New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarky Oracle!" data-source="post: 437777" data-attributes="member: 57984">Or at least wrapped up more validly and quickly.I don't know how much of this you may know, but when Patrick Duffy left in 1985, so did writer/producers Leonard Katzman, Art Lewis, and David Paulsen... Replacing them for the season (that was turned into a dream retroactively) was Peter Dunne and his team who'd previously guided DALLAS' spin-off, KNOTS LANDING, for several seasons.Dunne's work on KNOTS had been quite good, but DALLAS was a different show with a different sensibility, and Dunne came in with the mindset that DALLAS needed to be 'reformed' in some way -- despite being TV's number one show for years (i.e., we must make the women 'stronger' even though our patronizing efforts will ultimately make her look dumber).Also, unlike KNOTS' looser and more-experimental narrative, DALLAS had a certain Paulsenian sense of structure that was tighter and more plot-focused (in keeping with the needs of the parent series). So once Dunne took over DALLAS, DALLAS immediately began to do some artful things that were -- initially -- kind of interesting... The problem began with the middle of that season, after the 'location' episodes had ended, where the gradual coalescing of the plotlines normally occurs, well, that just never happened... The year's storylines, good or bad, just began to ramble on with no raison d'etre, and the writers themselves were obviously bored with their own narrative...Add to that a bit of a drippier tone to the scripts and the dialogue (too many maudlin reconciliation moments between characters who would either never behave that way, or, at the very least, would never do so so quickly) and DALLAS had become more soap than opera. With some of the more interesting things they were attempting to do that year effectively neutralized by the fact that the writers clearly had no idea where or what or how they wanted things to go.Ratings drooped slightly; Larry realized the problems and threw his weight around to get Katzman and Duffy back (and with Katzman came Paulsen). Dunne and his team were fired.But then you had another problem. Katzman had not been part of Dunne's year, really (Katzman wrote some individual scripts and was listed as "creative consultant" but had no power over the direction of the narrative). So Katzman simply wanted the erase Dunne's year entirely, wiping it away with 'a dream' in a single exchange. With no concern for the permanent damage that decision would cause.       Bobby's first season back, and Pam's last season, was as snappy fun as DALLAS had ever seen, and may have the best, most-frequent re-watch potential of all of DALLAS' years. But it' s marred by the fact that they didn't take at least one episode with which to resurrect Bobby.Viewers know that reviving long-dead characters is innately farfetched. The audience just needs the writers to do it in such a way that it permits that audience a chance to take a deep breath, nod, and say to themselves, "Okay, that's works well enough for me," and then move on.But that didn't happen. The dream scenario, explained away in a two-minute moment by Bobby to Pam, damaged DALLAS permanently, validated all the smug "it's-just-a-soap-opera" dismissals its detractors had always dispensed. Critics who had grudgingly come to acknowledge over the years that DALLAS was genuinely good drama, found themselves rolling their eyes and giving up on it, the dream explanation becoming the groan heard 'round the world, the ultimate jump-the-shark event of all time.The irony being that Bobby's first season back in Texas was great fun, DALLAS in classical form, both weirdly poignant and laugh-out-loud funny simultaneously. The ghost of Jock story absolutely Hamletesque.But the damage was done. Decades later, when DALLAS is referred to (as it rarely is) at award show telecasts, it's met with derisive snickers. This, the most successful drama series in global television history.That could have happened anyway, DALLAS' middle-American sensibility more quickly marginalized by Hollywood's idiotically elitist bubble (and in a way often-shitty DYNASTY, with its gauche glammer and stupidly illogical dialogue, is rarely laughed off). But gaffes like multiple Ellies and the use of The Dream explanation didn't help....And since Bobby was the one who'd flatlined, why wouldn't it have been his dream, if indeed The Dream needed to be used?? But they instead handed off blame to the nearest ex-wife, Pam. And Victoria professionally completes her contract, barely able to avoid rolling her eyes for the remainder of the season.<img src="https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto,w_728/v1555912783/shape/mentalfloss/dallas3.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?