I thought it was pretty blatantly obvious that Elena was her Mary Sue character - someone who had to be propped up to all the other characters detriment.
Where does that expression "a Mary Sue character" come from? Just curious.
Anyway, when that happens, it means that someone with a lot of clout behind the scenes has some kind of personal stake in the character and they're gonna force it down the throats of the audience no matter what. They think they can force the audience to accept and even value the character. That's when someone else needs to step in, someone who doesn't have any personal stake in any one particular character so that it's possible to be more objective about the character and honestly assess whether the character should remain on the show any longer or if the character has already run its course.
Regarding the question asked by the this thread's title, my answer is....HELL NO!
I did appreciate getting to see Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray working together again, and TNT Dallas failing certainly was not their fault. They all worked hard and turned in some excellent performances. It's particularly impressive that Larry Hagman did as much work as he did while sick with terminal cancer. It showed his dedication to making the show as good as he could.
The main problem I had with TNT Dallas is something I've write about in detail another threads in this sub-forum. In a nutshell, Cidre allowed or even ensured that they turn the characters into caricatures of their former selves, amplifying all evil or corrupt aspects of their personalities, and almost completely eliminating redeeming qualities. What a horrible idea!
I read an interview where Cidre said "there is no story in happiness." That's unfortunate that she sees the world that way but that's on her. If she wants to carry that attitude with her, that's her choice. It seemed she might very well have added: there is nothing interesting about redeeming qualities in human beings..Again, it's her right to view the world that way if she wants, but as long as she does, keep her the hell away from any TV show any movie, any project whatsoever that has the name "Dallas"!
She was never a Dallas an anyway. She was paid to watch the Dallas episodes so she'd be knowledgeable about the show and the stories which she was in charge of continuing. Well, she managed to somehow get through about 25% of the Dallas episodes and that's a conservative estimate because it's her own estimate. In reality she may not have even watched that many Dallas episodes!
When I think of the people on this forum who would have killed to have had her job as showrumner of the Dallas continuation, and instead of taking it seriously and watching every single episode ( something she was paid for and something that everyone here does for free, gladly, and with a lot of enjoyment) she watched just barely enough of it that she could fool some people into believing her heart was in the right place regarding honoring the Dallas legacy. It wasn't!
After she did that, she proceeded to do what I believe she intended to do from the beginning: Create her own show about Hispanic people and Hispanic culture and focus in on lots of the worst aspects of that i.e. the drug trade. hey, there's no story in happiness, right?
Then proceed to stamp the Dallas name on her project so that she'd be guaranteed a far greater audience tuning in for the debut of her new show. Then she could proceed to take credit for drawing 8 million viewers, approximately, in America alone. She underestimated th Dallas audience though.
That meant that after the second week's episode aired, she could also take the credit for the size of that audience, or more accurately, the blame. She lost 50% of the people who originally showed enough interest in a Dallas continuation to tune in and watch the first episode. Cider just didn't count on them thinking, "What's this? This isn't Dallas! It's got a few of the right actors in it, but except for that, it's a different show!