The late seasons of Dallas

Is it all just a bad dream?

Donna Reed was so much better as Miss Ellie.

Yes, Bel Geddes was an awful, incredibly mannered actress. I can see her playing every scene right now: the same affected chuckle, look down and sigh (even Katie Holmes would roll her eyes at that), the fiddling with her glasses, the look off into the distance to convey a deep-thought gravitas...

Her characterization never made sense either. Reed, on the other hand, was believable as wealthy Texan lady, who spent many years looking the other at how her husband treated her sons and who then kept making threats to her adult sons she rarely saw through.

And I'm not even getting started on her Bel Geddes' New England accent.

My theory, and I am sticking to it: She started dreaming when she married Mark Graison and still hasn't woken up. Bobby IS dead. This is also aligned with Knots Landing. So forget all that crap that happened after Bobby allegedly returned. He never did.

"Bel Geddes"? Why isn't she just "Geddes"?

TACKY

I hated how BBG said Pamela's name: "Paaaaaam."

Bobby in the shower really *was* rather memorable

Watching Bel Geddes was painful. She played every scene the same way. You could really have a drinking game based around how many of her tics she managed to work into a scene.

Reed was a breath of fresh air. But Larry Hagman didn't like her so she wasn't going to last long.

[quote] "Bel Geddes"? Why isn't she just "Geddes"?

Her father was Norman Bel Geddes, one of the most famous designers of the early 20th century (he designed both for the theater and for industry). He was born "Norman Geddes," but added the "Bel" as a theatrical gesture. She was born with that name, and kept it; she had no reason to change it since it opened doors for her.

She looked a little like a 'special' Nancy Olson.

The weirdest thing about Miss Ellie was that she was so sensible and intelligent except for a few stubborn unrealistic ideas about her family.

She wanted them to get along together, although it was clear none of the other boys would get along with J. R.

She wanted them all to live in the same house that clearly from the outside could not accommodate so any families

She always was being disappointed in how awful J.R. could be (though you would have thought she would have caught on to that years beforehand).

She had almost nothing to do all day except plan the yearly Ewing Barbeque.

[quote] The weirdest thing about Miss Ellie was that she was so sensible and intelligent except for a few stubborn unrealistic ideas about her family.

I think she was supposed to be sort of dumb, or at least oblivious to the problems in front of her: like why a bunch of grown millionaires would all live in the same house?

I see now, r9.

Please forgive my ignorance.

If its any consolation, the sound of Barbara Bel Geddes saying JOHHHHNIE is forever imprinted on my mind now. Not in an especially good way.

So the message of the DL nowadays is 1, Is there anything worse than white people? and r2) Why NOT just start a nuclear war. It's for UKRAINE, ISN'T IT

No you can not come to my NZ bunker.

She managed to drag out Baaaaawww-bee longer than I dragged out Toommy.

The show was at its PEAK ( in terms of story lines, acting) 1980 to 1982- by 1983 when Pam Leaves Bobby the shows decline began.

Sorry, my heart belongs to Ray. Fuck Bobby and his wolf man hair helmet.

Datalounge pointed out that Bobby has a womanly ass and it can't be unseen.

It's annoying how Donna marries Ray and promptly becomes Miss Ellie's best fucking friend of all times. Tagalong Donna.

Miss Ellie just always seemed to be out on the patio, looking wistful and drinking coffee.

I'm sure Jock went to South America just to get away from all those people living in his house!

[quote] by 1983 when Pam Leaves Bobby the shows decline began.

I beg to differ. I found those two, Pam and Bobby, much more interesting when they were separated. Together they were either boring, or she was constantly nagging him about what he did or failed to do. She left him during the 'fight for control of Ewing Oil' season after Jock died. IMO, that was the best plotted season of all.

The latest seasons also suffered from piss poor photography and cheap video taping.

Gretchen Wyler as Pam's shrink. Did Dataloung do the casting that season?

**SPOILER ALERT**

Pam's exit was the most botched of any character on any prime-time soap. To have her burn in a fiery car crash and subsequently abandon her husband and son because of her scars made absolutely no sense. I'm sure the thinking was that Pam could emerge from her bandages played by another actress, but God knows why that didn't happen.

It would've been far more organic to have Pam declare that she could no longer handle living on Southfork, the Ewings and Bobby's love child with Jenna and then leave Dallas would have been much more believable and would've been an appropriate end to their love story.

I was a wee thing in 1987 and somehow caught the Dallas season finale that year. Maybe a babysitter was watching, because I was a Dynasty fan and didn't know much of Dallas. Pam driving into that big ole truck and blowing up was my first bona fide WTF season finale (I only wish I'd been watching back in the early 80s, when all four of the big soaps were especially fun).

They should have just said Pam was dead in the explosion. She looked pretty goddamn dead in May 1987. I remember re-enacting her crash scene ("Then I'll be home in ten minutes!") on our front porch, with Miss Piggy and a pink toy car standing in for Pammy.

The following fall, I was so annoyed by the mummy Pam/runaway Pam thing. I remember the tabloids doing articles on possible recasts for Pam and then she was just gone.

Even as a child, I hated Jenna. I'm at 1982 now (Jock just bought the farm, ha) and am dreading the post-Pam years but this is my first chance to watch the series all the way through.

I've reimagined these scenes with the rednecks in the Jeep replaced by Dataloungers, jeering VP about her year of birth.

Seriously, Pam was a cunting with that car horn of hers.

I thought it was Jock and Miss Ellie‘s idea for Bobby and family and JR and family to live at South Fork

IIRC, the reboot tried to settle the WEHT Pam? question by saying that she ultimately died of some disease a few years after the car explosion, but it was a HUGE let-down to fans who wanted a Bobby/ Pam reunion.

The way Pam was destroyed and made to sufferer really is depressing. The reboot should've found a way to revive her, even with another actress.

R1 Donna did not fit. She was stilted and uncomfortable in the role. She had no chemistry with the rest of the cast. It didn't help that the cast especially Hagman wanted Barbara back.

BBG should've been shot on sight for wearing those awful potato sack dresses. In reality, she would've been laughed out of town by the other Dallas socialites.

The rest of the cast weren’t nice to Reed. Only Susan Howard attended her funeral.

The rest of the cast weren’t nice to Reed. She can’t be blamed for that. Only Susan Howard attended her funeral.

The rest of the cast weren’t nice to Reed. Only Susan Howard attended her funeral.

^ I missed that, did Susan Howard attend the funeral?

Datalounge’s post function is acting up 😕

They let Reed go without even telling her. Instead she read it in the press. Yeah, they better not go to her funeral.

In one of the later seasons of original Dallas, they had Pam appear at a doctor's office. There, she told Cliff that she would stay with this doctor (as in getting married to him). That was a white lie because she had cancer and only months to live. Don't ask me why, but for Cliff that was a good enough answer to leave and never follow-up on that. No questioning the plausibility of her story. No, her new love made perfect sense. Sure, you abandon your son for that. Either way, since Principal didn't want to join New Dallas, the show ran with that story and confirmed that she indeed had died of cancer.

Was Cliff Barnes retarded? Or just drunk?

Ken Kercheval did a great job playing Cliff but I felt bad for him that his character was always written as a loser to JR, kind of like Jack to Victor on Y&R.

I loved the dream season but hated the return of Bobby season. It looked cheaper and I hated that they dropped a lot of stories from the dream season.

One of the sons of producer Leonard Katzman came up with the idea on how to get Bobby back on the show which was to make it all a dream. His reasoning was that it worked for the Wizard of Oz. Lenny thought that was a brilliant idea.

Cliff was a victim of MSG poisoning, caused by his excessive consumption of Chinese delivery.

Jackie at the Store = stoner. That girl seems stoned, even when Pam is missing and scaling tall buildings. Jackie felt like a person from the regular world who, blessedly stoned, wandered through the melodramatic Lorimar universe in her tertiary way.

Pam on that rooftop, shrieking like a banshee. Prime time soaps teach us that crazy people will always be drawn to dramatic heights: Pamela on Dallas, Joshua Rush on Knots, Claudia on Dynasty, and Henri Denault on Falcon Crest.

My favorite character on Dallas is Marilee and I think they should have made Fern Fitzgerald a central character. She did quite a bit with that part.

James, April, April's sister Michelle, Cally, Carter, Susan Lucci, Barbara Eden... just pitiful.

Oooh... no. I loved Carter McCay. I thought he was a brilliantly conceived character and well played by George Kennedy. The rest of your list: Well, yeah, they were quite affordable actors I'm sure.

r41 I was a teen then, and all I can remember about Carter McKay was that he was grim. Deadly serious and menacing. I don't really remember much about him other than a war over water and an explosion that they used in the opening credits. James was a douche, but he was fine eye candy.

I'm Rose, Carter McKay's slam piece! You DLers loved me, I was no Jenna Wade FFS!

R39, I couldn't agree more. Fern stole every scene she was in and I mean that in a good way.

JR fucked her after Seth committed suicide and she was furious but audiences thought 'eh, you got some JR dick'

R41 R42 George Kennedy's wife Joan was best friends since high school with Dallas producer Leonard Katzman's wife LaRue, hence, probably had a lot to do why George Kennedy got the role of Carter McKay. Larue actually introduced Joan to George.

I wish Dallas had ended with Katherine trying to kill Bobby; he pushes Pam out of the way but Katherine misses Bobby too and just slams into the gardener's truck and she dies.

Bobby and Pam remarry. Sue Ellen goes off with John Ross;

R45, thanks for sharing that; that makes so much sense.

I realized the show had run out of ideas and such but I never got this whole Carter McKay threat. It seemed to come out of nowhere.

I wish they'd taken the money and used it to keep Donna or bring Pam back for some shows.

R45 George Kennedy was a major alcoholic. One of the hotel employees who worked at the hotel the cast and crew stayed at in Dallas while filming told me George would be staggering up and down the halls drunk in the middle of the night.

^^^This reply was for R47^^^

I liked Donna and Miss Ellie's friendship, it was a good contrast with the wild ups and downs of all the other relationships on the show.

Some things I found frustrating: Pam and JR never developed into an all out war, when she inherited Wentworth Industries she had the means to take him down. Katherine was underdeveloped, they could have done so much more with her. I disliked how Jeremy Wendell was written out and revealed as just a puppet of Carter McKay. Jack Scalia was a good addition and should have stayed, though the cliff hanger of that season when was thrown over the balcony and Sue Ellen shoots JR was the best in the series.

It's all just bad writing.

Poor Miss Ellie.

As someone with an expansive family in Texas, I can promise that every multi-generational unit of the family had a Miss Ellie, and Barbara Bel Geddes played her perfectly.

IIRC, on season one, the original Southfork had separate residences for each family. Very Texas.

That said, Dallas went to shit later on, but it was still comfort food.

Starring Spring 1990 Gap model, Sasha Mitchell!

[quote] Pam and JR never developed into an all out war

Totally agree. There was so much potential when she took on Bobby's role at Ewing Oil in the dream season. Instead JR said: I want Bobby's share. Pam: Ok.

Sue Ellen is absolutely all over the place in the 1981-82 season. With Dusty, hanging out with her shitty new friends and with Cliff, palling around with Clayton, drifting back to old J.R.

Pam is vacant and Barbie-like and she's creepy about that baby Christopher. Get a hobby, toots. I don't blame Victoria Principal, I blame the writing.

Liz Craig is singularly unimpressed by Christopher. I always liked Barbara Babcock.

Why is Mitch still on the show? He and Lucy were separated longer than they ever lived together. She has a goblin-like photographer after her, her being a high-fashion model and all.

Marilee Stone always stole the show and had JR's number. One of my favorites.

What about JR's hillbilly child bride Cally? Any love for her here?

Cally was a dork and a lightweight. She was no Sue Ellen, who was never better than when sauced to the gills:

Marilee was a DLer.

I also loved the rivalry between JR and Pam in the dream season. The original focus of the show was that JR hated Pam and they revived that strongly for the dream season and then dropped it quickly.

The dream season was a mess but there were some good things in it.

that redecorating scene is one of my favorites...Donna Reed would have handed Sue Ellen the keys to the house and walked out.

I loved Donna Culver Krebbs and Miss Ellie's relationship; so different than hers with Pam and Sue Ellen

There was a Dallas spoof and the matriarch was Mellie and they called her "Miss Smellie" and she'd say, "It's Miss Mellie!"

The 5-part DALLAS miniseries in 1978 was originally supposed to end with Bobby's death and Pam assuming his control of Ewing Oil and going toe-to-toe with JR.

The dream season started to revive that story and it had SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL. It would've been classic DALLAS.

Then - inexplicably - it was dropped so that Pam could go off with Marc Singer exploring diamond mines, an absolutely ludicrous story.

You have to wonder what went down in the writers' room to make a such a ridiculous about-face.

[quote] it was dropped so that Pam could go off with Marc Singer exploring diamond mines

But this gayling did enjoy the sight of Marc Singer in a skin tight pair of Levis!

That dream season really was a mixed bag. The first half was totally solid if not even Best Dallas, imo. Bobby dead, JR and Pam negotiating control of Ewing Oil, Sue Ellen almost dying from alcohol addiction (that was Emmy worthy) and recovering.

Then it all turned: Pam relinquished Ewing Oil. Angelica Nero, good camp but ludicrous, appeared, Jenna turning all mental after keeping it together for the first half of the season. Nothing made sense anymore.

In the Dream Season, I quite liked the undertones of the relationship between Angelica Nero and Grace, the writers only hinted at it.

One weird thing was the underwhelming exit of Miss Ellie in the penultimate season. They must have known Barbara Bel Geddes wasn't coming back but her final scene simply amounted to getting in a limo and waving goodbye to Lucy. And that was it after thirteen years.

Dallas was not really good at plotting exits. Pam's exit was not very gutsy. Bobby's was gutsy - and they had to reverse it. Sue Ellen's exit was pretty lame, too. Remember her speech to JR in the movie theater? No? Well, only very few do. It was lame. Ironically, the more dispensable characters got better exits, see Nicholas Pierce, Kristin, April.

Knots Landing's exits made much more sense. Falcon Crest's exits were usually very dramatic up to the point of having probably the longest lists of deaths among the main characters. Hardly anybody survived leaving Falcon Crest.

It was misogyny that made the last few seasons of DALLAS unwatchable (well, that and plummeting production values that made the show look like a cheap videotape). Hagman, Duffy, Katzman, et al, decided that the show about the Ewing brothers and that the female characters - Pam, Donna, Miss Ellie, Sue Ellen - were all expendable.

The reality was that the distaff characters carried that show and the viewing audience was primarily female. Eliminating longtime fan favorites in favor of disposable also-rans like Callie, James, etc was foolish.

I have watched Dallas through Pam finding Bobby in the shower 8 or 9 times over the years. I've seen parts of the reunion movies and a lot of the revival series.

But late 1987 through 1991? No.

Knots had the sense to return Abby and resurrect Val for the finale. They did it for the fans. Great ending. Karen looking out to the audience; here we go again with Abby back! I think they even called it Seems Like Old Times?

Dallas' finale sucked. They should have April be presumed dead and with four episodes left, Bobby gets a black mail letter; we have your wife. Do this or else and then he bursts in wherever to rescue her and we see it's not April but Pam!

Sue Ellen comes back to South Fork and get Clayton and Ellie to make final appearances; bring back Donna for Ray and show us Lucy and Mitch. Give us the fucking happy ending we deserve.

I loved Pam in the dream season. She got her spark back. I love the scene where she was like Bobby's dead and then she proceeds to get some dick from Mark Grayson and his porn stache.

As r67 has stated Hagman and Katzman hated seeing powerful women and they were all neutered for the next season.

You got that right R69; the post dream season picked up with Ellie, Donna, Jenna and Sue Ellen sitting around the breakfast table acting like they had no purpose because they had no men

And it was all but a given that Mark was alive in the Donna Reed season; that way, his return after Bobby's death wasn't a stretch but after the dream, no sign of Mark anywhere. They MAYBE could have gotten away with the dream season if they'd connected all the dots but they did not.

The dream season had great moments. I loved that moment between Miss Ellie and Pam in between their speeches at the Oil Baron's ball. Suck it, Jenna.

My favorite characters were JR and Sue Ellen. Loved their fights & the constant tension. Things went downhill when JR moved in his young bimbo girlfriend / wife. It was possibly realistic, though.

Victoria Principal was mostly boring and I won't blame just the writing. She was sister to nemesis Cliff Barnes (a good character and good actor), but she was so boring.

Physically, Barbara Bel Geddes was believable as a frumpy-looking wife who stood by her men (husband and sons) and looked the other way. She had no Texas accent, though.

Donna Reed didn't have a Texas accent either.

I guess they didn't want to bring Mark back yet again although it wouldn't have been far-fetched because he was obviously alive before Bobby "died"/Pam had her dream.

I think the "Pam's dream" season killed the nighttime soaps.

^ It was bad. I'd say the Moldavia massacre is equally to blame though.

Fallon being abducted by UFOs didn't help.

1985-87 seemed to be the peak and nadir of nighttime soaps.

Knots Landing remained high quality even with changes.

By 1987, both Dallas and Dynasty were unwatchable (although Dynasty would rebound for the final season).

Was this the show that had the phallic oil well spewing black goopy jizz in the opening credits, interspersed with shot of the cast and other phallic symbols to show that IT'S A MAN'S WORLD!!!

The theme song was iconic. Surprised a couple of years ago that Alexa didn't recognize it .

When JR was going all out to make as much $$ as possible in a year to win Ewing OIl, he walks out to breakfast one day.

Sternly, Miss Ellie cautions, "JR...I hear you're pumping at full capacity."

I'm in the family TV room watching this with my siblings and mother (we're all late teens/early 20s at this point); my siblings sat stone faced; I look over and my mom's beet red biting her finger trying to hold in a laugh.

Good times.

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