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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Toni" data-source="post: 219854" data-attributes="member: 82">I (kindly, as usual) disagree, Kenny. Audience ratings are not science: if they really lost 10 million in 2 years, I'd say that’s what happens when a TV show goes beyond its third or fourth season. It's worn out, and just look at what happened to "Falcon Crest" after its first 3 seasons. Or "Dynasty" after the Moldavia massacre. I don't think Bobby and Pam were a very stable couple, not even in the beginning. How many times there were big threats to their marriage in the first full year? Quite a few. Pam even left him after Julie Grey´s death. I tend to think the way they thought when the show was being aired, not with the hindsight we have now. So when I saw Pam leaving Bobby in season 5, I didn't think it was going to be permanent. She might have returned the next week (but she didn't). We have that suspense back then. Now we are used to the soap opera clichés and conventions, and see everything coming. Back then we were more naïve and the show was more unpredictable, especially if the viewer wasn't used to watch daytime soaps (like moi). Also, now we know how the writers and producers worked, the existence of the bibles, what the stars were thinking when the TV season was ending, if the producers intended to renew their contracts, etc. The behind-the-scenes story has become a non-published fanfic that most of us know up to a certain capacity. I soon realized when I watched "Dallas" in the 80s was that every season, at least one of the couples had to go through a terrible crisis. It´s the name of the game, so to say. And someone had to be (apparently) killed in the cliffhanger. But I do think that, for instance, having Bobby and Pam separated and divorced was a way to show us another side of the relationship, stronger than ever beyond what the papers said. Their sad looks said it all. Pam was a bore when she got Christopher...She was much more interesting in the 3 seasons after that, until "Swan Song". Both Patrick and Victoria did some of their best acting in those 2-3 years...I can´t say the same thing about J.R. and Sue Ellen. I feel they got them together again just because she wasn´t working in the Southern Cross storyline. They said the audience wanted them together, but I say that they wanted (and still want) being entertained, and those episodes are a borefest. So is Sue Ellen in season 5, when she plays the good wife to J.R. The writers turned her into the most stupid woman on this side of Mississipi (or whatever). As much as I love Linda Gray, I hate the person she became then. Until she fell off the wagon, of course, and became our dear old Swellin...How funny was that suddenly, the next year, she seemed to evolve into a three-dimensional character despite the Peter Richards affair. It was easy to feel sympathy for her even being sober, and Linda shined the whole season.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?