Bobby’s return announcement

[Grangehill1]

I’ve been looking at old articles and it’s seems Patrick’s return to Dallas was first publicised the beginning of April 1986.

UK viewers only started watched season 9 (dream) in March of 86. Was it only really a month of watching those episodes where the whole family are mourning it became public knowledge that Bobby was coming back????

I remember at the time watching but thought the news came out much later but it couldn’t have done.

we must have spent the whole of season 9 wishing for it to end!!!

 

[Karin]

I wonder if it was reported in the UK that Patrick would return at the time or was it just in the US?
Did people in UK know about it?

I know in the 1990s when I was watching Beverly Hills 90210 in the early '90s we were mostly unspoiled of what would happen. The only time we got spoilers was when someone had travelled to the US on vacation and watched an episode further ahead in the show. News just didn't travel as fast in the old days as there was practically no Internet.

Also I don't live in the UK, but weren't there a problem with the broadcast of season 8, (DVD 9) that had them release some episodes on VHS?

I do have an old VHS tape of the final episodes of the season that my sister found in some second hand shop in Scotland some 15 years ago.

 

[Grangehill1]

Season 8 (dvd) was split into two on original transmission. Dallas was always transmitted on the BBC and ITV bought the next series which didn’t go down well.

So the BBC threatened to stop showing episodes unless ITV withdrew. Otherwise they would have shown the remainder of season 8 on BBC and 9 on ITV at the same time.

Around Feb 1985 the BBC, very annoyed, stopped showing Dallas after Jenna is found with Naldo’s body. The programme was off the air for a number of weeks. ITV withdrew from the deal so the BBC got Dallas back and resumed showing season 8.

However part of the deal was that season 9’s transmission was to be delayed and we didn’t start seeing it until March 1986! It had started transmitting in the US in September 85!

Because of this a number of episodes from the beginning of season 9 were available on VHS. And at the end of the series as we were so far behind, the last two episodes were also released on VHS months before they aired.

It was public knowledge in the UK that Patrick was coming back but I can’t remember when we exactly found out. I would imagine it was pretty soon after the states.

 

[DallasFanForever]

I was only 11 at the time but I do remember the announcement being made here in the US. It definitely cast bit of a shadow over the rest of the season and all everyone was wondering was how they would bring Bobby back.

 

[Barbara Fan]

I wonder if it was reported in the UK that Patrick would return at the time or was it just in the US?
Did people in UK know about it?

If it was reporrted in USA one day, it made the UK papers the next day = I have it written in m y diary for Friday 11th April that Pat D is returning to Dallas and the following day the papers were full of Dallas and speculation
The epiosde that aired that week in UK was Winds of Change, always one of my favs and a great Oil Barons Ball

 

[Grangehill1]

So the UK had been showing season 9 for about a month before the announcement came. Wow. It was a lonnngggg summer

 

[Barbara Fan]

That was the 7th episode of the season

 

[Karin]

Thanks for explaining about the broadcast in the UK @Grangehill1
I think I've read about it before but I had forgotten the details.

If it was reporrted in USA one day, it made the UK papers the next day = I have it written in m y diary for Friday 11th April that Pat D is returning to Dallas and the following day the papers were full of Dallas and speculation
The epiosde that aired that week in UK was Winds of Change, always one of my favs and a great Oil Barons Ball

Wow! The British newspapers were really reporting about Dallas like if it was big news. I can only recall once when my local Swedish paper did that, when the final episode of Dallas had been broadcast here in Sweden. Then it made the morning paper the day after.

Cool that you wrote about Dallas in your diary. I've got a couple of Dallas entries in my diaries too but from much later. I guess you were happy that Patrick would return?

Also does anyone remember which theories/speculations you had about his return at the time?
Did you think he'll return as Bobby or as someone else?

 

[Grangehill1]

Dallas was always on the press in the mid eighties. It was huge news.

I think a newspaper called the Mirror published photos of Bobby being unbandaged by JR (one of the fake storylines they shot).

Although I was only 12 I do remember that the media seemed to think it was going to be a dream and I also remember most of the public desperately didn’t want it to be!

The gap between the end of season 9 and 10’was very short. I think it was about a week or so on the BBC. The BBC ran a trailer with Pam sleeping in the middle of the screen (as per the last episode) and then there was a montage around her of the explosions. So it was heavily emphasised in the trailer it was a dream. I wish somebody had that trailer!

Of course we all still held out hope that it wasn’t a dream…

 

[DallasFanForever]

Also does anyone remember which theories/speculations you had about his return at the time?

I honestly thought they were going to reveal that JR had had him sent away for a year and hid it from the family, helping him fake his death for whatever reason. Maybe a witness protection type thing. Yes I know it’s pretty extreme even for JR and Bobby but that’s what I was expecting them to do at the time. The dream scenario never crossed my mind.

 

[Clubsoda]

I wish I could've experienced watching Dallas as it originally aired, I was born in 82 so never got to properly watch Dallas until UK Gold aired it in the late 90s.

Must've been so exciting.

 

[Grangehill1]

It WAS amazing watching it when it first went out.
The obvious highs were seasons 5, 6 and 7.
Dallas was all over the papers and news. We used to get spoilers in the UK ahead of transmission.

Swansong was an absolute high. Wogan devoted his show to Dallas which lead straight into Swansong. We cried genuine tears when Bobby died.

Ths magic faded with Return To Camelot and the press and most of the public never viewed the show in the same way.

But it was a good time

 

[cws]

I was only 11 at the time but I do remember the announcement being made here in the US. It definitely cast bit of a shadow over the rest of the season and all everyone was wondering was how they would bring Bobby back.

It would have been better to keep it a secret though!!

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

Return to Camelot was the very first episode i've seen of Dallas. As a kid i've not read any of those magazines, so i didn't know anything else of the show.
And i didn't get the fuss at all, that Pam made out of a stupid dream she had last night. So little did i know ..

 

[Karin]

I also started watching Dallas after Pam's dream since it was Pam's accident that got me hooked and I never understood why all my friends were talking about how they had stopped watching the show where Bobby came back in the shower and what that nightmare was all about. I never got it!

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I'm old (theoretically) so I complained. I still complain. But I kept watching.

 

[Barbara Fan]

Wow! The British newspapers were really reporting about Dallas like if it was big news.

Dallas was big news in UK, and was in the papers -the show or cast members on a nearly daily basis from 1980 onwards
The shooting of JR made the news headlines and from S2 original it really spiraled.

 

[Barbara Fan]

Cool that you wrote about Dallas in your diary.

My diaries from a schoolgirl onwards have Dallas in them, anything that happened that was BIG news re cast - and i also wrote up a synopsis of each episode from S2 original onwards! I didnt do it re final series as it was too painful!!

 

[Barbara Fan]

I wish I could've experienced watching Dallas as it originally aired, I was born in 82 so never got to properly watch Dallas until UK Gold aired it in the late 90s.

I was the right age when Dallas started and it was so exciting to live it LIVE as they say, Nothing was more exciting than S2 ending with the shooting of JR. It made the press on a daily basis, Dallas, the cast and actors in the show. Initially it was Larry and JR who made the headlines, but by 83 it was Victoria Principal who took over and graced all the magazine covers - Im so glad I lived through it and that there was no internet to spoil it all, just the National Enquirer et al. "We can exclusively reveal......
As well as onscreen there was also much news off screen, like Jim Davis death, Barbara having heart attack at end of S5, the murder of Pat Ds parents and sadly they were not soap opera but real life

 

[Clubsoda]

I was the right age when Dallas started and it was so exciting to live it LIVE as they say, Nothing was more exciting than S2 ending with the shooting of JR. It made the press on a daily basis, Dallas, the cast and actors in the show. Initially it was Larry and JR who made the headlines, but by 83 it was Victoria Principal who took over and graced all the magazine covers - Im so glad I lived through it and that there was no internet to spoil it all, just the National Enquirer et al. "We can exclusively reveal......
As well as onscreen there was also much news off screen, like Jim Davis death, Barbara having heart attack at end of S5, the murder of Pat Ds parents and sadly they were not soap opera but real life

Sounds amazing to have experienced this.