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<blockquote data-quote="Mel O&amp;#039;Drama" data-source="post: 225492" data-attributes="member: 23">Mid-season finales are a trend that became popular in the Noughties&nbsp; - well after Dallas had ended its original run. But it could be argued that the concept wasn&#039;t totally absent from Dallas and its peers.In early 1985, during a bidding war between two rival UK channels, Dallas was pulled off the air without notice by the BBC mid-season (the plan was that if they lost the rights to the next season, the new network would have trouble enticing viewers to watch the resolution to a cliffhanger which hadn&#039;t aired. What&#039;s more, they planned to resume airing the pulled episodes in EXACTLY the same time slot the rival network chose to air their new episodes).And so, the smoking gun ending to Odd Man Out became the de facto mid-season finale to Dallas&#039;s Seventh Season. A voiceover at the end told viewers that Dallas would return &quot;later in the year&quot;, which is the same kind of announcement that would announce the actual end of a season.What&#039;s more, it worked. With space for the ending to breathe and resonate, it felt more important and significant than it otherwise may have. As with other cliffhangers, it increased my thirst for Dallas and was in my thoughts regularly until the season resumed (seven weeks later, as it turned out). Even in rewatches, the memory of those weeks of anticipation makes that episode still feel important and fun.With that in mind, are there any episodes you consider mid-season finales? Or any that you&#039;d like to see tweaked to create one.With Dallas being known for its cliffhangers and having some very long seasons, would a mid-season finale have helped or hindered?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mel O'Drama, post: 225492, member: 23"] Mid-season finales are a trend that became popular in the Noughties - well after [I]Dallas[/I] had ended its original run. But it could be argued that the concept wasn't totally absent from [I]Dallas[/I] and its peers. In early 1985, during a bidding war between two rival UK channels, [I]Dallas[/I] was pulled off the air without notice by the BBC mid-season (the plan was that if they lost the rights to the next season, the new network would have trouble enticing viewers to watch the resolution to a cliffhanger which hadn't aired. What's more, they planned to resume airing the pulled episodes in EXACTLY the same time slot the rival network chose to air their new episodes). And so, the smoking gun ending to [I]Odd Man Out[/I] became the de facto mid-season finale to [I]Dallas's[/I] Seventh Season. A voiceover at the end told viewers that Dallas would return "later in the year", which is the same kind of announcement that would announce the actual end of a season. What's more, it worked. With space for the ending to breathe and resonate, it felt more important and significant than it otherwise may have. As with other cliffhangers, it increased my thirst for Dallas and was in my thoughts regularly until the season resumed (seven weeks later, as it turned out). Even in rewatches, the memory of those weeks of anticipation makes that episode still feel important and fun. With that in mind, are there any episodes you consider mid-season finales? Or any that you'd like to see tweaked to create one. With [I]Dallas[/I] being known for its cliffhangers and having some very long seasons, would a mid-season finale have helped or hindered? [/QUOTE]

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Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?