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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spooky Owl!" data-source="post: 428248" data-attributes="member: 57984">I didn't have any problem with Donna, or Susan's performance, in her last year on the show -- and even the Ray/Donna divorce made some sense, as the show had always pushed the "Cowboy and the Lady" issue in the script, the innate problems between them. And the stubbornness that Ray had often displayed about her successes finally overtook Donna as well, and so the marriage ended.That happens. But keeping Donna around for at least another year, while the Ewings grapple with their weakened company, and trying to get its name back, would also have made sense -- she could have helped them from Washington, D.C.And while Lorimar, under the new auspices of Telepictures, was slashing budgets and cutting core cast members from their other shows, too, the DALLAS producers telling Susan that her character "no longer had any validity" is pretty cold.She's been pretty astute in some of her commentary over the years. She described the use of The Dream as "the audience abused again," and framed the entire DALLAS series (when people foolishly questioned her Christianity for appearing in such a salacious TV series) as being "one great big morality play, with all these wealthy, privileged people with every imaginable advantage, constantly stabbing away at each other --- over nothing." (I, myself, have described DALLAS as very Old Testament --- while DYNASTY was very New Testament, in that it had a savior, Krystle, who was ultimately crucified as per expectation, along with the writing).It's funny that, per the video [USER=82]@Toni[/USER] posted above, the DYNASTY stars knew the DALLAS story details better than Susan did -- but if The Dream explanation had to be used, it would make much more sense if it had been Bobby's dream.Katzman had hired Susan for both PETROCELLI and DALLAS. So he probably felt "betrayed" that she'd come out against the use of The Dream so publicly.But, of course, she was right.David Jacobs told Uncle Lenny that the dream was a "terrible" idea, and says Katzman asked (probably contemptuously) if Jacobs could think of a better one. Jacobs, who has said he would have used a different explanation, probably could've come up with something better, but Katzman undoubtedly wanted to use The Dream (to wipe out Peter Dunne's admittedly-flawed work).The audience wasn't a consideration in this. And just before the '86/'87 season began airing, the actors were told -- like Howard Keel -- to go around telling the press that "it's the dream" in order "to cut the anger." But that didn't work, because it was so un-DALLAS that people just assumed it was a tabloid fantasy.<img src="https://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/data/1058/dall82.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 763px" /></blockquote>

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