Most Obvious Plot Hole In Dallas

[Kenny Coyote]

What do you think was the most obvious plot hole in Dallas? What's the one thing that makes you immediately wonder: Why didn't someone just do (whatever it may be) instead of what they did?

To me, the most obvious one is one that starts right in the miniseries. Digger says Jock stole Digger's share of Ewing Oil. Well, if somebody stole your share of a company the two of you had built, what would you do?

How about, considering the fact your son is a lawyer, taking the matter to court? Just a thought!

 

[CeeCee72]

Fingerprints on the gun that shot JR.

Of course SE's prints were on it. We saw her handle it. And yes, Kristin wore gloves when she actually shot JR. But we see her clearly touch the gun with her bare hands when she puts it in the closet while SE is in the shower.

She should have a least left a partial print, enough for the cops to know someone other than SE touched the gun.

 

[CeeCee72]

OH and also Christopher's birth/age.

In the real world (not in soap opera land) there are only a few days each month when a woman is ovulating and can get pregnant. Also, you don't KNOW you're pregnant until at LEAST a month has passed, generally two.

So, logically Kristin had to be AT LEAST two months pregnant with JR's child when she left Dallas. Even if she had the miscarriage immediately after the plane landed, it would take her another month to be able to get pregnant again,.a again in the REAL world, probaby longer.

Christopher was AT LEAST three months younger (probably closer to four or five) than Kristin and JR's child would have been.

 

[pete lashmar]

It's been discussed at great length recently in other threads but Wes Parmalee is one of the biggest plot holes for me.

The man knew people on sight, he had the exact same injuries as Jock, he passed a lie detector test and knew the history of every single person he met - but then they write him off as an imposter with the most ridiculous explanation that he listened to a delirious Jock telling his entire life story.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

It's been discussed at great length recently in other threads but Wes Parmalee is one of the biggest plot holes for me.

The man knew people on sight, he had the exact same injuries as Jock, he passed a lie detector test and knew the history of every single person he met - but then they write him off as an imposter with the most ridiculous explanation that he listened to a delirious Jock telling his entire life story.

I think that was terrible judgement on the part of the creative team. They said he had the same injuries as Jock but couldn't be bothered to at least have the guy have some scars that would indicate he'd been in that type of an accident. Not only did the accident not cripple him, he didn't even need a cane, or walk with a limp. He actually appeared rejuvenated from the experience! He was physically fit enough to be the foreman of the ranch!

A show can tell you he passed the lie detector, his x-rays match up and all the rest but there is one crucial thing they cannot do: They cannot present a man who looked nothing like Jim Davis and expect you to believe he could be Jock. They can make up all the stories they want but these eyes don't lie. One look at him told me he couldn't possibly be Jock.

It wasn't a recast as in the case of Donna Reed where the audience is supposed to overlook that she looks different. Here the whole story hinged on did he look like he could be Jock? Absolutely not. I thought it was an insult to the intelligence of the audience. Doing something like that so soon after such a bad move as saying the whole last season didn't happen and Bobby was alive just compounded the problem. Believability had been thrown out the window and the ratings between season 10 and season 11 indicated that there were plenty of people who had decided things had been taken so far that it just wasn't a credible show anymore.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

It's been discussed at great length recently in other threads but Wes Parmalee is one of the biggest plot holes for me.

The man knew people on sight, he had the exact same injuries as Jock, he passed a lie detector test and knew the history of every single person he met - but then they write him off as an imposter with the most ridiculous explanation that he listened to a delirious Jock telling his entire life story.

Exactly!

None of it makes any sense, why didn't Wes just show Miss Ellie a birth mark or something.

And as for that explanation about a delirious Jock telling his own life story that was nothing short of ridiculous & very far fetched!

Of course Wes Parmalee was Jock Ewing. Well until the character was written off & the Producers got cold feet about keeping him on the show!

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Another huge one, although I guess it's more of a blunder than a plot hole, is how after Sue Ellen shot JR three times in his own home, after her accomplice had broken the door in, they could have allowed Sue Ellen to get away with it. Where is the drama without consequences? It was the worst resolution to a Dallas cliffhanger ever.

A man's home is broken into by two intruders. He tells them to leave but they refuse. Then JR picks up a gun and tells them to leave, but Pearce, being the genius he was, decided to rush straight towards the guy with the gun to fight him. Wow! The word stupid doesn't do that justice. Bringing a knife to a gunfight is stupid. Running straight at a guy with a gun pointed at you, when you could just leave as he asked, is just a special kind of stupid. No wonder he ended up dead. Human survival requires at least a somewhat reasonably functioning human brain. Man is the only animal that cannot live on instinct. Reason is man's means of survival.

Ultimately, what the police had was a case where a man and a woman broke and entered into a man's home, refused to leave, assaulted him, and then when the resident of the home vanquished one of the intruders, the other intruder attempted to murder the resident of the home out of spite, since the resident of the home just won a fight with her shack-up.

So Sue Ellen pleads self-defense and they consider it????

If two people broke into your home, threatened you, and physically assaulted you, necessitating that you fight one of them to the death to save your own life and then the other one shot you, how would you feel if she claimed self-defense and the police actually considered it? Self-defense in your home she had just broken into? What are you guilty of, making their break-in and assault too dangerous? That's almost as bad as someone stabbing you and then suing you for dulling the blade of their knife. Oh, here's the best part- if it was "self-defense" how does she explain shooting you three times when all you asked was that she leave?

 

[CeeCee72]

Not exactly a plot hole but something that has always bugged me....

JR's eyebrows.

HOW is it that a man that wealthy doesn't own an eyebrow trimmer? And NONE of his women ever told him how desperately he needed one? Like EVER?

 

[Rove]

Pam's first husband. There one minute...gone the next.

 

[tommie]

Fingerprints on the gun that shot JR.

Of course SE's prints were on it. We saw her handle it. And yes, Kristin wore gloves when she actually shot JR. But we see her clearly touch the gun with her bare hands when she puts it in the closet while SE is in the shower.

She should have a least left a partial print, enough for the cops to know someone other than SE touched the gun.

Actually, you don't necessarily leave a fingerprint or even a partial one depending on circumstances. Of course, it was sloppy of them not to have Kristin wear gloves or something when she planted it, but theoretically she wouldn't necessarily leave a fingerprint.

 

[Top Jimmy]

tommie is right - according to this article, it is difficult to find usable fingerprints on a gun. Plus, it seemed like Kristin was trying to be careful not to leave fingerprints by the way she was just barely touching and holding the gun by its trigger. Of course, it would have made more sense for her to take a handkerchief or something like that to put the gun in the closet. Since, she wasn't totally alone (Sue Ellen was just in the next room) and it apparently was in the summer, she would have looked out of place wearing gloves in public or probably wouldn't have enough time to put on gloves and then take them off before Sue Ellen finished showering.

https://crimefictionbook.com/2016/05/05/how-easy-is-it-to-find-fingerprints-on-a-gun/

 

[Top Jimmy]

I was just thinking of Rebecca's leaving Digger after he killed Hutch McKinney. She kept trying to justify leaving her kids by saying Digger wouldn't have agreed to a divorce and would have tried to drag her back into that "awful life." Well, since he murdered your lover in front of you, Rebecca, why not call the police and tell him what he did or make an anonymous call implicating Digger and revealing the location of the corpse? Problem solved. I don't know if you would call it self-defense or justifiable homicide or some degree of manslaughter, but Digger probably would have served some jail time if charged and convicted in the shooting, especially since he hid the crime by burying the body.
I don't remember if it was Jock's gun or whose gun it was, but I seem to remember from the flashback of the shooting that Hutch pulled a gun on Digger, and then Rebecca knocked it out of his hands. Digger then grabbed it off the floor and immediately shot him. Maybe Rebecca was afraid of a scandal or that a jury in that era wouldn't convict Digger, especially with her cheating, getting pregnant by another man and her planning to run off with Hutch. Drunken Digger wasn't exactly a reliable witness though, so Rebecca could have lied and made up a story that Digger shot him in cold blood and that he was a paranoid drunk, always falsely accusing her of having affairs.
It's funny that JR always made fun of Digger even after he died saying that he was a drunk, but no one ever mentioned that he killed a man and buried his body on Southfork.

 

[Pound68]

It's been discussed at great length recently in other threads but Wes Parmalee is one of the biggest plot holes for me.

The man knew people on sight, he had the exact same injuries as Jock, he passed a lie detector test and knew the history of every single person he met - but then they write him off as an imposter with the most ridiculous explanation that he listened to a delirious Jock telling his entire life story.

The whole storyline with Parmalee was ridiculous. He and Miss Ellie were together 40 plus years. Are you seriously telling me a man on his deathbed can relay every private story, intimate detail, etc ? She should have known from something about him that he wasn't Jock. I could identify my hubby of 20 years from his eyes, his smile, even his feet!

 

[Pound68]

I was just thinking of Rebecca's leaving Digger after he killed Hutch McKinney. She kept trying to justify leaving her kids by saying Digger wouldn't have agreed to a divorce and would have tried to drag her back into that "awful life." Well, since he murdered your lover in front of you, Rebecca, why not call the police and tell him what he did or make an anonymous call implicating Digger and revealing the location of the corpse? Problem solved. I don't know if you would call it self-defense or justifiable homicide or some degree of manslaughter, but Digger probably would have served some jail time if charged and convicted in the shooting, especially since he hid the crime by burying the body.
I don't remember if it was Jock's gun or whose gun it was, but I seem to remember from the flashback of the shooting that Hutch pulled a gun on Digger, and then Rebecca knocked it out of his hands. Digger then grabbed it off the floor and immediately shot him. Maybe Rebecca was afraid of a scandal or that a jury in that era wouldn't convict Digger, especially with her cheating, getting pregnant by another man and her planning to run off with Hutch. Drunken Digger wasn't exactly a reliable witness though, so Rebecca could have lied and made up a story that Digger shot him in cold blood and that he was a paranoid drunk, always falsely accusing her of having affairs.
It's funny that JR always made fun of Digger even after he died saying that he was a drunk, but no one ever mentioned that he killed a man and buried his body on Southfork.

Rebecca was just a terrible mother, period. She escaped that life to save herself. Who leaves their children with a murderous drunk and never looks back? Then the one daughter she does raise turns out to be a selfish murderer! And of course, Pam repeats the cycle and abandons her child too. Cliff at least tried to get Afton and little Pammy back in his life.

 

[Herofan]

The whole storyline with Parmalee was ridiculous. He and Miss Ellie were together 40 plus years. Are you seriously telling me a man on his deathbed can relay every private story, intimate detail, etc ? She should have known from something about him that he wasn't Jock. I could identify my hubby of 20 years from his eyes, his smile, even his feet!

True. As I have stated before, I really enjoyed the Wes/Jock story, but it certainly had its plot holes. There were all kinds of private things they could have asked to have proven it one way or the other, but they never went that deep.
Jock couldn’t have rambled off every detail of his life. How did Wes remember it all anyway? Was he taking notes? Not only could the Ewing’s have asked, but Wes could have offered up more than he did if he really was Jock. Why not just say,”Remember when.......’ and let it be something very specific.

 

[thomaswak]

Dallas never stopped to amaze me. I mean, Wess was written as he he was Jock indeed. I loved that plot a lot. But I couldn't buy it because the actor was way too different, from a look standpoint. I know, I know : "plastic surgery". But plastic surgery can't change a man so drastically. The actor was very good, but he was too different physically. He was not a good casting choice imo.

I mean, look at Margarett Michaels, she was a great casting choice. The very moment I saw her the first time, I could buy that she was Pam post plastic surgery. They even gave her burnt scars on her face. That was clever.

 

[pete lashmar]

I mean, look at Margarett Michaels, she was a great casting choice. The very moment I saw her the first time, I could buy that she was Pam post plastic surgery. They even gave her burnt scars on her face. That was clever.

She really did look like Pam with plastic surgery I agree, which begs the question was this another plot hole, why didn't they just bring her back as Pam full time?

Why bother going to all that trouble to recast the role just for a 2 minute scene?

 

[thomaswak]

She really did look like Pam with plastic surgery I agree, which begs the question was this another plot hole, why didn't they just bring her back as Pam full time?

Why bother going to all that trouble to recast the role just for a 2 minute scene?

I think they wanted to sell their cake and eat it too. I mean, having Michaels for 5 minutes saying Pam was dying was a way to "end" the character (ending fans expectations too) but it was also a way to have the door still opened for Victoria to come back later. The less we saw Michael as Pam, the easiest it was to brought Victoria as Pam later if she wanted to. They would have just to say that they found a cure, that she didn't died, and now she was completely healed she could come back to Dallas. They even could even ignore the 5 mn recast... Maybe the producers were afraid to have an other Donna Reed situation with a full time Pam recast...

 

[Swami]

She really did look like Pam with plastic surgery I agree, which begs the question was this another plot hole, why didn't they just bring her back as Pam full time?

Why bother going to all that trouble to recast the role just for a 2 minute scene?

I can see the logic in them doing that but even at late stage of the series I don't think the fans would have accepted a Pam recast.

Swami

 

[Chris2]

I would have recast, even with the risk of fan rejection and the difficulty of replicating the Pam/Bobby chemistry with a new actress. And I don’t say that lightly. Recasts are very tough in primetime shows. But Pamela was the second most important character on the show after JR. Without her, the original premise of the show was gone, and it was just another show about a rich family. A different Pamela would have been better than no Pam at all.