Tearing down Ray and Donna spoils the 1986-87 season for me

[Chris2]

I’m doing a rewatch and I’m just having a hard time getting into it. Usually, new seasons start with introducing new characters. Instead, we’re still stuck with Jamie, Jack, and Mandy, all of whom have worn out their welcome by now.

More importantly, I just find the whole Ray/Donna split depressing. They had gotten past those same problems several years earlier. I’m realizing in some ways that I liked them better than the show’s golden couple, Bobby and Pam, both of whom were so easily manipulated by others. Ray and Donna for the most part were down to earth and had good values. I think the show needed that.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

It was depressing, sure, but the show had been hinting at this for years.

What was most unsettling was when the couple acknowledged they mutually felt "nothing" about their own divorce.

I'm not sure what that meant, or if it was even supposed to be true. But it may have been some Katzmanian observation based on his own fractured nuptials experience.

 

[LB-Colby]

Jamie, Jack and Mandy > Ray and Donna.

Ray and Donna sholud have left the show much earlier.

 

[Grangehill1]

It was depressing, sure, but the show had been hinting at this for years.

What was most unsettling was when the couple acknowledged they mutually felt "nothing" about their own divorce.

I'm not sure what that meant, or if it was even supposed to be true. But it may have been some Katzmanian observation based on his own fractured nuptials experience.

It really hadnt. At the beginning of Ray and Donna being together yes they were mismatched but in the middle seasons they settled into a strong couple.

The divorce is so so depressing as it required Susan Howard to lose every ounce of fight as Donna and become a drab, miserable, distant character r

 

[Spooky Owl!]

It really hadnt. At the beginning of Ray and Donna being together yes they were mismatched but in the middle seasons they settled into a strong couple.

The divorce is so so depressing as it required Susan Howard to lose every ounce of fight as Donna and become a drab, miserable, distant character r

Well, it got a little strange, because the lawyer, Paul Morgan (played by once-hunky Glenn Corbett whose nicotine addiction rapidly took a toll) tells Donna in Season 7 (dvd) that her days with Ray are essentially numbered. But three years later, Paul is representing Ray in his divorce from Donna, ready to skewer her as needed.

I realize lawyers are so-and-sos, but, really...!

Maybe he just wanted Ray for himself.

"Raaaaaaay ---------- Donna's gonnnnnnnne...!"

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

Well, it got a little strange, because the lawyer, Paul Morgan (played by once-hunky Glenn Corbett whose nicotine addiction rapidly took a toll) tells Donna in Season 7 (dvd) that her days with Ray are essentially numbered. But three years later, Paul is representing Ray in his divorce from Donna, ready to skewer her as needed.

I realize lawyers are so-and-sos, but, really...!

Maybe he just wanted Ray for himself.

"Raaaaaaay ---------- Donna's gonnnnnnnne...!"

as the seasons progressed it seemed like there were about 5 lawyers in the state of Texas.. Plaintiff, defendant, criminal, civil, Barnes, Ewing? Doesn’t matter! Scotty/Harv/Paul will take the case!

(I’ve heard the Scotty and Harv entries in the ‘Texas Beefcake Attorney Calendar 1958’ are particularly provocative, perhaps surpassed only by the infamous Kyle Bennett centerfold from ‘61, with its ‘artfully-positioned’ pipe)

 

[Sea - Boo! - Er]

I realize lawyers are so-and-sos, but, really...!

Well, lawyers are essentially guns for hire. The real question is why Ray would want someone who had been close to Donna to represent him.

 

[Rove]

Ray and Donna sholud have left the show much earlier.

To me it would make sense to ship both Ray & Donna to the outskirts of Washington...in a rural setting to befit Ray but Donna travels to Washington as she has been offered a role to good to refuse. This way both still have some connection to Dallas as required or suddenly JR requires Donna's assistance as she has become a mover and shaker in the political world.

Who thought pairing Ray and Jenna was going to work? There was zero spark between the actors and the characters relationship gave me the icky feels.

 

[Mustard]

Everyone has a hard time getting into Season 10 DVD after watching the Dream Season immediately before it. It takes many episodes before the jarring stops, because you basically see storylines from a year earlier taking an entirely different direction, like Donna and Ray continuing to have marriage problems to the point of divorce and Donna giving birth to a daughter, instead of Donna and Ray sorting out their marriage problems as Donna has a miscarriage and they adopt Tony.

 

[Pandora]

To me it would make sense to ship both Ray & Donna to the outskirts of Washington...in a rural setting to befit Ray but Donna travels to Washington as she has been offered a role to good to refuse. This way both still have some connection to Dallas as required or suddenly JR requires Donna's assistance as she has become a mover and shaker in the political world.

Who thought pairing Ray and Jenna was going to work? There was zero spark between the actors and the characters relationship gave me the icky feels.

Ray and Jenna worked as friends, not as romantic partners. I would like to have seen Ray and Donna get back together.

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

rather than a profoundly uninspiring romantic union, Ray and Jenna should have formed a rival oil company to take JR and Bobby down! After all, Jenna was a Wade like her granddaddy (her father Lucas never was a good at bi’ness but old man Wade sure was), and Ray was of course Jock’s son.

With ‘secret weapon’ Charlie at their disposal they’d have been unstoppable!

*posted from computer room at Fletcher Sanitarium*

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Everyone has a hard time getting into Season 10 DVD after watching the Dream Season immediately before it. It takes many episodes before the jarring stops, because you basically see storylines from a year earlier taking an entirely different direction, like Donna and Ray continuing to have marriage problems to the point of divorce and Donna giving birth to a daughter, instead of Donna and Ray sorting out their marriage problems as Donna has a miscarriage and they adopt Tony.

"Everybody"? Many people prefer Season 10 (despite its opening scene) to the mawkish, unfocused suds of The Dream Season.

 

[Jock-O-Lantern]

Everyone has a hard time getting into Season 10 DVD after watching the Dream Season immediately before it. It takes many episodes before the jarring stops, because you basically see storylines from a year earlier taking an entirely different direction, like Donna and Ray continuing to have marriage problems to the point of divorce and Donna giving birth to a daughter, instead of Donna and Ray sorting out their marriage problems as Donna has a miscarriage and they adopt Tony.

Season 10 was Dallas' last great season IMO.

 

[Mustard]

"Everybody"? Many people prefer Season 10 (despite its opening scene) to the mawkish, unfocused suds of The Dream Season.

I wasn't debating Season 9 or Season 10 on this occasion. I said that it's jarring in the early episodes of Season 10, if you've watched the dream season right before it, because an entire season's worth of storylines have basically never happened.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

I wasn't debating Season 9 or Season 10 on this occasion. I said that it's jarring in the early episodes of Season 10, if you've watched the dream season right before it, because an entire season's worth of storylines have basically never happened.

Oh, sure. They should never have used the dream scenario. The Season 9 storylines were weak enough, they could have been easily dispensed with in only a single episode -- but not a single, two-minute scene in Pam's bedroom.

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

I feel like if the better aspects of Seasons 9 and 10 could have somehow been combined, then that would have really been something fantastic… but both seasons lose me at some point for various reasons.

It’s often said that season 10 has the most rewatch value, but at this point I think I’d rather “ironically enjoy” an episode or two of Angelica and the Emeralds over the rather irritating ‘Jazzy’ John Parker and Whiny Pam of season 10. At least it looks and sounds better.

(of course, I named this profile after a silly early character and bring up Willie Gust and the dastardly Edison Faraday Haynes at the drop of a hat, so “ironically enjoy” is kind of my default mode..)

 

[DallasFanForever]

Ray and Jenna worked as friends, not as romantic partners. I would like to have seen Ray and Donna get back together.

Yes, much better as friends. As a couple they lacked romantic chemistry in my opinion. Ray and Donna at their best were a terrific couple with a lot of history. Jenna and Ray really had no history together other than their friendship and I think it was too soon to see them together romantically after all that Ray and Donna had been through.

 

[Grangehill1]

I feel like if the better aspects of Seasons 9 and 10 could have somehow been combined, then that would have really been something fantastic… but both seasons lose me at some point for various reasons.

It’s often said that season 10 has the most rewatch value, but at this point I think I’d rather “ironically enjoy” an episode or two of Angelica and the Emeralds over the rather irritating ‘Jazzy’ John Parker and Whiny Pam of season 10. At least it looks and sounds better.

(of course, I named this profile after a silly early character and bring up Willie Gust and the dastardly Edison Faraday Haynes at the drop of a hat, so “ironically enjoy” is kind of my default mode..)

Totally agree.
Season 9 looks phenomenal. And John Parker almost goes out of his way to ruin season 10

 

[ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989]

Season 9 aesthetically looks divine, I actually like season 9, sure it was the year it went completely Dynasty with the fashion but to be fair 1984 to 1986 was the peak of 80s glitz and glamour and the years most people associate with the decade.

We had gotten to the Pam vs JR scenario that had been brewing all the way back to the bleak midwinter of 1978.

Ray and Donna were at their best, even Jenna seemed to belong despite not having Bobby around.

Some parts of the season were janky like the Emerald mine/trip to Columbia, Anjelica Nero was some random lady who stopped off in Dallas en route to either Denver to join the Carrington’s or Tuscany Valley to be a thorn in Angela Channing’s side, either way she didn’t belong on Dallas.

But Season 9 will always be miles better than Seasons 11-14, Season 10 only gets a pass because it was a final hurrah to the iconic cast of 1979 to 1987 and we got some decent storylines but the dream reveal is a stain that cannot be erased.

But by 1987 all the Primetime soaps were on their last legs, except for Knots Landing.

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

this was the first step in the march of doom that culminated in the senseless destruction in 2025 of the house Ray had singlehandedly built with his own two bare hands (I think just after meeting Donna)