Skipping the Dream Season

[Sarah]

Maybe you could get Joan River's to phone her again Sarah!!

From Heaven?

 

[Richard Channing]

From Heaven?

Assuming that's where she is....

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

From Heaven?

Well Bobby died and came back in the shower! So who knows!

 

[mrpitkin]

I'm rewatching it now and have just finished season 8. I've taken the decision to skip the dream season...let's see how this pans out...

 

[CeeCee72]

I'm rewatching it now and have just finished season 8. I've taken the decision to skip the dream season...let's see how this pans out...

The last full rewatch I did, I skipped it but went back and watched it last.

 

[Jock's Ghost]

JR and Sue Ellen should have been competitors. A triade with Cliff, all three against each other for all the same reasons.

 

[mrpitkin]

The last full rewatch I did, I skipped it but went back and watched it last.

Yes I may do the same.

Looking at the original transmission dates in the UK, due to the quarrel between bbc and itv at the time, season 9 continued straight after season 8 had aired. I was wondering at what point in the UK did we know season 8 was all a dream?

No Internet at the time, so I'm wondering if this was spoiled at all?

 

[DallasFanForever]

The last full rewatch I did, I skipped it but went back and watched it last.

I’m just curious, did you feel it lined up well for the most part after the skip or did it feel a little weird?

 

[Grangehill1]

Yes I may do the same.

Looking at the original transmission dates in the UK, due to the quarrel between bbc and itv at the time, season 9 continued straight after season 8 had aired. I was wondering at what point in the UK did we know season 8 was all a dream?

No Internet at the time, so I'm wondering if this was spoiled at all?

There were rumours it was a dream but it didn’t get spoilt as such.
The UK transmission of Return To Camelot was soon after the US one.
What DID happen though - the BBC transmitted a trailer with Pam asleep in the centre (as per the last scene of Blast from the Past) with the various explosions happening around her heavily hinting it was all a dream.
I think all of us genuinely didn’t believe it or think the show would actually go ‘there’ until we tuned in and realised that they would

 

[Barbara Fan]

It was kinda ruined for us as US were ahead of UK in transmission and I opened Sunday newspapers to see Pam and Bobby and it was all a dream type of headlines after the 1st episode was shown in USA

Most of them were rather -ve in their description of what had transpired and rather incredulous!

 

[LMLDallas78]

Yes I remember that I knew what was coming. It was definitely hinted to us here in the UK that Bobby would be back in the shower and it would all be a dream.
This was at a time when most leaked stories held some kind of truth.
It felt like a proper punch in the guts and I remember feeling utter disbelief. Surely not, how could they?

But at the time most of us wanted Bobby back so it all seemed an impossible mess.

 

[CeeCee72]

I’m just curious, did you feel it lined up well for the most part after the skip or did it feel a little weird?

It was quite jarring actually. Mostly because of the way the characters looked. Sue Ellen and Jenna suddenly had longer hair (in SE's case, it was MUCH longer). JR looked like he had aged ten years.

Once I got past the physical appearances being so different, it flowed quite well.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Yes I remember that I knew what was coming. It was definitely hinted to us here in the UK that Bobby would be back in the shower and it would all be a dream.
This was at a time when most leaked stories held some kind of truth.
It felt like a proper punch in the guts and I remember feeling utter disbelief. Surely not, how could they?

But at the time most of us wanted Bobby back so it all seemed an impossible mess.

Whilst in hindsight it was a great plot twist, this was unfortunately the beginning of the end for Dallas.

The Producers and writers had inadvertantly gone too far for interest in the show to continue.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Whilst in hindsight it was a great plot twist, this was unfortunately the beginning of the end for Dallas.

It’s quite polarizing. I admire the risk they took but ultimately it did backfire. I don’t consider it the end of Dallas necessarily but it is the turning point. There were still some great moments and storylines to come but for me it was never the same after that.

 

[B.J. Ewing]

I've heard the suggestion thrown around a few times but couldn't find a specific thread discussing the idea.

I'm in the middle of a rewatch and skipped from Swan Song to Return to Camelot (and through the season) just to see how it flows as in previous rewatches I've found the transition from dream to reality quite jarring and difficult to remember where everyone was at in their lives after an entire season of development (off the top of my head Jamie and Cliff's relationship status as well as JR and Sue Ellen's dislike after being happy at the end of the dream). I was pleasantly surprised by how it did flow with the writers having to scrap a whole season and carry on with year old plots, but watching on DVD the transition was still a bit jarring, mostly visually but also in story development.

Firstly, season 8 is reasonable picture quality on the DVD, it's not amazingly noticeable when you're watching it but it is when you flip to season 10 immediately afterwards and the picture has that fuzzy tape quality rather than film it takes some time to adjust your eyes.

Secondly, the fashion seems to have moved a bit further forward into the strange over the missing year, which skipping that year is also noticeable. Thirdly, where there had rarely been any mention of foreign oil issues in season 8, season 10 opens up talking as if it's not a brand new thing they're discussing which is interesting.

Honourable mention goes to the fact that when someone talks to Miss Ellie, they're talking to BBG, not DR.

On the down side, the plots they decided to ignore are still on your mind, namely the Mark Graison story and the Bobby/Pam/Jenna/Katherine(?) story. In season 8 the search for Mark Graison is left on a cliffhanger with the man in the Hong Kong clinic on the phone to someone (not JR? Mark?). The cliffhanger is resolved in the dream but as it is a dream and they don't return to that story in season 10, we never get any resolution about what happened to Mark.

The Jenna framed for murder and woman throwing her drink at the TV thing which is revealed to be Katherine's doing at the end of season 8, but since the dream starts with Bobby and Pam waking up the morning Katherine hits Bobby with her car and is never returned to in season 10, the plot is left unresolved. We are to assume it was Katherine seeing as Katherine shot Bobby, Katherine was plotting against Jenna with Naldo, Katherine drunkenly confessed her feelings to Bobby and was rejected by him etc. but there is no definitive end to that plot. I know Katherine returns briefly in season 11 but even that isn't a resolution for the tangled web of season 8 storylines.

Dusty reappears at the Ewing Oil party at the end of season 8 and Sue Ellen asks Clayton to arrange a meeting for her, which he does and this occurs on the morning Bobby dies, which is all a dream. Pam wakes up in season 10 and Dusty is nowhere to be found again despite the fact that the foundation for a short return was laid. Sue Ellen also stops drinking much faster in season 10 than she does in the dream, so it feels much less significant but it's also sort of nice because I'm really not fond of the drunk storyline in the dream.

Finally, some of the set changes from the dream remain, which isn't awful but does remind you there isn't a seamless transition from season 8 to season 10.

Oh, and the Mandy/JR affair feels less eventful when you skip the dream season even though they're together before and after the dream. That could just be how I perceived things this time though.

I intend to go back and rewatch the dream season at some point in this rewatch but I might keep it for the end, after the really lacklustre seasons come to a close.

It wasn't like her, but Katherine could have given up on Bobby. When her framing Jenna for Naldo's murder didn't go as planned and she witnessed Jenna and Bobby's engagement on television, she threw a glass of tomato sauce at the screen. Maybe that was the moment she had enough.

That being said, we only found out it WAS Katherine after she hit Bobby, which was part of the dream. So we only know there's a blonde wigged woman throwing tomato juice at her TV screen.

 

[Mustard]

I never skip the dream. I tend to stop at the end of the dream or at Pam's car crash.

 

[Mustard]

Yes I remember that I knew what was coming. It was definitely hinted to us here in the UK that Bobby would be back in the shower and it would all be a dream.
This was at a time when most leaked stories held some kind of truth.
It felt like a proper punch in the guts and I remember feeling utter disbelief. Surely not, how could they?

But at the time most of us wanted Bobby back so it all seemed an impossible mess.

Yes, the dream season in the UK was many months behind the US broadcasts after that whole legal business where Thames Television brought the rights to the Season 9 DVD episodes in February 1985. The BBC were furious, and pulled their Season 8 DVD broadcasts in mid season (at the very point of Naldo's death) and threatened to schedule the remaining Season 8 DVD episodes directly up against ITV's Season 9 DVD transmission. In the end, the BBC resumed their Season 8 DVD transmissions (after 7 weeks) while the British government and the Independent Broadcasting Authority eventually forced Thames to sell their rights to Season 9 DVD episodes to the BBC, at a financial loss. Season 9 DVD episodes in the UK were therefore about 5 months or thereabouts behind the US broadcasts. In past seasons, it had tended to be a few weeks behind, or sometimes even days behind. There was actually one episode, (Season 6 DVD, episode 13, Mama Dearest) that aired on the same day (31 December 1982), and therefore shown in the UK first because of the time differential.

In the UK, there was only a 2-week gap between the finale of Season 9 DVD (8 October 1986) and the premiere of Season 10 DVD (22 October 1986). That meant that Season 10 DVD episodes in the UK were about 4 weeks or less behind the US.

 

[Grangehill1]

Yes, the dream season in the UK was many months behind the US broadcasts after that whole legal business where Thames Television brought the rights to the Season 9 DVD episodes in February 1985. The BBC were furious, and pulled their Season 8 DVD broadcasts in mid season (at the very point of Naldo's death) and threatened to schedule the remaining Season 8 DVD episodes directly up against ITV's Season 9 DVD transmission. In the end, the BBC resumed their Season 8 DVD transmissions (after 7 weeks) while the British government and the Independent Broadcasting Authority eventually forced Thames to sell their rights to Season 9 DVD episodes to the BBC, at a financial loss. Season 9 DVD episodes in the UK were therefore about 5 months or thereabouts behind the US broadcasts. In past seasons, it had tended to be a few weeks behind, or sometimes even days behind. There was actually one episode, (Season 6 DVD, episode 13, Mama Dearest) that aired on the same day (31 December 1982), and therefore shown in the UK first because of the time differential.

In the UK, there was only a 2-week gap between the finale of Season 9 DVD (8 October 1986) and the premiere of Season 10 DVD (22 October 1986). That meant that Season 10 DVD episodes in the UK were about 4 weeks or less behind the US.

The transmission between US and UK episodes of season 9 was nearer 8 months. Swansong transmitted in July 85 and The Fanily Ewing in March 86.
The gap ended up narrowing because the US reached the end of the season a few weeks later and we caught up during the summer break.
in April 86 it was publicised that Patrick Duffy was returning so UK audiences had literally got to episode 5 or 6 of the new season before finding out Bobby was coming back

 

[DallasFanForever]

It wasn't like her, but Katherine could have given up on Bobby. When her framing Jenna for Naldo's murder didn't go as planned and she witnessed Jenna and Bobby's engagement on television, she threw a glass of tomato sauce at the screen. Maybe that was the moment she had enough.

That being said, we only found out it WAS Katherine after she hit Bobby, which was part of the dream. So we only know there's a blonde wigged woman throwing tomato juice at her TV screen.

No, Katherine was the Wile E. Coyote of Dallas. There was no quit in her. When she realized Bobby was going back to Pam she shifted her focus and forgot all about Jenna. Killing Pam became her mission and ironically she ends up killing what she loved the most plus herself.

But “none of that happened,” of course.

I never skip the dream. I tend to stop at the end of the dream or at Pam's car crash.

I don’t skip it either. There are many scenes and episodes I do love watching regardless of the fact that what we’re watching is a dream.

 

[Mustard]

The transmission between US and UK episodes of season 9 was nearer 8 months.

I meant the difference between the US and UK transmissions of Season 9 DVD episodes. See below as an example.

Swansong transmitted in July 85 and The Fanily Ewing in March 86.
The gap ended up narrowing because the US reached the end of the season a few weeks later and we caught up during the summer break.
in April 86 it was publicised that Patrick Duffy was returning so UK audiences had literally got to episode 5 or 6 of the new season before finding out Bobby was coming back

The last episode that the BBC broadcast before the news came through about Thames Television buying the rights to Season 9 DVD episodes, was Season 8 DVD, episode 14, Odd Man Out, ending with Naldo dead and Jenna arrested, which was broadcast on CBS on 28 December 1984 in the US, and on BBC1 on 6 February 1985 in the UK, so around a 6 week gap, and even that was somewhat longer than what was done in past seasons of Dallas.

When the BBC resumed Season 8 transmissions with episode 15, Lockup in Laredo, it was on CBS on 4 January 1985 in the US and on BBC1 on 27 March 1985 in the UK, so now the gap was close to 3 months. This had narrowed by the time of the Season 8 finale, Swansong, to 2 months exactly (17 May 1985 on CBS, 17 July 1985 on BBC1).

After this, it took a bit of time before the BBC got the rights for Season 9 DVD episodes from Thames Television. As a result, The Family Ewing was broadcast on CBS on 27 September 1985 in the US, and on BBC1 on 5 March 1986 in the UK. This is a gap of over 5 months, which is far longer than what was previously done with US and UK transmissions of Dallas episodes, unless we're talking about the Season 1 DVD episodes (i.e. mini-series) that were broadcast in April 1978 in the US and in September 1978 in the UK.

The last episode of Season 9 DVD, i.e. Blast from the Past, broadcast on CBS on 16 May 1986, and on BBC1 on 8 October 1986, so still around a 5 month gap.

The first episodes of Season 10 DVD, i.e. the two-parter Return to Camelot, were broadcast on CBS on 26 September 1986, and on BBC1 on 22 October 1986, so now the gap is around 4 weeks instead of 5 months. The last episode of the season, i.e. Fall of the House of Ewing, was broadcast on CBS on 15 May 1987, and on BBC1 on 20 May 1987, now down to a 5 day gap, which is the sort of small gap that was common in the Seasons 4-6 DVD episode transmissions.