she was part of one of the (least harmful) retcons in the show´s history, but April´s time on "Dallas" is full of them. Actually we could say she is a walking retcon...<img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTP74Un423IIOwtfBvigmutOvcAccZeOQ_jUC8xLKovpgMQUDZ2" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />1) She was a gold-digger who could even sleep with creepy Jeremy Wendell to get big bucks. Can you go any low? Well, yes, if we remember that she also flirted with Cliff Barnes and Wes Parmalee in one occasion. So she was clearly into older men. Retcon: She became obsessed with the (very hot) prince of yuppies Bobby James Ewing. <img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTXe0nPh4GEXTMy2kioxLS30Ify8wLfn_1mU4Sy7CZfeyca_xN8" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> "April, we have so much in common: I also love Campari with soda!"2) She didn´t only open her arms to old´ J.R. as part of the whole plot, but she did it several times. Why is this a retcon? Because when April was dating Bobby the following season, she confessed to him that she only did it ONCE, forced by J.R. to get what they both wanted. Just counting the times we saw J.R. walking into April´s bedroom, they were together in a couple of times. Or was the line to Bobby a way of implying that she was obviously lying to him in order to get into his pants? <img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRl9vrPIL3gRWmJMxaaxDTKBQeRBGCowqkrxaOKGsQnCln7NklF" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> "J.R., I want to be a regular. Give it to me!" "Sweetie, let´s see your acting chops..."3) So far, April was playing the victim role to attract the most shining knight in all Texas! And lying, because she was a big fat liar. She lied to the judge in her divorce hearing saying that she and Jack had bought a lot of things still unpaid (explained in April´s first scene); she lied to Bobby in her confession; she lied to Nicholas Pearce when she agreed to keep mum about his mysterious family (and caused indirectly the death of her detective because of that); she lied to her mother when got a call from her and told her she had a great life in Dallas, when actually she had a depression over the dumbest thing: not being invited to the Ewing BBQ. And then came her sister Michelle and April didn´t stop preaching her. St. April! Another retcon...Come on, Stevens woman! Grow up and fast!<img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTOv1XNFqOe7ZDx_L4E0pZqFQRKAMvMSOqDiUqoEw-1z6y9YJj0" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> So she wanted to go to the BBQ to get dressed LIKE THAT?4) Chasing Bobby became undeniable stalking when she followed her in his and J.R.´s trip to Austria. J.R. was in his honeymoon and Bobby was then available, yes, but when you chase someone you know from one country to another, and set up with him a Barbara Cartland-like appointment in a castle, without telling him who you are, in my book that´s stalking. Not to mention that April was recovering from a beating in Tommy McKay´s hands, which usually doesn´t make you feel like romancing and traveling around! But hey, Bobby, here´s a woman who is falling at your feet and wants to play the maid to rescue as you did with Pam in the good ol´ times. Let´s retcon Bobby now!<img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQTCUtyVJnGqMXmNsAfrtK210hBHcKfckQ11bl43ds_m9loP9x4" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> And from now on, Patrick Duffy will be playing a goat... 5) One of the nastiest things she did in the show was attacking Bobby´s other lovers (aka "the Bobbysuckers") verbally, no matter where they met. This was routine on series like "Dienasty" but not on "Dallas", where most women were a classy act (*cough cough* except you know who...). April was quite obviously a bitter loser, and she showed her manners in public (double shame!), even at OBB. Again, the latter seasons show April playing the model sister before Michelle, and well, again Bobby is shown as a passive, indecisive man who sees a double of her missing ex-wife and lets April go and begins to court the double! Formerly a man of honor, now he is retconned to become a total prick (not that April might be better than Margaret Michaels´ character!).[ATTACH=full]12871[/ATTACH] When Pam met April: "Very nice. Cliff, who is that whore you are with?"6) The top of retcons comes when April visits her mum at her hometown and the latter turns out to be a religious woman who supposedly tried to give her daughters a good education. Bad job, mommie dearest, in both cases! So April came from a conservative family and even finished high school, but somehow she ended up married to the Jacko (for Jack)...And the whole episode sort of implies that she always wanted to have a family and missed the peace and quietness of her town...She even has girlfriends there!! What does this have to do with the April that first came to Dallas and spent all the day getting tanned by the pool (and not getting hit by anyone there, really?)? At the end, she almost made me miss dear ol´ Afton and her "steal me away" tunes...! Retcon, retcon, retcon...[ATTACH=full]12870[/ATTACH] "You got some hate mail? Who would want to hate me?"One of the reasons that made me love "Dallas" was the fact that every turn and twist mattered, and nothing was ever forgotten (unless you slept with the foreman, of course...). It was like a big, pulpy American novel that was more and more absorbing, the saga CBS asked for, and even much more. I never watched the show to see good vs. bad, but to see the "greys" (pun intended) in every character, from Miss Ellie to Bobby to Jock and J.R. Seeing even Katherine´s real sweetness or compassion every once in awhile made me love the character even more.[ATTACH=full]12872[/ATTACH] "Oh right now, I´d love to save those poor, poor whales..."With so many retcons, especially after the dream solution (one whole year retconned, could it get worse? Oh yes, it could...), the show stopped being that big novel and became a big-budget daytime soap parody instead. One day you could end a season with Sue Ellen shooting J.R. a few bullets, and the next season, J.R. was perfect and no bullet had touched him (and Sue Ellen didn´t even cry for her dead lover for weeks...). It was like a total reset whenever they noticed the ratings were down as they did after Pam´s accident (really after Bobby´s death). And part of that was because of such characters as April...and Laurel Ellis, Lisa Alden, Kay Lloyd, Wilson Cryder, Dandy Dandridge, Tommy McKay, Tammy Kent, Vanessa Beaumont, Stephanie Rogers, etc. <img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTzV5uqaGzJthHKtX-lKvXRAonbuVu-xw7eKYjzXzJsv2a4X1bB" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> The unpopular guest stars from "Dallas" were put on this bus and abandoned in some desert. It was the "Cheater Bus Company". "Mandy Winger, your topless driver." I´m not including here all the new characters because I think some of them worked well at first, and others like James and Michelle, really were needed in a soap of the 90´s. James was eye-candy and right for his role, especially and in his first season, and Michelle was hit-and-miss, but eye-candy anyway, and also well-cast, though she became too relevant in the final season. She might as well have ridden into the sunset after April´s wedding. Besides, Michelle, the sister we didn´t know that existed, gave April a "raison d´être" before Ms. Wilson got pregnant and asked to be axed (pun intended too). Brothers and sisters and exes and parents populate soaps and are what they are made of.I hope something of this makes any sense anyway...:h3:</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?