Season 8 Blues, Season 9 Renewals

[ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989]

DALLAS, DYNASTY and FALCON CREST hall had subpar, dull eighth seasons that had storylines that were either repeats of earlier seasons or were just bat sh!t mental 80s style.

Their respective season 9's however gave the shows a feeling of a new era and rejuvenation, also each show on their 9th year lost a key character: Bobby Ewing, Krystle Carrington and Maggie Channing which changed the dynamic of each series.

While FALCON CREST called it a day after 9 years, both DALLAS & DYNASTY had continued, DALLAS limped on for five more years and DYNASTY came back from the dead in 1991 only to commit suicide by that awful Reunion miniseries (both shows technically ended in 1991)

I think it kinda proves that these shows were karmatically linked somehow.

 

[tommie]

The first 10 or so episodes of season 9 ("Dream Season") of Dallas were quite good, but it kind of descended into a mess after that.

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

I only didn't like the Angelica Nero/Dimitri-crap, the rest was okay for me. Loved the Ray and Donna story with the adoption and enjoyed Marks return.
I only wish they brought Afton back as well, because i loved the Afton-Cliff-Pam-Mark scenes, they were a good team and the actors had very good chemistry together, it felt so familiar.

 

[tommie]

Dallas season 9 should've kicked the inevitable Pam vs JR battle into full gear - they wanted powerful women in the 80s?

HELLO give Pam that title and make HER make JR suffer. For real. Give them a full on office battle - I want a scene where she confronts him, she starts kicking over things and he keeps backing away, because bitch it's Pam, she keeps on destroying more and more thing in his office as she has this fierce speech about how he's never going to get away with cheating Christopher of his inheritance, that she's always going to be there and how JR is always and forever going to know that he should never ever mess with a Barnes again.

Ahem.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I only didn't like the Angelica Nero/Dimitri-crap

I liked it but the plotting could have been tighter. Stretched out over 25 episodes was too much.

Loved the Ray and Donna story with the adoption

Meh, too wishy-washy.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

JfL had a similar theory he posted back on the old soapchat before it was massacred, about these shows reaching their nadir in their seventh and eighth year, and reenergized for year nine (in DALLAS' case, S10 per DVD and industry count).

I only didn't like the Angelica Nero/Dimitri-crap, the rest was okay for me. Loved the Ray and Donna story with the adoption and enjoyed Marks return.

But there was the overall feeling of the show faking it that season (which I guess makes sense since it was a dream) as it meandered from one go-nowhere plot to another. Even Donna and Ray's foray into challenged children dropped the Down's Syndrome story for a disability that was easier to handle: deafness. And the year had an endless slew of ill-timed maudlin reconciliation moments that didn't quite ring true but which allowed the writers to drop this-or-that storyline without following through on it logically.

Otherwise I can forgive the "Kumbaya" fraternity of the dream season since they were all loopy about Bobby's dying and stuff.

I only wish they brought Afton back as well, because i loved the Afton-Cliff-Pam-Mark scenes, they were a good team and the actors had very good chemistry together, it felt so familiar.

Oh, totally. But somehow that languid, hovering, summery vibe -- often with the four by the pool or seen just before-or-after trolling Dallas' nightspots -- fits perfectly into that golden era of DALLAS in which all the show's elements had matured exquisitely and which, as these things go, can never last forever... And yet there is Eternity inside it.

In other words: 1983... Paulsen, Katzman, Lewis, Broughton, even Capice, sometimes May... A large, resonant hush.

I'd always miss this period of the show, and really still do. But how nice to have had it! Even then I was stunned at how good the show had gotten, how nicely it had ripened by the sixth & seventh seasons (per DVD and industry count) and rightly considered it a gift.

Now, going even further into classical Fibonaccian structure, if DALLAS had reached its artistic peak circa 1983 after, say, five or 5 1/2 years or so --- and it indeed did, then the show should have run roughly nine years. Which means ending around 1987 just after Pam crashed into that tanker.... perfect!

 

[ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989]

FC's season 9 became a completely different show altogether, I should've added that FC lost two key characters the second being Angela of course, but she came back in the final episodes.

Yes I agree that season 9 of DALLAS should've been the long built up showdown between Pam and JR, VP was indeed a very capable actress and I would have loved for her to really go after JR after nine years of him putting her through hell, she had 9 years of rage toward him, use it!

I think had DYNASTY had been given a chance I reckon that could have had a shortened season 11 in 1991, I see the period between
1991-94 as an extension of the 80s, so both DALLAS and DYNASTY ending in '91 would be a very fitting.

Angelica Nero was far too DYNASTY for something as grounded as DYNASTY, she should have only been in 10 or 12 episodes

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Math is fun.

If you apply Fibonacci's golden fraction (x 0.618 or x1.618) you find all sorts of fascinating things.

If you apply it to the whole of something, you can find the nugget or the spiritual essence of it. For example, in the three hour pilot of DYNASTY, if you apply this fraction oft-repeated in nature, you get the library scene between Blake and Steven. That works for me.

If you apply it to the 8.33 years DYNASTY was on the air from Jan. '81 to May '89, you wind up with March 1986 (two thirds of the way thru S6), but if you go by episode count (~216 episodes) you arrive at roughly episode 133 (mid-way thru S6). Of course, DYNASTY had long-since ceased listening to nature, but I've always felt Season 6 should have indeed been the series' natural peak, and mid-S6 when Alexis should have had her brief tenure on the throne... However, had DYNASTY run one season longer than it did and we wound up with a Season 10 (which it should have), then it would have placed the golden fraction "peak" at the very end of S6 or the very beginning of S7 when Alexis first took over the mansion. Which makes some sense, too.

With DALLAS, if you apply the golden fraction to the 13.08 years the show ran (from April 1978 to May 1991) or the total episode count of 357, both give you the end of Season 9 (per DVD count) in May of 1986 as the series' innate "bump" -- which is when Bobby appeared in the shower (8.08 years and ~222 episodes). Although I prefer the ghostly disappearance of Wes Parmalee as that Fibonaccian "marker," so that would extend DALLAS' run another year, into 1992, but that's just me.

But, yes, if we go by the idea that 1983 was DALLAS' natural peak, then it could all end when Pam went "splat" in 1987.

So it all depends on where we think these shows' "peaks" in their cycles are, or were. But it's interesting to speculate and call it "science".

Yes I agree that season 9 of DALLAS should've been the long built up showdown between Pam and JR, VP was indeed a very capable actress and I would have loved for her to really go after JR after nine years of him putting her through hell, she had 9 years of rage toward him, use it!

Although many people consider S10 (post dream) to be S9, so it all gets confused.

Season 10 (per DVD and industry standards) is DALLAS' ninth year, sort of. So it's the re-energized year.

Season 9 (per DVD) is DALLAS' eighth year, sort of. And it's stumbles. And, yes, their refusal to take on JR at Ewing Oil is one of the series' biggest wasted opportunities.

Angelica Nero was far too DYNASTY for something as grounded as DYNASTY, she should have only been in 10 or 12 episodes

Katzman created the character although he didn't produce the show that season, and indeed he only expected Angelica to last about 10 episodes, but Peter Dunne's writers decided to extend unnecessarily the character throughout the entire season.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

t if you go by episode count (~216 episodes) you arrive at roughly episode 133 (mid-way thru S6). Of course, DYNASTY had long-since ceased listening to nature, but I've always felt Season 6 should have indeed been the series' natural peak, and mid-S6 when Alexis should have had her brief tenure on the throne... However, had DYNASTY run one season longer than it did and we wound up with a Season 10 (which it should have), then it would have placed the golden fraction "peak" at the very end of S6 or the very beginning of S7 when Alexis first took over the mansion. Which makes some sense, too.

With DALLAS, if you apply the golden fraction to the 13.08 years the show ran (from April 1978 to May 1991) or the total episode count of 357, both give you the end of Season 9 (per DVD count) in May of 1986 as the series' innate "bump" -- which is when Bobby appeared in the shower (8.08 years and ~222 episodes). Although I prefer the ghostly disappearance of Wes Parmalee as that Fibonaccian "marker," so that would extend DALLAS' run another year, into 1992, but that's just me.

By some counts, of course, there were actually 220 episodes of DYNASTY instead of 216, which would place this "golden fraction" at about episode 136 in mid-Season 6 --- not that you have to be utterly exact with these things.

I think it's interesting that DYNASTY's totally of episodes matches the golden fraction of DALLAS'=220.

Anyway, episode 136 would be the nineteenth installment, "The Dismissal", and isn't that the one which ends with Alexis making a thwarted pass at Blake in her office?

I still think if both DALLAS and DYNASTY had run one additional year (which I'd prefer) then their golden moments would be not when Bobby returned but a few episodes later when Wes Parmalee is wreaking havoc just before leaving -- and, to me, the Wes Parmalee plot was the essence of DALLAS; while DYNASTY's Fibonaccian milestone would be Alexis taking over and reoccupying the mansion.... In both cases, the ghosts from the two series' pasts visited on the present in Shakespearean fashion (well, okay, DYNASTY didn't quite pull that off). But that would require DALLAS running ~380 episodes and DYNASTY running ~240, one extra season each than they actually did.

Is this making any sense? Is it too weird to be interesting in an "tl;dr" or "ts;dr" ("too stupid; didn't read") capacity??

 

[Richard Channing]

Is this making any sense? Is it too weird to be interesting in an "tl;dr" or "ts;dr" ("too stupid; didn't read") capacity??

It makes sense to me, but then I love this kind of stuff.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

It makes sense to me, but then I love this kind of stuff.

Some of it's covered in the "1986" thread -- too weird and ponderous for some...
http://www.soapchat.net/threads/198...ctive-timelines-listening-to-nature-etc.4705/

 

[Willie Oleson]

It should be noted that, in terms of art, fashion and pop culture, the late eighties was a total wasteland. It was the shit after 5 years of constipation (hence the cheap, brown-ish look) so I find it hard to blame the soaps for everything.
It's a miracle that Dynasty's season 9 turned out to be so good.