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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarky Oracle!" data-source="post: 362842" data-attributes="member: 57984">The Miss "I-don't-care-if-it's-fair!" Ellie of the early days seems in keeping with David Jacobs' somewhat more honest presentation of the Ewing family (and maintained in the descriptions of Gary's Texas relatives on KNOTS LANDING) which was that of a privileged, entitled dynasty of oil-soaked predators, some worse than others.Even Larry said as much, that even Mama was a villain "in her way" in the beginning.Yet TV being what it was at the time, the Dallas Ewings quickly-morphed into a flawed-but-basically-decent working-class family who'd somehow wound up with a ton of money. Even wicked J.R. was only really guilty of being a rogue and a scamp who just couldn't keep it in his pants. And, sure, sometimes Sue Ellen drank a little too much. But nobody's perfect.This is a ruthless (but "gracious parents" as the early ads asserted) petroleum family? Owners of the biggest independent oil company in the southwest??As Larry also once said, if DALLAS showed what the oil companies actually did, "they'd blow up CBS!"Should the series have portrayed the Ewings as the kind of bastardly business barons who laughed and broke out the caviar-and-champagne when JFK was assassinated just a couple of blocks from the Ewing Oil skyscraper on Elm Street -- as happened at the time among some of the Dallas elite?Probably not in the '80s, although they might try it now (as long as nobody gets to specific). We would have had a far less-cuddly version of DALLAS than what we got during the first decade-or-so of its network run.Everybody was quickly softened. And so was Miss Ellie. But I would have liked for her to have been a little "tougher" on occasion than the dithery diva of denial who rarely made eye-contact with anybody.And I still want her to briefly take over Roy Ralston's local chat show during Season 13 (DVD, of course) quickly driving JR and the entire cartel up the wall with her pro-environmental opinions and un-Ewinglike left-wing viewpoints. I picture JR saying to Marilee Stone, "but, my god, she's my mama -- it's not like I can kill her!!" to which Marilee and Jordan Lee and all those Lees respond by telling Ellie's youngest son, "Well, you better do something, J.R., before we have to....!"  J.R., genuinely taken aback, asks, "Well, what the hell does that mean..??" And then the cartel grumbles and storms out of the office/barbecue/Oil-Baron's-Club without clearly delineating their intentions. But one wonders what it might have been like if DALLAS had more-realistically shown the family as a cold coven of thieves, murderers and necrophiliacs.[ATTACH=full]45706[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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