Kenny Coyote
Telly Talk Star
It seems logical that if you're talented enough and lucky enough to have created a TV series that becomes the phenomenon that Dallas became, you'd want to keep doing what you do best. Why change such a successful way of doing things? But they did change the way they did things, didn't they? Why would anyone do such a thing?
It's possible that the people in charge of the creative team, or whatever it's called, thought, no matter how well we're doing, if we keep doing things the same way over and over it's going to become stale. It's probably human nature for most people to see a show as becoming stale if it does things the same way, year after year for a long time. There are always people who are exceptions to that, but in the TV industry, they're concerned about what the masses think, and more precisely, how do we get them to keep watching?
They certainly did change the style of their show. First they went from primarily showing stories which were resolved within the span of one or two episodes to having the stories continue from week to week. I liked that change and the people liked that change. They became the most watched show on TV.
At some point I think they worried about how they would continue to keep such a huge audience and stay ahead of their competition. They paid too much attention to their competition to the point where once the innovator, Dallas was in some ways copying the shows which had begun by copying them! That leads to becoming a copy of a copy. I don't know that that has ever worked well for a TV series. It certainly didn't work well in this case. Dynasty actually surpassed them in the ratings a couple of years.
I wonder of maybe it was around then that they decided, if we're going to stay in the top two most watched shows, or even the top ten, we're going to have to do something to keep the show fresh and change the way we do things.
So they went from presenting what had been a somewhat believable, serious show, to more of a comedic approach. Instead of staying with what had worked for so long, they decided instead of portraying our most popular character, JR Ewing, as a badass who makes people afraid of him and always finds a way to get what he wants, we'll make him funny. If they "love to hate" JR already, they'll really enjoy seeing him fail miserably. We'll also change the lineup so that people don't get tired of seeing the same people every week, every year. It'll save us money too.
We all know it didn't work, but maybe that's what they were thinking when they aired that stuff that didn't work and it would explain why they didn't immediately, or ever, go back to the tried and true and instead continued down the road they went.
It's possible that the people in charge of the creative team, or whatever it's called, thought, no matter how well we're doing, if we keep doing things the same way over and over it's going to become stale. It's probably human nature for most people to see a show as becoming stale if it does things the same way, year after year for a long time. There are always people who are exceptions to that, but in the TV industry, they're concerned about what the masses think, and more precisely, how do we get them to keep watching?
They certainly did change the style of their show. First they went from primarily showing stories which were resolved within the span of one or two episodes to having the stories continue from week to week. I liked that change and the people liked that change. They became the most watched show on TV.
At some point I think they worried about how they would continue to keep such a huge audience and stay ahead of their competition. They paid too much attention to their competition to the point where once the innovator, Dallas was in some ways copying the shows which had begun by copying them! That leads to becoming a copy of a copy. I don't know that that has ever worked well for a TV series. It certainly didn't work well in this case. Dynasty actually surpassed them in the ratings a couple of years.
I wonder of maybe it was around then that they decided, if we're going to stay in the top two most watched shows, or even the top ten, we're going to have to do something to keep the show fresh and change the way we do things.
So they went from presenting what had been a somewhat believable, serious show, to more of a comedic approach. Instead of staying with what had worked for so long, they decided instead of portraying our most popular character, JR Ewing, as a badass who makes people afraid of him and always finds a way to get what he wants, we'll make him funny. If they "love to hate" JR already, they'll really enjoy seeing him fail miserably. We'll also change the lineup so that people don't get tired of seeing the same people every week, every year. It'll save us money too.
We all know it didn't work, but maybe that's what they were thinking when they aired that stuff that didn't work and it would explain why they didn't immediately, or ever, go back to the tried and true and instead continued down the road they went.