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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kenny Coyote" data-source="post: 197131" data-attributes="member: 102">Hey, [USER=100]@Rove[/USER] here's the rest of my reply to you that I didn't have time for yesterday. I posted the reply I did to acknowledge I did see it and planned to get to the rest of it later.Did it really feel like such a disaster to you? I mean, did it really bother you that much? I thought it was unfortunate, and sure it would have been ideal if Barbara Bel Geddes hadn't had a health problem and hadn't missed any of Dallas. It was only a year though, and they at least got a well respected actress with some good credentials for the temporary recast; it's not like they just threw anyone into it. I'm against recasts too. I'm against them on principle, but that being said, besides the recast, I thought season 8 kicked ass! I especially enjoyed the story of JR, Bobby and Ray joining forces to fight the claim from Clif and Jamie that they deserved to own two-thirds of Ewing Oil. I loved that we finally got a definitive explanation for what happened between Jock and Digger and an answer to to question: "Did Jock steal Digger's share of Ewing Oil"? I've got to give them credit - they made us wait for that! It was worth the wait.Another thing I especially enjoyed about that storyline in season 8 is that Ray was getting so much flack from Donna about joining forces with his brothers to clear his father's name and how he responded to it. Donna kept questioning Ray about why he would join forces with JR to help clear Jock's name, to uphold Jock's reputation (as if that's not motivation enough to help his brothers) and she never once acknowledged that he was joining to help Bobby every bit as much or more than JR. Donna kept on ignoring that Bobby was every bit as much a part of it as JR was. She kept saying Ray would get hurt, Ray would get in trouble, Ray would get in over his head, nag, nag, nag, and then Ray finally manned up and basically told her: "It doesn't matter what you say; I'm gonna do what I want to do." Hell yeah! Ray showed some backbone this time and didn't let Donna belittle his capabilities and keep Ray "in his place." Ray moved forward decisively, he did it like a man, and together the three Ewing brothers got the job done.I agree that Bobby's death could have been the catalyst for something new and exciting. I don't agree that "it was the seismic shift Dallas needed to project it forward, to tell new stories and display those remaining in a new light." It was a shift they could have used to do that, but if you're running the show and the creative department tells you: "The only way we can move forward and keep this show is exciting is to have one of the three most popular characters on the show to get killed" wouldn't you have some serious questions about their creative ability? I don't think you ever want to lose one of your most popular characters. Those highly popular characters are keeping people tuning in to watch the show!  The actors portraying those characters as only they can, has, over the time period the show has been on the air, have created an emotional investment within the members of the audience for those characters and that's what makes them so valuable. A big part of the reason people keep watching the show because they're so emotionally invested in those characters that they can't wait to see what they do next or what happens to them next.Since Patrick Duffy told them he was leaving permanently, they didn't have the choice to either have Bobby die or continue on the show, or so we thought. They actually did both! That's ludicrous. How can you tell your audience to forget about everything they've seen for the past year, that Bobby didn't really die because it was just a dream that Pam had? How is anything they do from then on going to have any significant impact when the audience knows that they show can just undo whatever they want? It kills all credibility.Is the implication here that it was Larry Hagman's fault that Patrick Duffy got rehired by the show? That's how it looks to me, but [USER=100]@Rove[/USER] if you meant something else please let me know.I don't blame Larry Hagman for missing his friend, but I do blame the person who made the decision to rehire him. I don't see anything wrong with actors giving suggestions to the people who run the show because sometimes they may come up with an idea that can be put to good use. They can make suggestions, but ultimately, whoever is in a position of authority - the captain of their ship - has to be able to discern between good suggestions and bad suggestions. If he can't tell the difference between a good suggestion and a bad suggestion, I blame him! You can't have two people navigating, each one with a different destination in mind. There's got to be one person who has the authority to make the final decision and with that authority comes an equally great amount of responsibility. That's the person who has to be able to reign those big egos in, to tell Larry Hagman: "No we're not going to rehire your friend. Don't tell me you're gonna walk away from the show if you don't get your way. You're gonna walk away from the highest paying job on TV? Your gonna try to put all the rest of your friends here on the show out of work by quitting the show? No you're not. I'm not falling for your bluff. That's all there is to it."</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?