Kristin vs Katherine

Kristin or Katherine, who was your favourite?

  • Kristin

    Votes: 7 33.3%
  • Katherine

    Votes: 14 66.7%

  • Total voters
    21

Willie Oleson

Telly Talk Schemer
why she wasn't, for instance, more resentful at Pam & Cliff getting 2/3 of her inheritance.
Right, this screamed plotline and revenge, especially in DALLAS. Bobby could still be part of it but just because she hated Pam. Hatred is fun.

I got the impression that Kristin was hired at Ewing Oil just to be close to JR and that no one including herself really expected her to achieve anything except for maybe keeping a fake plant alive by pseudo-watering it.
But then she started to take her job very seriously and became the secretary that she wasn't.
I thought that was more interesting than stuffing Pam in a tycoon's chair so she could stare at a blank sheet of paper.
 

Snowcat

Telly Talk Active Member
Katherine didn't start out that way, though. She was originally a feisty yet friendly rich person's daughter, so is used to getting her way, doesn't know that she has any siblings and her rich father never found out about it before his death. No wonder Katherine starts to hate Cliff for his attitude and obsession with using a part of the Wentworth business to take down the Ewings, and later hates Pam as well over the Bobby situation. The inheritance stuff is bound to have played into Katherine's hate as well. You can understand how Katherine ends up the absolute villain that she becomes. J.R. always seemed to have the edge on Katherine though, largely because of him recording them having sex, which would scare Bobby off her for good even if Bobby had been very interested. Katherine badly miscalculated on that.
I don’t know about that. I had a feeling Katherine was going to be very devious the moment she danced with Bobby at the bbq
 

Snarky Oracle!

Telly Talk Supreme
How can we explain that Pam was secretly the biological mother of Charlie?
 

Luke_Krebbs_Ewing

Telly Talk Champion
Interestingly, they both gave up on any career aspirations after getting involved with the Ewings. Kristin originally wanted to be an architect and Katherine quit her job as a TV reporter. I guess being a scheming, husband stealing, assassin is a full time job in itself.

Both of them were affected by their relationships with the Ewing brothers. Kristin was carrying on with JR and wanted him to get rid of Sue Ellen and marry her.

Katherine was just besotted with Bobby. Ultimately though both Ewing brothers were out of reach of these two schemers. They just couldn't or wouldn't get their own lives back on track after their dalliances with JR and Bobby. Good drama watching them though. :)
 

Snarky Oracle!

Telly Talk Supreme
Both of them were affected by their relationships with the Ewing brothers.

JR was no saint, obviously. Nor Sue Ellen. Kristin had been shoved aside by JR, but he'd shoved her aside because she was the one manipulating against JR and his business ventures, so even in terms of naughty philandering relationships, Kristin was largely at fault here -- and yet she turns shooter.

Bobby had never done anything to Katherine at all. Yes, she "wanted" him but her avarice was more about control for control's sake.

Both Kristin and Katherine seem compelled to destroy their relationships (which is probably why they have none) and then follow through on that pathology by projecting blame onto their victims, pretending to be the victim -- only some people express this, like Kristin and Katherine, with a tiny pistol.

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Luke_Krebbs_Ewing

Telly Talk Champion
They were also part of a long list of women on the show who became unhinged and several would end up as assassins.

Even poor Pam became slightly unhinged in her desire for a baby.

I'm only glad she recovered from that when Bobby brought Christopher home. Although in reality Bobby was bringing the baby home to his natural Father - JR. Except we didn't know until much later than JR wasn't Christopher's Father. :)
 

Mustard

Telly Talk TV Fanatic
Even poor Pam became slightly unhinged in her desire for a baby.
A combination of things with Pam. Not just miscarriages, but the neurofibromatosis worry, Digger's death, the Hutch McKinney revelation, finding her mother was actually alive only to be rejected initially, talked to her later and then finding her again, Bobby in the first half of Season 4 DVD running Ewing Oil like a man possessed and treating Pam awfully to the point that she nearly had an affair with Alex Ward, Cliff also being unsympathetic to her searching for their mother. All that on top of the baby worries just caused Pam's previously strong mental state to unravel. It could have gotten worse for her too, if Bobby didn't have Christopher with him that day. That put Pam back in the right mental space. That of course makes it all the more baffling for the brass to expect the audience to believe that Pam would abandon Bobby and Christopher like she did in Season 11 DVD.

I'm only glad she recovered from that when Bobby brought Christopher home. Although in reality Bobby was bringing the baby home to his natural Father - JR. Except we didn't know until much later than JR wasn't Christopher's Father. :)
Exactly :)
 
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Laurie Marr

Telly Talk Well-Known Member
I think my broader point here is that, at times, Dallas flirted uncomfortably close to trading on some misogynist myths about the lawless and ultimately hysterical foundations of femininity. Most of the main female characters at one time or another- and stretching back to poor old Amanda - were either mad or bad or a combination of both.
 

Snarky Oracle!

Telly Talk Supreme
I think my broader point here is that, at times, Dallas flirted uncomfortably close to trading on some misogynist myths about the lawless and ultimately hysterical foundations of femininity. Most of the main female characters at one time or another- and stretching back to poor old Amanda - were either mad or bad or a combination of both.

As I mentioned on the thread about female writers, the male violence on DALLAS was more blustery and fumbling, while the show seemed to be adhering to the idea that women are the more precise, the deadlier member of the species.

Is that misogyny, or is it a misandrist belief that men lack a certain focus and basic competence??
 

Snarky Oracle!

Telly Talk Supreme
Anything that's not a compliment for a woman or women is automatically labeled 'misogyny'.

Statistics show that in households where there's mutual domestic violence, men and women each initiate it about 50% of the time, both knowing that they'll likely get smacked back if they do... In households with unilateral violence (only one person doing the smacking) women initiate it 70% percent of the time (perhaps because she knows she won't get popped in retaliation).

So while most public violence is male (and males are the most common victims of public violence, too) women may have the edge on private violence -- but we're disinclined to talk about that, men as victims or women as perpetrators.

Statistically, women kill their offspring far more often than men -- even when the father is in the household.

Men certainly do most of the shooting, and they take most of the lead.

So, who knows? Folks say Leonard Katzman was very moved by father-to-son lineage issues yet saw women as decorative, and that he "hated" strident feminist types. But perhaps that was his "lived experience" (as they say today).

David Paulsen rarely gets credit for much (except by me) but among other things, he really strengthened the women characters, although he did it subtly and with minimal fanfare.

There was more violence on DALLAS amongst the men, but when it mattered, the babes brandished the most bullets and gave the most bang for their bucks.

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Taylor Bennett Jr.

Telly Talk Winner
How can we explain that Pam was secretly the biological mother of Charlie?
struggling financially as a common shop girl with expensive 'party habits', a young Pam worked occasionally as one of "Laurie's girls", as JR's pal Vice Detective Matt Henderson affectionally called them. That explains why she was suddenly 'best friends' with Leanne Rees in that one episode - they'd known each other for years.

One of her top clients was the dynamic and virile oilman Andy Bradley. After they'd been seeing each other for a while, Pam realized she was pregnant. Frightened by her brother's experience with the love of his life, Penny Ames (no relation to the thuggish Jeb), Pam refused to get an abortion. Not wanting a scandal, Andy arranged to have the child born in Rome and immediately shipped off to a nunnery.

By pure happenstance, Pam happened to have the baby at the same time in the same Italian hospital as Jenna. The babies were accidentally switched by a drunken nurse, and the 'Charlie' we know was really Andinetta Bradley. The real Charlie Wade-Marchetta has been out saving souls in Calcutta and other exotic locales for decades now, working toward possible sainthood.

Eventually. DNA tests reveal the snafu, and as Harve Smithfield dramatically declares in a tense Season 10 episode, the entire Ewing fortune (and the underrated Bradley Oil) now belongs to 'Charlie'.

I humbly submit that the above is stupid, but not as stupid as Haleyville.
 

Snarky Oracle!

Telly Talk Supreme
struggling financially as a common shop girl with expensive 'party habits', a young Pam worked occasionally as one of "Laurie's girls", as JR's pal Vice Detective Matt Henderson affectionally called them. That explains why she was suddenly 'best friends' with Leanne Rees in that one episode - they'd known each other for years.

One of her top clients was the dynamic and virile oilman Andy Bradley. After they'd been seeing each other for a while, Pam realized she was pregnant. Frightened by her brother's experience with the love of his life, Penny Ames (no relation to the thuggish Jeb), Pam refused to get an abortion. Not wanting a scandal, Andy arranged to have the child born in Rome and immediately shipped off to a nunnery.

By pure happenstance, Pam happened to have the baby at the same time in the same Italian hospital as Jenna. The babies were accidentally switched by a drunken nurse, and the 'Charlie' we know was really Andinetta Bradley. The real Charlie Wade-Marchetta has been out saving souls in Calcutta and other exotic locales for decades now, working toward possible sainthood.

Eventually. DNA tests reveal the snafu, and as Harve Smithfield dramatically declares in a tense Season 10 episode, the entire Ewing fortune (and the underrated Bradley Oil) now belongs to 'Charlie'.

I humbly submit that the above is stupid, but not as stupid as Haleyville.

You're hired!! :spinning:
 

Snowcat

Telly Talk Active Member
A combination of things with Pam. Not just miscarriages, but the neurofibromatosis worry, Digger's death, the Hutch McKinney revelation, finding her mother was actually alive only to be rejected initially, talked to her later and then finding her again, Bobby in the first half of Season 4 DVD running Ewing Oil like a man possessed and treating Pam awfully to the point that she nearly had an affair with Alex Ward, Cliff also being unsympathetic to her searching for their mother. All that on top of the baby worries just caused Pam's previously strong mental state to unravel. It could have gotten worse for her too, if Bobby didn't have Christopher with him that day. That put Pam back in the right mental space. That of course makes it all the more baffling for the brass to expect the audience to believe that Pam would abandon Bobby and Christopher like she did in Season 11 DVD.


Exactly :)
You’re right. Pam went through a lot and didn’t have very much support from others. Even Rebecca became obsessed with resurrecting the Barnes-Ewing feud despite Pam pleading with her not too. Pam was always doing her best to support others, but didn’t get it back to the extent she deserved it
 

CeeCee72

Telly Talk Star
As I mentioned on the thread about female writers, the male violence on DALLAS was more blustery and fumbling, while the show seemed to be adhering to the idea that women are the more precise, the deadlier member of the species.

Is that misogyny, or is it a misandrist belief that men lack a certain focus and basic competence??
Just my opinion, but there is a cultural belief (at least in the US) that women are far more cunning and vindictive than men. Men act out of emotion (primarily anger) while women play the "long game" and plan and plot and bide their time. It think it's that perception that guides the writing of the female antagonists in Dallas.

And like with most stereotypes, there's some truth in it.
 
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