Peter Richards storyline

[darkshadows38]

i dunno ladies or men whichever is your preference i guess, i wonder if there were any ladies laughing at his wardrobe? i mean you can only show so much on tv on show like Dallas. though if that was done today he would have had actual muscles i think. kinda how the remake of beauty and the beast the tv show remake not the film had a dude that looked like a model for playgirl magazine and had a scar on his face i refused to watch it because of that, only cause if you are going to call a character the beast make him look like one. Ron Pearlman is one ugly mofo the makeup was convincing but than i've always said they should have left that off his face alone can stop traffic.

and Ron Perlman himself has a good enough sense of humor to call himself an ugly bastard something i can give a lot of respect for too. my point simply is how much things have changed in the past 30 years on what's shown on tv than or even now for that matter. regular tv not HBO or any of those channels or netflix shows on ABC, NBC, CBS those 3 networks are the ones i'm talking about

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

now that I think of it, the role might have worked better if instead of Chris Atkins they'd used a young Chet Atkins

(I'll see myself out now, hopefully!)

 

[darkshadows38]

as long as he could act and the year was 1965 lol

 

[the-lost-son]

I've just finished watching season 6 (DVD7). It's perfectly written and the pay-off is worth waiting for.

To make peter a suspect in "who shot Bobby" felt a bit sudden (like Edgar Randolph or Vaughn Leland) but it worked for me.

The cast exodus around this time is massive. Shortly before the season finale Mark Graison left, later Afton, Katherine and true Miss Ellie. Although the Peter richards storyline was wrapped up fine, I'd welcomed Peter back any time.

And I loved the Lady Jessica storyline that season. This character and her secret, Desperate housewives couldn't have done it any better, superb acting, suspenseful, great writing, loved it, just great. The fights with Clayton, her colluding with Jr... and the viewer left in the dark. And we lost her, too.

The new characters in the following season - Mandy Winger, Jamie&Jack and Donna Reed's Miss Ellie couldn't fill that gap.

They obviously did not know what to do with Lucy. Her last real storyline was Mickey Trotter. In season 7 she is a waitress and in season 6 she did nothing but calling Peter.

 

[CeeCee72]

I'm not saying the character had to be Mark Graison Jr. (or the 3rd, I guess), or Randy Powell-Pitt, but the cutoff t-shirt look was a bit much...

(especially for a classy joint like Pizza Hut!)

This picture - it looks like an angry mother scolding her naughty teenaged son.

 

[Chris2]

LOL @ Pizza Hut.

My favorite Peedur line: ”I love you, Mrs. Ewing.”

And I agree - the 83-84 season great. It’s my favorite season,

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Famous he may have been, but even a cursory glance online at the nude Playgirls photos from ‘82 reveal that he could not accurately be described as a big star……

 

[the-lost-son]

Great thread. I started the same exactly a year ago:

Peter Richards storyline

I really liked the Peter Richards/SueEllen storyline in season 6 (DVD 7) for many reasons. It was a breath of fresh air and really creative to give SueEllen a much younger lover (after Cliff, Clint, Dusty in the seasons before). What I liked best was the writing of the full season. It‘s...

tellytalk.net

I loved the Peter Richards storyline. So well done, writing, acting...perfect.

Put yourself in Sue Ellen's shoes. In the season's beginning her marriage shattered in pieces after Holly Harwood/Mickey Trotter, too weak even to move out. She once had affairs with real powerhouses in Cliff and Dusty which did not work out.
Now here comes this young, unorthodox lover, good-hearted, just as vunerable as her.

JR was on top of his game that season. Orchestrating Pam/Bobby/Katherine, the downfall of Edgar Randolph, Cliff, colluding with Jessica and Sly. It's so good, because JR did not see it coming. He was ruling the scene and he didn't see it although the affair was happening right under his nose. That's why it needed to be a teenage even "childish" actor (yes, the speedos included), and not someone more manly. To watch him finally orchestrating Peter's downfall was a great treat, too.

There are many scenes I love, like JR standing on the balcony, JR telling Lucy off, JR's remark about "acne is not contagious". Even the thought was so preposterous to him.

I would have loved to keep the baby though (JR the father). It was SueEllen's last affair which really mattered (for me), it was truly a breath if fresh air and very well executed (charactet-driven).

When Linda Grey left the series, I would have loved for her to ride into the sunset with Dusty or Peter.
And a xameo in TNT Dallas would have been fun for old-time fans.

@Via The Void :
Sotry didn't mean to hijack your thread. I wanted to copy the link in your thread which didn't work.

@moderators:
Could you move this post to the new thread?
Excuse the inconvenience.

 

[Julia's Gun]

I too thought Christopher was miscast in that role. I'm re-watching Season 4 at the moment and forgot how gorgous Leigh McCloskey was as Mitch.
His relationship was going nowhere fast with Lucy, but maybe an affair with Sue-Ellen would have been fun to watch.
He hasn't got his top off once yet but he looks fabulous in every scene, and appears to have at least some body hair, unlike poor Christopher.

So yes I could have seen Mitch ditching his medical career and becoming John-Ross's coach, and then a passionate love affair with Sue-Ellen ensues. There could have been some mileage in that with all the family dynamics, and some great catfights between Charlene and Sue-Ellen in the pool...

 

[Grangehill1]

I watched at the time and don’t remember any sort of controversy or audience uproar. It’s a brilliant storyline in the best season.

 

[darkshadows38]

nobody said the storyline was awful it wasn't but Atkins was just badly miscast that's all

 

[ClassyCo]

There's a few different threads circling around on the forums about the Peter Richards story line, but I suppose since this is the newest one, I'll give my two cents on the matter right here.

For me, I thought the story-arc was a good idea --- well, in theory at least. On paper, I can imagine how salacious the producers wanted the fling to be: "Oh, so Sue Ellen's going to cheat on J.R. with a boy half her age!" That certainly sounds juicy, or at least "fresh" enough to give Sue Ellen someone else to step-out on J.R. with.

Like so many others have said, the problem with the Peter Richards story was in the execution. I think Christopher Atkins is an alright actor, but he was wrong physically for Peter. He looked far too young, and that made the difference in age between Peter and Sue Ellen more creepily obvious. In some scenes, the age gap was so painfully precedent that it appeared as if Sue Ellen was having an affair with a high schooler that probably didn't even have his real driver's license yet.

That's not salacious or sexy. That's creepy.

I'm often drawn back to the memory of the scene where Sue Ellen meets up with Peter and his friends at this little teenage-hangout-style dinner. Peter's friends instantly recognize Sue Ellen as Peter's "mother" and it makes Sue Ellen feel awkward. It made me feel awkward too. Linda Gray was 20 years older than Christopher Atkins (and therefore giving their characters 20 years difference in age) and they looked it. Sue Ellen was beautiful, and Peter was handsome, but the obvious age gap is just too hard to overlook.

As I said earlier, I think Atkins is a decent actor. I haven't seen a lot of his work to make a strong judgment, but I don't think his portrayal of Peter was necessarily bad. Yeah, he gets a little whiny in spots for my tastes, and I don't like how he suddenly feels guilty about his fling with Sue Ellen and feels the need to rat them both out to J.R. Which that, I'm sure, wasn't to lay at Atkins' feet -- he was just doing what the script was telling him to do.

Had they chosen a stronger, more muscularly older-looking young actor, I do think the story would've played better. Right off, I think of young actors like Judd Nelson or Robby Benson (he still might've looked too young) that could've played Peter instead. Nelson and Benson were both just a few years older than Atkins, but they looked older -- or at least I think that they did back then.

I understand why the producers and CBS wanted Atkins back in 1983. He had BLUE LAGOON and other salacious-orientated things on his resume, and they wanted someone popular and young to draw in some younger viewers to DALLAS. That all makes perfect sense from a PR standpoint. But what they didn't think over was how Gray and Atkins lacked any strong on-screen chemistry (in some scenes it's not there even in the slightest) or the fact that the age difference was just a little too much.

Maybe I'm being too picky.

 

[Mustard]

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of this storyline. Also, Sue Ellen creeped me out more than Peter when it got heavy. Peter came across as a strange mix of a vulnerable kid (perhaps even underage) yet who was also sure in himself, while Sue Ellen was the opposite in posing as a strong exterior but all over the place with her low self-esteem.

Lucy may have had some dreadful taste in men, with a couple of exceptions, but she was written to look stupid during the Peter stuff.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

if they couldn’t get Brad Pitt or Judd Nelson, imagine the heights the storyline might have hit with the inimitable Nicolas Cage, who was 19 when the season started, as Peter, freaking out and spastically emoting as his feelings for Sue Ellen reached a fever pitch

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

if they couldn’t get Brad Pitt or Judd Nelson, imagine the heights the storyline might have hit with the inimitable Nicolas Cage, who was 19 when the season started, as Peter, freaking out and spastically emoting as his feelings for Sue Ellen reached a fever pitch

or, to be less silly, another rising 19 year-old star, Rob Lowe

(ok, enough from me!)

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Peter came across as a strange mix of a vulnerable kid (perhaps even underage) yet who was also sure in himself, while Sue Ellen was the opposite in posing as a strong exterior but all over the place with her low self-esteem.

This is just what happens when a gay guy dates a lesbian.

Can it ever really work out in the end?

 

[tommie]

That's not salacious or sexy. That's creepy.

Was it meant to be salacious or sexy though?

I think they wanted to play up the jail bait angle, without Sue Ellen actually committing a (nother) crime. Also, he was likely never meant to actually provide serious competition to JR.

 

[ClassyCo]

Was it meant to be salacious or sexy though?

I think they wanted to play up the jail bait angle, without Sue Ellen actually committing a (nother) crime. Also, he was likely never meant to actually provide serious competition to JR.

Well, perhaps their intention wasn't for it to be too salacious and just another one of Sue Ellen's flings. I'd like to think, though, that they had more planned for the story than what actually ended up happening. It would've been nice had Peter been a serious threat to J.R., not just someone J.R. could've beaten with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Well, perhaps their intention wasn't for it to be too salacious and just another one of Sue Ellen's flings. I'd like to think, though, that they had more planned for the story than what actually ended up happening. It would've been nice had Peter been a serious threat to J.R., not just someone J.R. could've beaten with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back.

Yeah I would've loved to have seen more of Peter in the following season.

A shame he never came back.

 

[ClassyCo]

Yeah I would've loved to have seen more of Peter in the following season.

A shame he never came back.

But the Peter/Sue Ellen fling had rans its course. Linda Gray didn't really like it.