I see your point but it's not always the case. Game of Thrones is a rare example- people had parties for episodes of that.
Correct. Lastkidpicked is also correct in that, in this modern era, a lot of folks would have more options to watch the show, and wouldn’t necessarily have to watch live on Friday night. But I think if we’re going with the hypothetical situation that we’re assuming Dallas was still a hit show like it was in the 80’s, then there would still be the majority of viewers watching it live, and you’d see it trending on Twitter and Facebook, with viewers live-tweeting their reactions, to what’s happening as it happens, first when it airs on the East Coast, and then again three hours later when it airs on the West Coast (and this is another thing that would cause leaked spoilers, as EC viewers would be posting stuff before it aired in the west). I’ve seen this sort of thing happen with hit shows today, from the aforementioned GOT to shows like Scandal, it doesn’t always last the entire show’s run, but usually when it’s still new and “hot”, but also for smaller cult shows, the live-tweeting is big. There was even some of that during DallasTNT, with cast-members themselves tweeting online about it during each episode.
But going back to the other ways people would have to watch the show, that could also be helpful to getting new viewers. For example I only started watching The Walking Dead in it’s 5th season, but after that I was able to catch up on the first 4 seasons easily through Netflix. And I skipped Empire’s first season, but the weekend before season 2 started, FX did a marathon of the whole season, and I happened to be home all day so I caught it and loved it and that’s what made me decide to start watching when season 2 started. So Dallas would have probably been on Netflix, or possibly now on that new CBS streaming service or also airing reruns on one of their little cable channels, so folks would have opportunities to catch up whatever they missed.
I definitely think there would have been spoilers leaked and I can only imagine the Twitter wars over every relationship drama.:eck:
Right, that would have been huge. It’s hard to imagine the really big things that people cared about, like Kristen being the one who shot J.R., not getting leaked somewhere beforehand. And I know Katzman and Co. did a good fake-out by having Patrick Duffy film a fake Irish Spring commercial to hide his return to Dallas, but I bet somebody would have spoiled that too. Because, as I said, one thing for sure is that, like with modern shows, we’d know a lot of the behind the scenes stuff quicker, especially things like who’s coming or going. The instant Barbara Bel Geddes didn’t sign with the show to return, it would have been announced online that she was leaving the show, same with Patrick Duffy. And thus the speculation would begin about what’s going to happen to their characters, will they be written off, and how? Be recast, and if so by whom? Likewise, when they officially signed on to return, we’d get more speculation. When Jenilee Harrison was first hired, it would have been announced that she’s joining the cast in an “unspecified role,” and everyone would start guessing who’d she playing. And so on.
