How should oldDALLAS have ended?

[Snarky Oracle!]

With what scenario would you have liked to have seen DALLAS end in the early-'90s?

Multiple votes are allowed...

I mean, aside from nazi treasure.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Lady Jessica lashes out but misses her victim. She tumbles and accidentally buries the hatchet into the carpet. Both Jessica and her supposed-to-be victim are surprised to see a black stain around the blade. There's a faint squirt of black, mud-ish liquid - and another one, and another one...and then there's a terrifying thunder coming from under the ranch, the room starts to shake and then...whhooooshh! A giant eruption of black gold shoots the whole ranch into the air! A tornado picks it up and blows the ranch into the Bermuda Triangle.

 

[Rove]

With Pams' death.​

Having Bobby spin in the shower and writing off an entire season was a screw you moment which producers thought was clever but ultimately turned off many viewers. It recovered somewhat the following season with the return of the rightful Miss Ellie back at Southfork but now knowing what was to come it would have been fitting to end it with Pam's death.

 

[Justine]

I was torn between Cliff or Lucy as C.E.O. but went with Cliff in the end... poetic justice

 

[Kenny Coyote]

I don't like bad endings so I wouldn't choose any of those. Bobby didn't want to be in the oil business anymore so it would make sense to have Bobby own the ranch and JR own Ewing Oil. That way each of them could be happy.

 

[Chris2]

Southfork is destroyed in an explosion. Bobby survives but is badly burned. But now Pam feels she can return to him since he’s not pretty anymore, either. And they both live happily ever after.

 

[Karin Schill]

I like happy endings too. So let's see I would end it with that JR runs Ewing Oil and Bobby Southfork.

Pam would return home. She was kidnapped by Katherine from the hospital and didn't want to leave her family. It was Katherine who wrote the goodbye letter sent to Bobby. When Bobby finds out the truth he forgives Pam and they are reunited. Christopher is more conflicted at first but then happy to have his mom back.

Cliff would reunite with Afton and they would raise Pamela Rebecca together. He would also retire from the oil business. Maybe go back to law or into politics.

I would have prefer for James and Michelle to end up together too. I am not crazy about the Debra Lynn and Jimmy plot. Also John Ross stays at Southfork.

Miss Ellie and Clayton would return home to Southfork after travelling the world.

Lucy would return too for a visit. Married and expecting her first child. Maybe she's re-married to Mitch or someone else that we've never seen before.

Sue Ellen & Don, Donna, Andrew & Margaret, Ray, Jenna, Charlie & Lucas would also stop by for a visit. Maybe Jenna and Ray could have another child together, that is younger than Lucas.

Also maybe Val, Gary and the twins would also show up for a visit.

Basically I would gather people around Southfork for a huge family party. It could be for Bobby and Pam's wedding if they would get remarried again. The show then ends as it began.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I'd move heaven & Earth to have Victoria Principal's involvement in the last two episodes of the show's final season & have Pam reunite with Bobby.

I'd bring back Linda Gray to reunite JR with Sue Ellen.

And in a very sad scene, I'd bring back Barbara Bel Geddes, alongside Steve Forrest where it will ultimately be revealed that he was Jock Ewing all along.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

I like happy endings too. So let's see I would end it with that JR runs Ewing Oil and Bobby Southfork.

Pam would return home. She was kidnapped by Katherine from the hospital and didn't want to leave her family. It was Katherine who wrote the goodbye letter sent to Bobby. When Bobby finds out the truth he forgives Pam and they are reunited. Christopher is more conflicted at first but then happy to have his mom back.

Cliff would reunite with Afton and they would raise Pamela Rebecca together. He would also retire from the oil business. Maybe go back to law or into politics.

I would have prefer for James and Michelle to end up together too. I am not crazy about the Debra Lynn and Jimmy plot. Also John Ross stays at Southfork.

Miss Ellie and Clayton would return home to Southfork after travelling the world.

Lucy would return too for a visit. Married and expecting her first child. Maybe she's re-married to Mitch or someone else that we've never seen before.

Sue Ellen & Don, Donna, Andrew & Margaret, Ray, Jenna, Charlie & Lucas would also stop by for a visit. Maybe Jenna and Ray could have another child together, that is younger than Lucas.

Also maybe Val, Gary and the twins would also show up for a visit.

Basically I would gather people around Southfork for a huge family party. It could be for Bobby and Pam's wedding if they would get remarried again. The show then ends as it began.

Beautiful, Karin! Now that's a good ending!

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Are happy endings logical?

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Are happy endings logical?

I'll put it this way. If you watch show focused on a family, as Dallas is, and you watch them every week, season after season, you like that family. So logically, you want to see good things happen to them.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I'll put it this way. If you watch show focused on a family, as Dallas is, and you watch them every week, season after season, you like that family. So logically, you want to see good things happen to them.

Not if it seems highly improbable.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Not if it seems highly improbable.

Highly improbably compared to what? Miss Ellie, Jock, JR, Sue Ellen, Bobby, Pam, and Lucy all living in the same house?

 

[Laurie Marr]

JR is Digger’s son. Has to be.

 

[Karin Schill]

Are happy endings logical?

Maybe not but it's about giving the audience the ending they want. To give them closure and properly tie up all the loose ends.

I did try to apply some logic to my first post since otherwise I would have put JR/SE back together again and also Ray & Donna. I know that's what most fans wants and I prefer those pairings too. But since the show had put Sue Ellen with Don, Ray with Jenna and Donna with Andrew Dowling I decided to go with those pairings since it seemed more logical they would still be together considering what we'd already seen on the show.

 

[Rove]

Basically I would gather people around Southfork for a huge family party. It could be for Bobby and Pam's wedding if they would get remarried again. The show then ends as it began.

As long as JR ended up in the Southfork swimming pool I'm in

 

[Rove]

And in a very sad scene, I'd bring back Barbara Bel Geddes, alongside Steve Forrest where it will ultimately be revealed that he was Jock Ewing all along.

No...no...no...no...a big No....and well I'll finish with a NO!

 

[Richard Channing]

I'll put it this way. If you watch show focused on a family, as Dallas is, and you watch them every week, season after season, you like that family. So logically, you want to see good things happen to them.

Well, no. If you watch a show that's focused on a family and is a soap opera you want drama and conflict, that's what soaps are all about. Just cause I like the Ewings doesn't mean I don't want to see tragedy and misfortune bestowed upon them, of course I do, cause that's great TV. If I wanted to watch a family with good things happening to them I'd watch the Brady Bunch.

A happy ending doesn't make sense for Dallas because Dallas has never been about happy endings, it's been about conflict, revenge and loss. Yes there were good times and great loves and romances, but almost all ended in misery and separation. So wrapping it all up with a nice bow on it at the end would not feel like a logical and organic conclusion to the story of a family who were constantly at war, either with each other or their enemies.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Maybe not but it's about giving the audience the ending they want. To give them closure and properly tie up all the loose ends.

Giving the audience what they want is more logical than giving the audience something they don't want. Whether an ending is happy or sad doesn't necessarily have any bearing on how logical it is. You can have sad endings that make sense and sad ending that don't make sense. You can have happy endings that are logical and happy endings that aren't. Happiness and sadness are just emotions. There isn't anything inherently more logical about one as compared to the other. It's how you go about creating that emotion that makes it rational or irrational.

I did try to apply some logic to my first post since otherwise I would have put JR/SE back together again and also Ray & Donna. I know that's what most fans wants and I prefer those pairings too. But since the show had put Sue Ellen with Don, Ray with Jenna and Donna with Andrew Dowling I decided to go with those pairings since it seemed more logical they would still be together considering what we'd already seen on the show.

I agree with that since JR and Sue Ellen together had been done to death. We know it doesn't work. I wish they hadn't kept JR and Sue Ellen together as long as they did. WE got so much of the same thing over and over again with that pairing. There would be happiness for a while and then it would fall apart. It always eventually fell apart. They were a nice couple when they were getting along but when they weren't it was painful to watch. Some of that is fine. It's a drama, after all. There are going to be painful times..,but being relentless with showing how dysfunctional of a couple they are is unnecessary as far as I'm concerned. I get the point - they don't stay happy together for very long because something always goes wrong. Once things go seriously wrong, a little bit of that goes a long away. Seeing episode after episode of the two of them treating each other terribly isn't my idea of fun. it gets very abrasive after awhile to see two people being so sarcastic to each other. I think Miss Ellie put it best in one episode where the women were complaining about their husbands not being there and Miss Ellie said words to the effect of: If the men aren't here, whose fault is it? Clayton and I are very happy together. If we weren't, I'd make changes. Don't spoil my day with your constant complaining!

No...no...no...no...a big No....and well I'll finish with a NO!

I agree! Revealing Wes Parmalee actually was Jock would be wrong from several standpoints. I'd find it insulting to Jim Davis and his legacy to recast Jock. Telling the audience that a man who looks nothing like Jock, whose build is completely different from Jock's build, whose voice as well as his style of speaking is nothing like Jock's, is insulting to the intelligence of the audience.

Finally if Parmalee had been Jock, why would Miss Ellie deliberately endanger his life by saying Parmalee was an imposter? She was there when Clayton said if he turned out to be a fraud, he'd hunt him down and he'd kill him. Clayton was not joking when he said that. He was as serious as could be. Then as soon as Miss Ellie told Clayton the news, that Parmalee confessed he was an imposter, Clayton got a gun and went looking for him. Miss Ellie tried to stop Clayton but how could she? She's a small woman and Clayton is a great big guy. She couldn't physically stop him from going after Parmalee to shoot him.

At that point, does anyone think she wouldn't have told Clayton the truth - that Parmalee really was Jock but that he'd changed so much she no longer felt the same about him anymore - that the man she is in love with now is Clayton and not Jock?

Suppose that somehow Parmalee had been Jock but he'd left because Ellie was no longer in love with him, she was in love with and married to Clayton and that Jock staying around would have been hurtful to everyone involved. Well, if that's why he left and why she agreed that for him to leave was best for everyone, she'd have to tell Clayton the truth. She couldn't lie to Clayton, making Clayton believe Parmalee was a con man who had tried to destroy their family by claiming to be Jock. There would be far too much chance of a a disaster happening if Clayton did manage to track him down. Even though Ellie would say that Jock had changed so much that he was no longer the man she'd been in love with and that she no longer felt capable of feeling the way about him she used to, she'd still have all that history with him and naturally she'd care what happened to Jock even of she didn't love him the way she used to.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Well, no. If you watch a show that's focused on a family and is a soap opera you want drama and conflict, that's what soaps are all about.

As far as I'm concerned, Dallas was a modern day western. It does have things in common with a soap opera and the main one is that it is in the form of a serial instead of in self contained episodes.. It doesn't end at all. I just keeps going until the network cancels the show and even then it comes back in movies and then in a continuation (which should have been handled by somebody far more competent). Westerns are about drama and conflict too but that doesn't mean the cowboys all have to die at the end of every western, murdered and scalped by a tribe of bloodthirsty indians.

Just cause I like the Ewings doesn't mean I don't want to see tragedy and misfortune bestowed upon them, of course I do, cause that's great TV.

So seeing tragedy bestowed upon people you like is your idea of great TV? Then what would you call seeing people you like confronted with adversity and battling it, emerging triumphant at the end of the story? Bad TV?

One of my favorite movies is Rocky and like a soap opera, it kept going on and on. The end of the movie was only the end until...Rocky II! Then Rocky III, and so on. Do we see Rocky hit with hard times and put in situations that require him to battle against tremendous odds? Yes, but what makes Rocky great isn't seeing tragedy bestowed upon him. The audience likes Rocky - they don't want to see the story end with tragedy. Seeing tragedy bestowed upon him such as when Mickey dies or when Apollo dies makes it dramatic and creates powerful emotion. Nobody wanted Mickey's death or Apollo's death to be the way the movie ends though. What makes Rocky who he is, that he he's incredibly resilient and no matter what misfortunes life presents him with, he finds a way to deal with that misfortune, rise above it and despite all the adversity he's forced to confront, he ultimately finds a way to persevere and emerge triumphant at the end.

So wrapping it all up with a nice bow on it at the end would not feel like a logical and organic conclusion to the story of a family who were constantly at war, either with each other or their enemies.

If they were constantly at war with each other, if the Ewings didn't love each other and all they wanted to do is destroy each other, they wouldn't be much of a family would they? They certainly wouldn't be a family I'd be interested in watching. Miss Ellie and Jock were happily married for somewhere close to 50 years. They set the standard that the younger generations tried to live up to and could never quite manage to, since the bar had been set so high. Nevertheless, they loved their parents, they respected their parents and all of Jock's sons except Gary (who was barely on Dallas anyway) considered Jock a role model they strived to emulate. They always wanted to make Jock proud of them. They valued what he thought of them so much, that when they let him down, when they disappointed him, it was very difficult to take. Miss Ellie explained: "While they may sometimes fight among ourselves, when it comes to threats from outsiders the Ewing family always stands together and that's what makes us unbeatable."

Sure, they encounter adversity and sometimes even tragedy, but it never destroys them. When Jock died, JR started to feel like there was no point in going on. What made great TV wasn't seeing Jock's death destroy JR and make him stop caring about everything. What made great TV was seeing JR, with Bobby's help, see that he did have reasons to go on and his son was on of those reasons. It's not the tragedy that makes great TV - it's seeing the Ewings react to tragedy and ultimately rise above the way they felt when the tragedy initially struck. Watching them find a way to deal with the tragedy and persevere, to watch them then continue on despite all the hardship is what made it great TV!

Seeing them having to face conflict, having to compete against people who would like nothing better than to run them out of business, makes it exciting! Their lives, like anyone else's have ups and downs. If there never any down times, if they never had to deal with painful circumstances then the good times wouldn't seem as sweet. Watching the Ewings respond to challenges from competitors, created excitement. The greater the competitor or the greater the challenge they had to face, the more meaningful their victories were. For such a family, to see them win wars against their enemies and emerge victorious at the end seems not only logical, but the only type of ending that is fitting for a family of their stature.