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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daniel Avery" data-source="post: 180477" data-attributes="member: 27">I've noticed that when producers learn their show is in its final season (that is, whether they've decided to pull the plug or the network tells them they're not being renewed ahead of time), they take a lot of risks and do a lot of the things they have likely wanted to do for a long time.  Perhaps they feel it's not going to matter if they screw the pooch because they won't have to answer for it, story-wise.  Also, the final season might be their time to write interesting developments/plotlines that the actors had begged for, but could not do because the network balked.  Having never watched Dallas, I read with great interest the plot point where JR had slept with one of his longtime secretaries.  I'd always assumed a cad like JR slept with all his secretaries on the regular, but JFL wrote about this tryst with a certain level of surprise, as if some unspoken wall had been torn down.  I have no way of knowing for sure, but I guess this is the sort of action the producers had held off on writing back when the show was still operating as an open-ended soap opera.  The entire final season of Falcon Crest played out like this, a sort of "Let's just go absolutely balls-to-the-wall for the final season," and though the memories of it still make me want to gag, there were many people who enjoyed it for that "no rulebook" attitude.  Shows that know they're on their way out might lapse into self-indulgence and create bad memories if they let this devil-may-care attitude take over (I'm recalling that dreadful final season of Roseanne) but most shows don't get a lot of advanced notice of their cancellation.I think season fourteen of Knots Landing did not fall into that same trap for two reasons: their reduced licensing fee led to a shorter season, and the producers adopted an attitude that they needed to go out on a high note as a 'thank you' to viewers who had kept the show viable for so long.  There simply wasn't time for much self-indulgence or fluff in a nineteen-episode season when they wanted to tell twenty-two episodes' worth of story.  The necessity of excluding certain actors from several episodes each led to some problematic storytelling, but they managed to end on a lot of happy endings (no cliffhangers) and even managed to bring back several fan favorites.   I'd go so far as to say season fourteen, despite being a "final season" would score in the upper-third if I were ranking the seasons by enjoyment.  Not many shows can look upon their final seasons with pride.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?