JR and Vanessa

[CeeCee72]

Oh, I don't doubt it. There are instances of young men being attracted to women older than they are, but on average, when there is an age difference in a couple, more often than not, it is the man who is older. If you think of the married couples you know, who tends to be the older one in those marriages, the man or the woman?

You said it was constant enough to be annoying. Is that because they were young or for some other reason?

I've heard about the cougar thing, and when I first heard about it, I thought it was a fad. I don't know if that phenomenon is just as prevalent as it once was or not. It's my impression that the cougar phenomenon was usually young men looking to have a fling with an older woman as opposed to a serious relationship with the possibility of marriage.

It makes all the sense in the world why typically, woman go for men a little bit older than them and men go for women a little younger than them when they are looking for someone to marry. While a man can become a father at almost any age, a woman's time window for becoming a mother is much briefer. If two people, looking to marry and start a family are a man who is 24 and the woman is 36, they're going to have to hurry to have children while it's still safe. Is a man in his mid-twenties likely to be able to support a wife and kids? Probably not. He's just starting to work his way up to his full earning potential and money will be tight int those first few years even without children, unless the woman has a high income. But if she's decided to become a mom and wants to spend time at home with her kids until they're old enough to start kindergarten, then her income goes away and the man is supporting the family. It's far more likely that a man who is in his mid-thirties will be able to support them than he would have been ten years earlier when he was likely earning considerably less.



That would have been a very positive step for the show. Do you think there was still time to turn the show around to what it was like in its glory years, or do you think it would have been a case of too little, too late?

It was annoying to me mostly because I was at a point in my life where I felt like I needed to be alone. Older men hit on me too, but they always dropped it when I wasn't interested. The young one were persistent. It was like the just couldn't believe I would turn down a chance to be with them.

And yeah - when it comes to longer term relationships with age differences the men usually are the older ones. But it's not just because of biological differences. Men mature much slower than women. A woman in her 40s trying to have a real relationship with a guy in his 20s? No thanks. Would be too much like raising a kid.


As for JR and Vanessa, IF the writers had cast the part better (and I'm not talking about age) and IF they had used to relationship to make JR a better, more mature man, who knows? It may not have cured every problem in the show, but it would have been better than what we got. But for it to save the show? James, Cally, Michelle? ALL would have had to go and April would have had to stay.

And JR would have had to maintained some degree of his ruthless genius.

 

[Rove]

For all the criticism of JR & Mandy, there was a chemistry to it

All these years later and I have to agree. Mandy did have chemistry with JR and Sue Ellen spotted it. How else do we explain Sue Ellen going after Mandy by creating the Valentine girl. I discover in the following scene a sense of sympathy for Mandy. It also shows the many shades of Sue Ellen by adding a touch of her early years with her vengeful barbs.

 

[Barbara Fan]

I have always thought - long before she appeared in Dallas - that Gayle Hunnicutt bore a resemblance to Linda Gray, and then she appeared on Dallas
I just never bought the Love of JRs life nonsense - especially as we had never heard about her before and were meant to buy this (rubbish)I found it a bit of an insult but it was further dumbing down of the show

Of all JRs mistresses the one he had great rapport with was Mandy and Larry was very fond of Deborah Shelton

The one which made me shudder was Cally, it was like turning JR into an old perv with someone who was young enough to be his grandaughter, it was iccky and totally unbelievable plus she couldnt act for toffee. But Dallas was past its sell by date by then

 

[Angela Channing]

I didn't mind Vanessa but I always felt she was only created to provide a way of introducing a son of JR into the series. Had she been given a stronger storyline viewers might have warmed more towards her.

 

[pete lashmar]

I didn't mind Vanessa in her original appearance, when they met in Vienna. But when she returned and came to Dallas I thought she stood out like a sore thumb and wasn't particularly likable. As for Sasha...fit but couldn't act for toffee.

 

[Swami]

I didn't mind Vanessa in her original appearance, when they met in Vienna. But when she returned and came to Dallas I thought she stood out like a sore thumb and wasn't particularly likable. As for Sasha...fit but couldn't act for toffee.

That's a little harsh on toffee, a bar of toffee would have acted better than Sasha Mitchell.

Gayle Hunnicutt's acting was stilted as well, I still can't believe she was once considered for the role of Solitaire in Live and Let Die. Harry Saltzman had problems pronouncing her surname, apparently.

Swami

 

[Rove]

As for Sasha

Please...no more on that actor. How the hell did he pass the casting couch? His awfulness was matched by the dribble emitting from the pages the writers had created. Was the great Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie) already cruising the beautiful shores of Europe when the thick as a brick James Beaumont arrived in Dallas?

 

[Swami]

Please...no more on that actor. How the hell did he pass the casting couch? His awfulness was matched by the dribble emitting from the pages the writers had created. Was the great Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie) already cruising the beautiful shores of Europe when the thick as a brick James Beaumont arrived in Dallas?

The casting couch would have done a better job than him.

Swami

 

[Toni]

I didn't mind Vanessa but I always felt she was only created to provide a way of introducing a son of JR into the series. Had she been given a stronger storyline viewers might have warmed more towards her.

Agree. Though I actually think instead that "Had she been given a stronger storyline viewers might have (been) WARNED AGAINST her." (That would´ve been just fine! A voice says "Warning: the next scene will feature Granny Beaumont!").

 

[Swami]

If she was so much of an old flame, how come we never heard of her before, until the time she shows up?

Swami

 

[Toni]

Agree. Though I actually think instead that "Had she been given a stronger storyline viewers might have (been) WARNED AGAINST her." (That would´ve been just fine! A voice says "Warning: the next scene will feature Lovely Beaumont!").

Censorship alert: I tried to write short for "Grandmother" in this post again a few times, and it didn´t let me: it writes "lovely" all the time. Anyone wanna try...?

:eck:

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

If she was so much of an old flame, how come we never heard of her before, until the time she shows up?

Swami

she was too busy traipsing around Europe and Alaska with Jason Ewing during the early years of the show

 

[Swami]

she was too busy traipsing around Europe and Alaska with Jason Ewing during the early years of the show

I can't see her being all that interested in wildcatting.

Swami

 

[Laurie Marr]

I often found the exchanges between JR and Vanessa completely silly and very amusing. Vanessa was so earnest and the more earnest she became the more Larry tried to sound earnest by mimicking the English accent through rounding the vowels and clipping the consonants. It was a shit bat crazy Brief Encounter parody that doesn’t get any less uproariously absurd each time I chance upon it.

 

[Honkytonkangel]

Censorship alert: I tried to write short for "Grandmother" in this post again a few times, and it didn´t let me: it writes "lovely" all the time. Anyone wanna try...?

:eck:

Yeah that kept happening to me, so now when I refer to her character I just use this :tv:. I may start using it for the Winger Tramp too just for fun.

 

[Seaviewer]

I didn't mind Vanessa but I always felt she was only created to provide a way of introducing a son of JR into the series.

Again, not an intrinsically bad concept, just poorly executed.

 

[Swami]

I often found the exchanges between JR and Vanessa completely silly and very amusing. Vanessa was so earnest and the more earnest she became the more Larry tried to sound earnest by mimicking the English accent through rounding the vowels and clipping the consonants. It was a shit bat crazy Brief Encounter parody that doesn’t get any less uproariously absurd each time I chance upon it.

They really were scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas when they came up with that. Bringing back a previous mistress like Mandy or Holly Harwood would have made far more sense.

Swami

 

[Laurie Marr]

They really were scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas when they came up with that. Bringing back a previous mistress like Mandy or Holly Harwood would have made far more sense.

Swami

I can’t quite reconcile the Frick style philandering with JR’s reinvention as an urbane and romantic European sophisticate. The Ewings had an earthy quality to them - they were one generation away from ordinary Texan folk, and yet Vanessa would have us believe that she fell for JR while he was cutting a dash through genteel society like David Niven.

It must have been the safari suit......

 

[Swami]

I can’t quite reconcile the Frick style philandering with JR’s reinvention as an urbane and romantic European sophisticate. The Ewings had an earthy quality to them - they were one generation away from ordinary Texan folk, and yet Vanessa would have us believe that she fell for JR while he was cutting a dash through genteel society like David Niven.

It must have been the safari suit......

Even more of an inconsistency is one minute with Cally in Haleyville and then in Europe with the Beaumont woman.

Swami

 

[Jabari Lamar]

- but my primary issue was that JR had some previously unknown romance we were unaware of. JR never seemed particularly romantic to me, he treated women abominably..-

That was the point of the character, J.R. said it himself, it was after she broke his heart as a young man that he become cynical about love and relationships, which is what lead to his later behavior. That actually makes some sense. It's as I've said in other threads before about some of the lesser-quality storylines in the later seasons, the ideas weren't all bad, just some of the execution of them that failed. In the case of the Vanessa and James storyline, I never agreed with all that "Granny Beaumont" talk her, but I agree that Larry and that actress just didn't have the right chemistry, so it never came off as believable as J.R. and Sue Ellen, or Mandy, or even Cally. Likewise, the idea of J.R. having some illegitimate grown son out there is also a good one, but Sasha Mitchelle just didn't have the right amount of charisma for that role.