What was the plan for Mark?

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I’m sorry but I disagree. There was No fan backlash. By your way of thinking don’t you think they would have changed the dream resolution. That leaked before transmission as well and they still
Went with it. That caused huge backlash in the media.

We’re talking the days before the internet. What did the fans do? March on Lorimar? It simply isn’t true.

The season was structured specifically to write out Wes in the barbecue episode which is what they did.

The leak of Steve Forrest being Jock didn't happen with season nine, the dream season, it ocurred with season ten.

Fan's apparently bombarded CBS and Lorimar with complaints via telephone & letters. I have friends in the US who have confirmed to me that there was indeed a fan backlash to Steve Forrest being Jock. That's why despite him passing the polygraph test and his X rays being virtually identical to Jock's injuries he was abruptly written out mid season.

 

[Sarah]

The leak of Steve Forrest being Jock didn't happen with season nine, the dream season, it ocurred with season ten.

Fan's apparently bombarded CBS and Lorimar with complaints via telephone & letters. I have friends in the US who have confirmed to me that there was indeed a fan backlash to Steve Forrest being Jock. That's why despite him passing the polygraph test and his X rays being virtually identical to Jock's injuries he was abruptly written out mid season.

Such a shame they only listened to certain backlashes!!!!

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

Such a shame they only listened to certain backlashes!!!!

I know. It was a real shame. He was a terrific actor. I will always love his portrayal of Wes/Jock.

Of course Patrick Duffy's return didn't help matters either but the Producers should've stuck to their guns and kept Steve Forrest on the show.

In the episode where he goes to see Miss Ellie at the barbecue there was a scene filmed but not used where he proves to her that he his indeed Jock. The scene apparently got cut and they used Bobby's explanation that Wes was apparently Wyatt Haines instead.

 

[Sarah]

My point is that I find it strange they listened with regards to bringing certain vom-inducing characters back, but didn't listen when things were close to flat-lining. I will love Larry Hagman until the day I die and beyond but I don't know how he brought himself to deliver some of those lines to the character of Vanessa. I don't think he was even taking things seriously by that stage.

 

[Barbara Fan]

The leak of Steve Forrest being Jock didn't happen with season nine, the dream season, it ocurred with season ten.

Fan's apparently bombarded CBS and Lorimar with complaints via telephone & letters. I have friends in the US who have confirmed to me that there was indeed a fan backlash to Steve Forrest being Jock. That's why despite him passing the polygraph test and his X rays being virtually identical to Jock's injuries he was abruptly written out mid season.

Thats incorrect - and i have 100s of press cutting on it. Steve Forrest was only in for half a season as he had another job to go to after Dallas (a film)

@Grangehill1 is correct, the back lash was due to the previous season being wiped out and Duffy returning and it was all a dream. Thats what made the headlines in UK

 

[Grangehill1]

The leak of Steve Forrest being Jock didn't happen with season nine, the dream season, it ocurred with season ten.

Fan's apparently bombarded CBS and Lorimar with complaints via telephone & letters. I have friends in the US who have confirmed to me that there was indeed a fan backlash to Steve Forrest being Jock. That's why despite him passing the polygraph test and his X rays being virtually identical to Jock's injuries he was abruptly written out mid season.

This is wrong mate. We all knew at the end of season 9 it was meant to be Jock. In the UK the last two episodes were released early on VHS months before the US and UK transmission of season 10 and I knew then it was meant to be Jock. I don’t know where you’re getting your info from but it’s not correct

 

[cws]

My point is that I find it strange they listened with regards to bringing certain vom-inducing characters back, but didn't listen when things were close to flat-lining. I will love Larry Hagman until the day I die and beyond but I don't know how he brought himself to deliver some of those lines to the character of Vanessa. I don't think he was even taking things seriously by that stage.

I think Larry just loved the part and would never leave.

 

[cws]

My point is that I find it strange they listened with regards to bringing certain vom-inducing characters back, but didn't listen when things were close to flat-lining. I will love Larry Hagman until the day I die and beyond but I don't know how he brought himself to deliver some of those lines to the character of Vanessa. I don't think he was even taking things seriously by that stage.

And this was before social media!

 

[Sarah]

And this was before social media!

Somebody stop me!!!

 

[Chris2]

The leak of Steve Forrest being Jock didn't happen with season nine, the dream season, it ocurred with season ten.

Fan's apparently bombarded CBS and Lorimar with complaints via telephone & letters. I have friends in the US who have confirmed to me that there was indeed a fan backlash to Steve Forrest being Jock. That's why despite him passing the polygraph test and his X rays being virtually identical to Jock's injuries he was abruptly written out mid season.

I lived in the US and was a huge fan. There was no backlash that I saw.

David Paulsen also gave an interview to Ultimate Dallas and he said:

“We may have played with the idea - forgive me if I'm wrong about this - the idea that this Wes Parmalee could be posing as Jock, might have let the audience think he was Jock for a while, but never did we entertain the possibility of actually making him Jock.”

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

Back to the original subject, I could swear I’d read either in the USA Today or Soap Opera Digest about 18 or 23 years ago or so that Capice and his team originally planned for Mark Graison to reveal himself to be a shockingly youthful Jock until fan backlash led them to bring in the Ben Stivers character instead.

The new Katzman-led team appropriated the Stivers character as Wes Parmalee and, in a twist, planned to reveal him to be Mark Graison, aged by experimental treatment in a South American hospital, pretending to be a con man pretending to be Jock in order to be close to Pam by being close to Ellie. A second wave of fan backlash and the producers of the Gunsmoke movie put a stop to that, though.

 

[darkshadows38]

i think i read that too though i also could be wrong, i like the actor who plays Mark as i find John Beck a pretty good actor but his one character that should have left far sooner than he did. my guess the reason they did so many changes near the is they wanted to blood more youth since the cast by than was getting older maybe? i didn't say it worked though but maybe that was the idea for why they did that? tv shows do that all the time when a show is on long enough they want more youth in it to stay more in touch with the fans that watch it or so that's their way of thinking anyways, it does sometimes work and it sometimes doesn't with Dallas going by what i've read it was an utter failure apparently

 

[Swellin]

I think James Coburn was a better pick for replacement Jock

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I think James Coburn was a better pick for replacement Jock

He would've been okay I suppose.

I thought Steve Forrest would've been great. Such a shame he never got to stay on the show as Jock.

 

[Jimmy Todd]

He would've been okay I suppose.

I thought Steve Forrest would've been great. Such a shame he never got to stay on the show as Jock.

View attachment 31130

I thought Steve Forest was awesome as the faux Jock. After he had his offscreen talk with Ellie, admitting he was a fraud, I wanted a scene at the end of the episode in which Miss Ellie is looking out the window and whispers, "Goodbye, Jock."
James Coburn would have been a good Jason. I also thought he would have been good as Blake's brother over on that OTHER show.

 

[Pamela_E]

The leak of Steve Forrest being Jock didn't happen with season nine, the dream season, it ocurred with season ten.

Fan's apparently bombarded CBS and Lorimar with complaints via telephone & letters. I have friends in the US who have confirmed to me that there was indeed a fan backlash to Steve Forrest being Jock. That's why despite him passing the polygraph test and his X rays being virtually identical to Jock's injuries he was abruptly written out mid season.

I doubt that was the reason at all. We know from interviews they never ever had any intention of him being Jock, even if the dream had continued.

He may have just left abruptly for numerous reasons, contracts, bad cold, or just how they wrote it. Who knows.

 

[Barbara Fan]

He may have just left abruptly for numerous reasons

He had another job to go to x

 

[Barbara Fan]

I think Larry just loved the part and would never leave.

I also think that Larry loved $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ dollars and lots of them, he would have read the phone book for money, it was the one quality I always disliked about him in interviews, bragging about how much he was being paid. It got a bit repetitive.

 

[cws]

I also think that Larry loved $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ dollars and lots of them, he would have read the phone book for money, it was the one quality I always disliked about him in interviews, bragging about how much he was being paid. It got a bit repetitive.

I would ABSOLUTELY love the money he got paid. I think the the actors are wealthy too, not as much as him though!!!

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I doubt that was the reason at all. We know from interviews they never ever had any intention of him being Jock, even if the dream had continued.

He may have just left abruptly for numerous reasons, contracts, bad cold, or just how they wrote it. Who knows.

If Patrick Duffy had not returned the Ben Stivers character really would've turned out to be Jock.

Patrick's resurrection from the dead more or less ruined Steve Forrest's chances of remaining on Dallas as a re-cast Jock Ewing.

Even though they tried again in season ten it still didn't work out. In both instances of the character the intention was for him to be Jock. If he wasn't meant to be Jock then why did his X rays match Jock's, when they wrote Steve Forrest off the show the X rays weren't mentioned again. They concentrated on the polygraph test saying that he only passed it because he believed he was Jock. The X rays were conveniently forgotten. Two completely different men can never have identical X rays, it's impossible therefore Wes Parmalee had to have been Jock Ewing all along.