Pam's Dream

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

The feds have helped people do it.

I suppose it wouldn’t be too much more farfetched than the “State Department intercepts 70 year old retiree on way home from second honeymoon and drafts him for urgent mission developing the nascent oil industry somewhere in South America, a mission so critical and timely that he didn’t even have time to drop his bags off at home and say hello to his family” gambit..

 

[Toni]

The feds have helped people do it.

And JR did it in "JR Returns" too...

 

[Seaviewer]

but this would be an unbelievably cruel thing to do to Miss Ellie, Christopher, and the rest of his family!

It's no more cruel than having them watch him die a second time. And people will do illegal things if they're paid enough.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

It's no more cruel than having them watch him die a second time.

Do you really believe that dying for real is just as cruel to your family as having your family grieve for you because you faked your death? Intent doesn't matter?

Dying for real isn't a choice. It's not being cruel. When has someone died for real from causes that they had no control over and people said: "What a cruel thing for him to do to his family"?

 

[Toni]

Slightly off-topic, but once again, the "Dallas" Dream Solution has been mentioned very recently during the promotion of one of Netflix´s most amazing shows, "The OA":

"While the classic ‘it was all a dream’ get-out would be inconceivable for any other drama, you could argue that it would work for The OA. Like a dream, often the plot isn’t the most significant thing about the series – it’s the surrealist visuals that tend to take centre stage.

However, this probably won’t be a twist we should expect, judging by (The OA´s star Jason) Isaacs’ reaction.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that theory,” he says. “I think to do the ‘I woke up, it was just a dream’ or ‘Bobby Ewing steps out the shower’ is not necessarily the most inspired or original form of storytelling.”

In other words, we can safely rule this out."

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/on-...fan-theories-cast-react-jason-isaacs-netflix/

This has just made me think if "Dallas", in an alternate universe, had had no Dream Season and no Bobby´s return, and (obviously) had ended one or two years after that, then would it be the show we all here love and adore, and others continuously reference, spoof and / or criticise (mostly without having watched it)?

In other words, would "Dallas" be today so popular without all the defaults and problems it had after Patrick Duffy´s departure? Would it have strangely become in hindsight "the only serious drama" from the 80´s? Or maybe it would be mentioned as the trendsetter for all the other (and crazier) supersoaps? Just a thought...

 

[Seaviewer]

Do you really believe that dying for real is just as cruel to your family as having your family grieve for you because you faked your death? Intent doesn't matter?

Dying for real isn't a choice. It's not being cruel. When has someone died for real from causes that they had no control over and people said: "What a cruel thing for him to do to his family"?

In my scenario, Bobby would have been unsure at first whether his revival would have been permanent. The family had already watched him die once - that bridge had been crossed. It makes sense to me that he would not want to take the chance of having them go through that again.

 

[Chris2]

For me, the “Bobby’s death was faked” explanation would have been just as preposterous as the dream, and would have had the disadvantage of lingering over the show for episodes. At least the dream allowed them to walk away from the story quickly.

The real issue is that the producers NEVER should have killed off Bobby on-camera. I suppose that Katzman didn’t care about the repercussions of this - he was leaving. But it was a terrible decision. Have Bobby burned beyond recognition in an exploding car, or drown while on his honeymoon with Pam. Either scenario would have allowed the show to move forward while leaving the door open for a return.

 

[Seaviewer]

the dream allowed them to walk away from the story quickly.

The thing is I don't think they should have walked away from it. The year's events should have been allowed to stand. It's the wiping away of all that development which really riles, not the dream explanation itself.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

The thing is I don't think they should have walked away from it. The year's events should have been allowed to stand. It's the wiping away of all that development which really riles, not the dream explanation itself.

Well the fickle finger of blame get's pointed directly at Leonard Katzman. He was the one that sanctioned off that plot twist without properly considering what irreparable damage it could do to the show. And it did do a helluva lot of damage to the programme once a lot of viewers realised the previous season was a dream.

Fan's felt insulted & deserted it. The show began it's slow downward spiral to oblivion! Exacerbated by the departures of both Susan Howard & Victoria Principal. Principal made the right decision to leave and by deserting the sinking ship, Dallas just collapsed even more. It was like the Titanic sinking, Dallas couldn't stay afloat & it sunk big time. Yeah it stayed on another four years after Victoria left but nothing could save the show short of a miracle.

Perhaps if the show had gambled in season ten & actually made the Wes Parmalee character Jock Ewing, Dallas may have ran for a lot longer. The dream explanation did the show no favours, I've always suspected that it was one of the main reason's why Victoria Principal left. And we all know how much Victoria's departure damaged Dallas too. The dream resolution was the catalyst for the beginning of the end for a once great series.

 

[MenaceTheDennis]

I really don’t know what convinced Duffy he was going to have this huge success that was lucrative enough to leave Dallas once and for all. Maybe his manager or agent convinced him? I dunno. He had one movie called Vamping which was a flop, only notable for showing his hot a**. Without IMDbing it thats all I remember. Victoria had a little more success in the TV movie realm, but it wasn’t until her skin care line came out that she became extremely wealthy.

Just goes to show, never let an actor decide how they will exit a series. I think just about anything in retrospect would’ve been better than the dream scenario. Best option would’ve been to say no to a Duffy return.

 

[Miss Texas 1967]

He had one movie called Vamping which was a flop, only notable for showing his hot a**. Without IMDbing it thats all I remember

OT but this movie is on Youtube. All I'll say is I found it very dull and a bit hard to follow, the comments on the video aren't nearly as non-complementary though so who knows.

He did make other TV movies that I liked a lot more (Too Good to be True and Unholy Matrimony) not sure if those were during his break from Dallas though.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

OT but this movie is on Youtube. All I'll say is I found it very dull and a bit hard to follow, the comments on the video aren't nearly as non-complementary though so who knows.

He did make other TV movies that I liked a lot more (Too Good to be True and Unholy Matrimony) not sure if those were during his break from Dallas though.

He was also in Arthur Hailey's Strong Medicine which I think was made when he was off Dallas, where he starred opposite the original Fallon from Dynasty, Pamela Sue Martin if I remember rightly. Ironically his character in that got run down by a car & died! Although presumably not by a woman with blond hair wearing a big hat!!

 

[Chris2]

He also played the goat in the 1985 TV movie “Alice in Wonderland” (from Irwin Allen of disaster movie fame!).

 

[Michael Torrance]

And it did do a helluva lot of damage to the programme once a lot of viewers realised the previous season was a dream.

Fan's felt insulted & deserted it. The show began it's slow downward spiral to oblivion! Exacerbated by the departures of both Susan Howard & Victoria Principal. Principal made the right decision to leave and by deserting the sinking ship, Dallas just collapsed even more. It was like the Titanic sinking, Dallas couldn't stay afloat & it sunk big time. Yeah it stayed on another four years after Victoria left but nothing could save the show short of a miracle.

Perhaps if the show had gambled in season ten & actually made the Wes Parmalee character Jock Ewing, Dallas may have ran for a lot longer.

I don't think it matters if the show had lasted (or had good ratings) for another one or ten seasons. I think it matters that the dream made the whole intellectual property a joke and invalidated the viewer experience: like, "you don't know what you have been watching was actually a waste of your whole year." After the "who shot J.R." cliffhanger, the show grabbed a worldwide audience and made them obsess over the importance of watching each new episode because it would be the subject of water-cooler talks everywhere. Now people were told they could have been going out every Friday during the 1985-86 season, or at least rent something for the VCR. Or even watch Knight Rider on NBC, which turned out to be more realistic...

 

[Rove]

and Jacobs admitted he would have used another explanation

Which was?

 

[Michael Torrance]

Which was?

Katherine had cloned him?

 

[Rove]

and for Leonard Katzman to wipe away all the stories done by his predecessor as quickly and cleanly as possible.

Like ripping off a bandaid...but at what cost? Many have stated post dream season that Dallas had returned to form. It's been many years since watched it so I'll take their word for it. Regardless how good the season was the circumstance of Bobby's return killed credibility with many Dallas fans; and more was to come.

 

[Rove]

In other words, would "Dallas" be today so popular without all the defaults and problems it had after Patrick Duffy´s departure? Would it have strangely become in hindsight "the only serious drama" from the 80´s?

Well...if the producers and CBS decided to pull the plug (pun intended) after Swan Song I would have been left frustrated. But as an exclamation mark I think it would have worked wonders for Dallas with regards to longevity and being praised as one of the best TV series ever to hit the small screen. The problem with Bobby's resurrection is it now overshadows Dallas to this day; competing on par with Who Shot JR?

 

[Rove]

Well the fickle finger of blame get's pointed directly at Leonard Katzman. He was the one that sanctioned off that plot twist without properly considering what irreparable damage it could do to the show.

This is what occurs when someone believes they are bigger than the game. I see it all the time both in business, politics and sport. Did Lenny really believe he was the answer to pull Dallas from the brink of disaster? So there were creative differences (behind the scenes) with Lorimar Dallas. It didn't matter because what was being presented on screen worked. The audience was loving the product you were serving. Why tinker with it?

Why didn't someone from CBS pull the lot of them in and give them a good telling off. Starting with the Barbara Bel Geddes/Donna Reed debacle. If Barbara simply requested a lighter filming schedule then surely her demands could have been accommodated simply by shooting her scenes in Los Angeles. It wasn't like Lorimar Dallas were not already doing this.

And if Lenny was THE answer to the problems facing Dallas why did the series lose momentum under his leadership when he had assumed total creative control?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Which was?

Jacobs didn't specify. But I assume it would align with the explanation in my head, because -- y'know -- me.