New edit of blast from the past cliffhanger

[Grangehill1]

Has anybody ever tried re-editing the Blast from the Past cliffhanger replacing Bobby in the shower to Ellie finding Jocks possessions with Ben Stivers and then he appears. I heard this was the intended original cliffhanger for season 9 and then a new version of this scene was shot for the next series wirh Ellie and Wes .

It woild be fun to see the action cut from Ewing Oil blowing up to Ellie and the new Jock!

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Has anybody ever tried re-editing the Blast from the Past cliffhanger replacing Bobby in the shower to Ellie finding Jocks possessions with Ben Stivers and then he appears. I heard this was the intended original cliffhanger for season 9 and then a new version of this scene was shot for the next series wirh Ellie and Wes .

It woild be fun to see the action cut from Ewing Oil blowing up to Ellie and the new Jock!

I'm surprised no one has attempted an edit like that on YouTube, using the footage from the season ten episode tacked on to the season nine cliffhanger.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Interesting idea but I have to say that considering we’re still talking about Pam finding Bobby in the shower 37 years later and what it ended up meaning it’s probably for the best the way the cliffhangers worked out. Would we be talking the same way about Ellie finding Jock’s things after all these years? I honestly don’t think so because many more people wanted Bobby back on the show than they did a different Jock. A lot of people were able to look past the dream if it meant getting Bobby back whereas I don’t think Ben/Wes as Jock would’ve ever been accepted the same way. The dream resolution has its detractors, and I’m one of them, but that cliffhanger has become so iconic that I can’t picture Dallas any differently now.

 

[Grangehill1]

Interesting idea but I have to say that considering we’re still talking about Pam finding Bobby in the shower 37 years later and what it ended up meaning it’s probably for the best the way the cliffhangers worked out. Would we be talking the same way about Ellie finding Jock’s things after all these years? I honestly don’t think so because many more people wanted Bobby back on the show than they did a different Jock. A lot of people were able to look past the dream if it meant getting Bobby back whereas I don’t think Ben/Wes as Jock would’ve ever been accepted the same way. The dream resolution has its detractors, and I’m one of them, but that cliffhanger has become so iconic that I can’t picture Dallas any differently now.

With respect I don’t think ANYBODY can look past the dream resolution. It was sloppy and lazy.
The shower scene was iconic but for all of the wrong reasons. It’s not iconic in a good way. It’s in a very very bad way

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Interesting idea but I have to say that considering we’re still talking about Pam finding Bobby in the shower 37 years later and what it ended up meaning it’s probably for the best the way the cliffhangers worked out. Would we be talking the same way about Ellie finding Jock’s things after all these years? I honestly don’t think so because many more people wanted Bobby back on the show than they did a different Jock. A lot of people were able to look past the dream if it meant getting Bobby back whereas I don’t think Ben/Wes as Jock would’ve ever been accepted the same way. The dream resolution has its detractors, and I’m one of them, but that cliffhanger has become so iconic that I can’t picture Dallas any differently now.

Yeah unfortunately that shower scene has become a fixed point in time and only a Time Lord would be able to alter the flow of the Dallas time line now!

However you still get people speculating or putting their views forward about Ben Stivers and Wes Parmalee actually being Jock Ewing because I'm one of them.

The Bobby Ewing shower scene is just so iconic but that still doesn't take anything away from the season ten episode where Miss Ellie discovers items belonging to Jock in Wes Parmalee's bunkhouse.

Most fans at the time of the season nine cliffhanger were delighted by Bobby's return, again I was one of them. None of us thought about the long term repercussions of how much damage that small scene would do to the show's popularity. Decades later we can look back at the creative mistakes which ultimately put the show into decline.

It's a what if situation at it's finest. What if Lorimar had not dropped Philip Capice? What if Katzman had not returned? Leading of course to What if Duffy had not come back?

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

What if Lorimar had not dropped Philip Capice? What if Katzman had not returned? Leading of course to What if Duffy had not come back?

I would have loved all of that and am convinced, that Dallas had declined much slower and didn't suffer from that awful comical mess that it and especially JR became.

 

[southfork88]

With respect I don’t think ANYBODY can look past the dream resolution. It was sloppy and lazy.
The shower scene was iconic but for all of the wrong reasons. It’s not iconic in a good way. It’s in a very very bad way

You are both right, no one in their right mind could say otherwise

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

You are both right, no one in their right mind could say otherwise

In the long term it did more harm than good.

In the short term it got Patrick Duffy back on board the show as Bobby but it messed around Peter Dunne's storyline of bringing back Jock Ewing albeit with another actor.

Katzman wasn't a bad Producer, however as the sole Executive Producer his creative direction for the series seemed to go out the window after season ten. He certainly was not the saviour of Dallas because some of his creative writing decisions such as that ridiculous Mummy Pam storyline really hurt the show long term.

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

Mummy Pam was kinda highclass compared to Haleyville, Ellie and Clayton crime detectives or Granny Beaumont, it just went worse and worse

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Mummy Pam was kinda highclass compared to Haleyville, Ellie and Clayton crime detectives or Granny Beaumont, it just went worse and worse

Yeah Katzman should've been arrested by the FBI after season eleven.

Unfortunately field agents weren't aware of the decline of Dallas until it was too late.

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

I mean, if it didn't still had the opening credits, i would have thought, oh , these are the guys from the former Dallas show, now try doing a comedy format, but it just ain't funny.

 

[DallasFanForever]

With respect I don’t think ANYBODY can look past the dream resolution. It was sloppy and lazy.
The shower scene was iconic but for all of the wrong reasons. It’s not iconic in a good way. It’s in a very very bad way

I can look past it a lot more now than I used to for some reason. Maybe I’ve softened on it? It’s definitely the turning point of the show for a lot of people but I no longer look at it like it was a complete disaster or the end of Dallas. I do agree that it should’ve been handled differently but I look at it now for what it was.

 

[DallasFanForever]

The Bobby Ewing shower scene is just so iconic but that still doesn't take anything away from the season ten episode where Miss Ellie discovers items belonging to Jock in Wes Parmalee's bunkhouse.

Exactly! And as you know I would’ve had no problem with him turning out to be Jock. If this was the last great season of Dallas as so many feel, then there was really nothing to lose. I don’t even agree with the people that point out that two resurrections in the same season was overkill. Why is it overkill? Soaps brought back people from the dead all the time. Mark and Bobby were resurrected in the same season, so why isn’t it possible in the next season?

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Exactly! And as you know I would’ve had no problem with him turning out to be Jock. If this was the last great season of Dallas as so many feel, then there was really nothing to lose. I don’t even agree with the people that point out that two resurrections in the same season was overkill. Why is it overkill? Soaps brought back people from the dead all the time. Mark and Bobby were resurrected in the same season, so why isn’t it possible in the next season?

It was very short sighted. Steve Forrest was such a good actor too.

I don't subscribe to the notion that he wasn't gruff enough in his portrayal as Jock because an actors performance is only as good as the scripts that they're given.

Forrest really shone on the show, his portrayal was believable even if some thought the storyline was a bit outlandish and over the top. It was no more OTT than the Mummy Pam storyline of the following season.

The Producers just got cold feet and chickened out on seeing the storyline through the way it was originally intended. Still it was one of the better and more dramatic storylines of the show, well in my opinion at least. I guess it's all down to the individual fan watching the show as some of them were quite openly hostile about Jim Davis being replaced as Jock. Both actors played the role really well.

 

[Chris2]

From Dallas fanzine:
We ask #Dallas writer/producer David Paulsen that popular fan question if Wes Parmalee really WAS Jock Ewing?
DP: "No, that was not a possibility, anymore than it was our intention to bring back Patrick Duffy to the show as his twin brother, which we joked about. Jock was there - that painting of him was in virtually every episode so how could you do that? We would not do that and it certainly would not serve him. So insinuations with Parmalee were there, but there was never any intention of making him Jock, no."

I believe the Phil Capice/Peter Dunne regime planned on making Ben Stivers Jock. But the Katzman/Paulsen regime had no intention of doing so. In addition, the Parmalee claim wasn’t revealed until October, and the December scripts were already written and likely shot. You simply can’t rip up the script and change on the fly when you’re producing 30 episodes per season. There was no “chickening out” or “cold feet”.

Also, I don’t believe that the final scene of season 9 was going to be the Ben Stivers reveal. I believe it would have been the explosion in the Ewing building.

 

[Seaviewer]

Most fans at the time of the season nine cliffhanger were delighted by Bobby's return, again I was one of them. None of us thought about the long term repercussions of how much damage that small scene would do to the show's popularity. Decades later we can look back at the creative mistakes which ultimately put the show into decline.

Yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Bobby's return was very eagerly anticipated - and so was Donna Reed as Miss Ellie.
Gary Ewing once asked, rhetorically, "why can't you know it's a mistake before you do it?"

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I believe the Phil Capice/Peter Dunne regime planned on making Ben Stivers Jock. But the Katzman/Paulsen regime had no intention of doing so. In addition, the Parmalee claim wasn’t revealed until October, and the December scripts were already written and likely shot. You simply can’t rip up the script and change on the fly when you’re producing 30 episodes per season. There was no “chickening out” or “cold feet”.

Also, I don’t believe that the final scene of season 9 was going to be the Ben Stivers reveal. I believe it would have been the explosion in the Ewing building.

I'm sorry Chris but you're wrong on both counts.

I realise I can't prove what I'm saying but then again you can't prove it either.

Do you honestly think David Paulsen would ever admit that they changed a storylines outcome because it was poorly received by the fans and resulted in a fan backlash?

He's hardly going to admit it. I wouldn't take much stock in that statement either as it sounds exactly what it is a company PR statement made by a company representative to disavow any intention of what they actually tried to do but didn't have the gumption to do it! Companies like to cover themselves if things go wrong by pandering to their customers or viewers by reassuring them that what they believed was happening wasn't. I'm sorry you can't see that.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

Wes being Jock would have absolutely dominated the second half of Season 10. I don’t see how that could have possibly been a decision made while the season was underway..

 

[DallasFanForever]

Wes being Jock would have absolutely dominated the second half of Season 10. I don’t see how that could have possibly been a decision made while the season was underway..

I think Katzman/Paulsen had no intention of making him Jock. They went with the same storyline as Capice/Dunne but I doubt they ever seriously considered pulling the trigger. Perhaps they weren’t sure how to end it hence the abrupt ending but the fact that they wrapped it up at the barbecue and didn’t let it continue into the second half of the season speaks volumes about their intentions in my opinion.

 

[Grangehill1]

I believe the Phil Capice/Peter Dunne regime planned on making Ben Stivers Jock. But the Katzman/Paulsen regime had no intention of doing so. In addition, the Parmalee claim wasn’t revealed until October, and the December scripts were already written and likely shot. You simply can’t rip up the script and change on the fly when you’re producing 30 episodes per season. There was no “chickening out” or “cold feet”.

Also, I don’t believe that the final scene of season 9 was going to be the Ben Stivers reveal. I believe it would have been the explosion in the Ewing building.

I think the Ellie and sue ellen scene where they’re looking for Clayton and meet Eddie is a good indicator that the cliffhanger was Ellie finding out Stivers was Jock. There’s a very very subtle mystery that Clayton has gone missing. Over the years that I’ve watched the episode I always felt that scene stood out like a sore thumb. Then I found out what the payoff was and it make sense. It was paving the way for Ellie walking in on Stivers in the bunkhouse.