So how would YOU have saved Dallas?

pete lashmar

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I think Linda leaving was another reason viewers turned it off - she was a massive part of the show and hugely popular. The dynamic of J.R & Sue Ellen was one the show's biggest successes.

But when the writers gave us a cliffhanger with Sue Ellen pumping JR full of bullets and he wasn't even injured you can't blame her for going - the show became a parody of itself.
 

CeeCee72

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I think Linda leaving was another reason viewers turned it off - she was a massive part of the show and hugely popular. The dynamic of J.R & Sue Ellen was one the show's biggest successes.

But when the writers gave us a cliffhanger with Sue Ellen pumping JR full of bullets and he wasn't even injured you can't blame her for going - the show became a parody of itself.

The loss of SE was hard to take, but by the time LG left, it was a mercy. First off, like you said, she shot JR full of holes and he barely had a scratch. But what they did to SE in her last season was unforgivable.

SE was never what I would call a GOOD mother, but she did love her son. Everything she did in her last season was hurtful to John Ross. Tricking JR to marry Cally, seemingly with no regard whatsoever as to how having a new stepmother would affect John Ross. Making that stupid movie - PUH-LEEZE. There was never the slightest chance the SE we all knew and loved would embarrass John Ross (or Miss Ellie for that matter) just to get back at JR. And then having her leave her son to run off to London with a man she barely knew (explaining it with a throwaway line about needing to "get on with her life").

I don't blame LG for leaving either. That character was totally destroyed in the course of two seasons.
 
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Sarah

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First off she would never have shot JR and he would never have hurt her (the line was she was scared he was going to kill her which is ridiculous).

Dallas suffered the loss of Sue Ellen more than any other major character - not only as you say @CeeCee72 - the writing for her was absurd, but when she left she took JR with her in everything but body. Larry always said without Sue Ellen JR was half a man and ‘much less’ and it showed.

The biggest mistake made was that Kimberley Cryder storyline. It destroyed one of the strongest links on the show and turned the principal character - JR - into a caricature of himself.
 

Jock's Ghost

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Can't disagree with much there. I'd have left Bobby dead for one. The show was not awful with him dead, save for one or two things, but it still had its credibility. Losing said cred was what lead to its slow demise.

Reviving Bobby
Victoria Leaving
Ray and Donna leaving
Katherine killed off twice!
Clayton being a boring, uselss sack of crap.
Sue Ellen leaving = All contributed to a shallow, boring show.
New characters who added nothing. Actors not really up to the task.


THE biggest mistake however, was making JR soft. A caricature of a once great menace, who audiences loved to hate. I loved to love JR, but his post Bobby years were awful. Cally crap!? Ugh. A guy like JR is not going to be forced into marrying anyone. He'd call a lawyer and have it done with no issues.
Why wasn't Cally made into a real force? He has a fling with her, swindles her out of some oil rich land and she gets her revenge? Barbra Eden was a nice touch, I like how she went after him for revenge, but she was TOO harsh... too powerful and it should have lasted a season or two. Imagine if Babs had guested during the good years.
 

pete lashmar

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Making JR so soft and powerless was the major mistake, having him cowing down to Haleyville hillbillies was ridiculous.

Swami

For me J.R was always a coward, but not in business. But yeah. this storyline totally belittled him.
 

Kenny Coyote

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For me J.R was always a coward, but not in business. But yeah. this storyline totally belittled him.

A coward? You did seem him look up the barrel of a gun and say "If you're gonna shoot me, them shoot me, just don't let my boy see his daddy die" didn't you? A man can face death like that; he's no coward.

A coward dies a thousand times; a brave man dies just once.
 

Alexis Colby Carrington

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I'd have saved Dallas by leaving Bobby dead - when people think of Dallas they think of JR then the dream season. It was almost as ridiculous as Fallon being abducted by aliens on The Colbys. They should have thrown everything they could at Victoria to ensure she stayed, the same goes with Ray and Donna, one by one the core cast we'd loved for years were going, I was never a fan of Pam, I was much more in Sue Ellen's camp, which brings me to that very point, Sue Ellen had been watered down to almost a shadow of herself by the writers by the time she left, I don't agree that the movie and leaving for London with a man she barely knew fit was a fitting exit, I'd rather drunk herself to death, committing suicide after JR's unfaithfulness once again. Then there's JR himself, the JR from a house a divided was not the JR who married Cally, they should have made him all powerful, taking over Westar and Southfork and becoming all powerful, the power characters like Alexis craved. Instead the writers made him a victim of characters not even willing to lick his boots. JR's very last season should have seen him up against an unkown assailiant, someone to scupper him at every deal, a mystery person only revealed at the board of Ewing Oil, none other than Sue Ellen and that's what causes his suicide, he shoots himself because Sue Ellen has taken him for everything he's got without his knowledge. She's the only character to match him. That's how I'd have saved Dallas.
 

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I'd have saved Dallas by leaving Bobby dead - when people think of Dallas they think of JR then the dream season. It was almost as ridiculous as Fallon being abducted by aliens on The Colbys. They should have thrown everything they could at Victoria to ensure she stayed, the same goes with Ray and Donna, one by one the core cast we'd loved for years were going, I was never a fan of Pam, I was much more in Sue Ellen's camp, which brings me to that very point, Sue Ellen had been watered down to almost a shadow of herself by the writers by the time she left, I don't agree that the movie and leaving for London with a man she barely knew fit was a fitting exit, I'd rather drunk herself to death, committing suicide after JR's unfaithfulness once again. Then there's JR himself, the JR from a house a divided was not the JR who married Cally, they should have made him all powerful, taking over Westar and Southfork and becoming all powerful, the power characters like Alexis craved. Instead the writers made him a victim of characters not even willing to lick his boots. JR's very last season should have seen him up against an unkown assailiant, someone to scupper him at every deal, a mystery person only revealed at the board of Ewing Oil, none other than Sue Ellen and that's what causes his suicide, he shoots himself because Sue Ellen has taken him for everything he's got without his knowledge. She's the only character to match him. That's how I'd have saved Dallas.

I don't know what it is about business that makes people think anyone can do it. Maybe it's the fault of the way TV presents it. Men like JR and Wendell are at the top of their field. The idea that just because a woman was married to one of them, she could come in and be a mystery threat: Suppose instead they were the two top architects in Texas and Wendell and JR are both developing plans for the tallest, most impressive building in Dallas. For Sue Ellen to be secretly working on her own plans for it and to outdo the top two architects in Texas is something most people would probably find unbelievable, but because it's business, there's this idea that anyone could come in and compete at the top level. It would be like in Breaking Bad if they had Skylar White outdo Walter's meth formula, because she was his wife. You don't rise to the top of any of those fields by accident or because you're married to someone just magically absorb their knowledge.
 

Alexis Colby Carrington

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I don't know what it is about business that makes people think anyone can do it. Maybe it's the fault of the way TV presents it. Men like JR and Wendell are at the top of their field. The idea that just because a woman was married to one of them, she could come in and be a mystery threat: Suppose instead they were the two top architects in Texas and Wendell and JR are both developing plans for the tallest, most impressive building in Dallas. For Sue Ellen to be secretly working on her own plans for it and to outdo the top two architects in Texas is something most people would probably find unbelievable, but because it's business, there's this idea that anyone could come in and compete at the top level. It would be like in Breaking Bad if they had Skylar White outdo Walter's meth formula, because she was his wife. You don't rise to the top of any of those fields by accident or because you're married to someone just magically absorb their knowledge.

They killed off Bobby and made the entire next season a dream, anything could happen and the title says how would you have saved Dallas, that's how I'd have done it. If not Sue Ellen, someone else helps her then signs everything over to her and if you don't like that, let's have a Dynasty crossover where Alexis takes over Ewing Oil.
 

Kenny Coyote

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They killed off Bobby and made the entire next season a dream, anything could happen and the title says how would you have saved Dallas, that's how I'd have done it. If not Sue Ellen, someone else helps her then signs everything over to her and if you don't like that, let's have a Dynasty crossover where Alexis takes over Ewing Oil.

I wasn't so much referring to your specific idea but the idea in general I see that somehow even though people go to college and universities to study business, just like for engineering, physics, chemistry and architecture, there's an idea that gets floated around that regarding business, and only business, apparently anyone, whether qualified or not, can do it, and even succeed at the top levels of it.

It kind of makes a mockery of the person who spends all that time and effort earning an MBA or even a BA in business, such as "How about Pam fights JR for control of Ewing Oil"? OK, and how about Pam then outdoes the petroleum engineers and shows them a new,more efficient way of extracting oil from the ground? These are things people actually study and get degrees in, then spend years gaining experience in - they're not hobbies that anyone can just pick up.
 

Seaviewer

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Making JR so soft and powerless was the major mistake, having him cowing down to Haleyville hillbillies was ridiculous.
George Kennedy said on Entertainment This Week that people would "lick their chops" over what was going to happen to JR that season. I don't think they understood what Miss Ellie had said about the family fighting among themselves but banding together against threats from the outside. We liked it when Sue Ellen or Ray had their triumphs but JR was not to be beaten down by some unknown pipsqueaks.
 

Alexis Colby Carrington

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I wasn't so much referring to your specific idea but the idea in general I see that somehow even though people go to college and universities to study business, just like for engineering, physics, chemistry and architecture, there's an idea that gets floated around that regarding business, and only business, apparently anyone, whether qualified or not, can do it, and even succeed at the top levels of it.

It kind of makes a mockery of the person who spends all that time and effort earning an MBA or even a BA in business, such as "How about Pam fights JR for control of Ewing Oil"? OK, and how about Pam then outdoes the petroleum engineers and shows them a new,more efficient way of extracting oil from the ground? These are things people actually study and get degrees in, then spend years gaining experience in - they're not hobbies that anyone can just pick up.

I understand that totally, I am a Primary school teacher and it does annoy me when people say that anyone could do it, as is the same here with your post.
 

Kenny Coyote

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I understand that totally, I am a Primary school teacher and it does annoy me when people say that anyone could do it, as is the same here with your post.

Yes, you have unique skills that you studied for, that you acquired over time with experience, and that's why you're uniquely qualified to do what you do. It's the same in business. These young men and women who are paying $100,000 or more to get an MBA would have to be fools to spend all that money on an MBA if just anybody could do it! I realize it's a TV show and there is some artistic license involved, but it's just not believable to think that somebody with no higher education in that area and either no or very limited experience in business would be able to successfully compete with the businessmen who are at the top of their particular field. A show like Dallas doesn't have to based entirely on realism, and probably shouldn't be. They do have to have some believability though.

Why is it that there are so many scenes where JR isn't present and characters are talking about "how are we going to stop JR"? It's because he is among the very best at what he does. That's what makes him such a formidable adversary!

I've seen idea proposed where after Bobby "died" Pam would have become JR's biggest rival and the two of them would have battled it out for control of Ewing Oil. Not only does Pam only have a high school diploma, but in all the time she was married to Bobby, she never once showed an enthusiasm for the oil business to where she asked Bobby to teach her the business. The oil business didn't excite Pam enough to where she ever once asked Bobby to help her learn the business.

How can you reach the top level of something you have no college degree in and don't even show a great interest in becoming great at doing it? Nobody becomes among the best of the best at something they don't have the education, expertise, experience, or even any genuine enthusiasm for! JR was taught by his father starting from an early age, he did whatever Jock asked of him to learn the business, then he went to college and got a business degree, and went on to show a remarkable aptitude for the business as well as a tremendous desire to excel in it! Pam had none of those things, so how could the audience believe that she'd suddenly display such a remarkable natural gift for the business that she would be competition for JR?
 

Alexis Colby Carrington

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Yes, you have unique skills that you studied for, that you acquired over time with experience, and that's why you're uniquely qualified to do what you do. It's the same in business. These young men and women who are paying $100,000 or more to get an MBA would have to be fools to spend all that money on an MBA if just anybody could do it! I realize it's a TV show and there is some artistic license involved, but it's just not believable to think that somebody with no higher education in that area and either no or very limited experience in business would be able to successfully compete with the businessmen who are at the top of their particular field. A show like Dallas doesn't have to based entirely on realism, and probably shouldn't be. They do have to have some believability though.

Why is it that there are so many scenes where JR isn't present and characters are talking about "how are we going to stop JR"? It's because he is among the very best at what he does. That's what makes him such a formidable adversary!

I've seen idea proposed where after Bobby "died" Pam would have become JR's biggest rival and the two of them would have battled it out for control of Ewing Oil. Not only does Pam only have a high school diploma, but in all the time she was married to Bobby, she never once showed an enthusiasm for the oil business to where she asked Bobby to teach her the business. The oil business didn't excite Pam enough to where she ever once asked Bobby to help her learn the business.

How can you reach the top level of something you have no college degree in and don't even show a great interest in becoming great at doing it? Nobody becomes among the best of the best at something they don't have the education, expertise, experience, or even any genuine enthusiasm for! JR was taught by his father starting from an early age, he did whatever Jock asked of him to learn the business, then he went to college and got a business degree, and went on to show a remarkable aptitude for the business as well as a tremendous desire to excel in it! Pam had none of those things, so how could the audience believe that she'd suddenly display such a remarkable natural gift for the business that she would be competition for JR?

I do get where you're coming from with making the show believable, who would you say could match JR toe to toe? Jeremy Wendell?

I also understand that when JR isn't in a scene, he's being talked about, like no other character, I also think this is the only prime time show in which this happens, maybe Falcon Crest does with Angela to some degree, but I don't remember Alexis being talked about as much as JR is when not in a scene.

I remember reading something about Pam becoming a rival for JR and understand that it would never have worked, that's why I said it should be Sue Ellen - but then she never showed much interest in the business either and when I think of Dusty, he was more cattle than oil so she could never have learnt from him - so on second thoughts maybe she's not the best choice. I was just trying to think of alternative ending than the one we got for JR, the JR who was shot, was not the JR in the last episode but that's the writers fault.
 

Kenny Coyote

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I do get where you're coming from with making the show believable, who would you say could match JR toe to toe? Jeremy Wendell?

I also understand that when JR isn't in a scene, he's being talked about, like no other character, I also think this is the only prime time show in which this happens, maybe Falcon Crest does with Angela to some degree, but I don't remember Alexis being talked about as much as JR is when not in a scene.

I remember reading something about Pam becoming a rival for JR and understand that it would never have worked, that's why I said it should be Sue Ellen - but then she never showed much interest in the business either and when I think of Dusty, he was more cattle than oil so she could never have learnt from him - so on second thoughts maybe she's not the best choice. I was just trying to think of alternative ending than the one we got for JR, the JR who was shot, was not the JR in the last episode but that's the writers fault.

I really like the idea of promoting William Smithers to the main cast and having made Jeremy Wendell a heavily featured character who would be go "toe to toe" with JR. He would in essence, have been taking the spot in the show that had been reserved for Cliff. My thinking on that is that they have Wendell buy Cliff's company and because of that Cliff demands the stipulation that he gets to be on Westar's board of directors. Wendell doesn't think highly of Cliff's abilities but he agrees to it because he wants those vast reserves of oil that Cliff has in Gold Canyon 340, so Jeremy says OK.

That sets up a situation where JR's primary adversary would be Jeremy because that adds something fresh to the show so that it doesn't become repetitive. Now JR has a rival who not only wants to put Ewing Oil out of business, but is far more capable and powerful than Cliff ever was. Wendell is the ultimate threat to the Ewings because he can convince the audience that Wendell is "that guy" - the one who not only wants to put them out of business but can.

To make things exciting, my philosophy is you put the best against the best - Jeremy Wendell against JR Ewing. JR did things to Jeremy that as far as we know, nobody was ever able to do, such as getting him to sign over all the property that he got when the government took from Ewing Oil, all in exchange for ownership of the land he needs to use to get the natural gas he bought from Cliff to the pipeline.

Like JR, Jeremy Wendell eats, sleeps and breathes the oil business. Unlike Cliff, Jeremy doesn't make decisions based on emotion. Jeremy is a shrewd, calculating man who runs a company significantly larger than Ewing Oil. We saw skirmishes between JR and Wendell, but since William Smithers was never in the main cast, he was never featured as extensively as he now would be. He had been underutilized. William Smithers is a new kind of opponent for JR, a careful calculating man in very good control of his emotions. He doesn't make stupid mistakes. Now for the first time, the Ewings are the underdogs. They're up against a bigger, stronger opponent. JR and Bobby are going to have to learn to work together to have any chance of winning this. Meanwhile, Wendell has a liability on his hands in the form of Cliff Barnes on his board of directors. There is potential there for some very entertaining scenes where an exasperated Wendell is trying to explain why they have to do things a certain way, but Cliff just doesn't get it- Cliff wants to do things his way. Cliff becomes the one chink in the armor of Westar that JR and Bobby can exploit to their advantage. Wendell finds himself fighting with Cliff when he should be carefully calculating his next move against the Ewings.
 

Alexis Colby Carrington

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I really like the idea of promoting William Smithers to the main cast and having made Jeremy Wendell a heavily featured character who would be go "toe to toe" with JR. He would in essence, have been taking the spot in the show that had been reserved for Cliff. My thinking on that is that they have Wendell buy Cliff's company and because of that Cliff demands the stipulation that he gets to be on Westar's board of directors. Wendell doesn't think highly of Cliff's abilities but he agrees to it because he wants those vast reserves of oil that Cliff has in Gold Canyon 340, so Jeremy says OK.

That sets up a situation where JR's primary adversary would be Jeremy because that adds something fresh to the show so that it doesn't become repetitive. Now JR has a rival who not only wants to put Ewing Oil out of business, but is far more capable and powerful than Cliff ever was. Wendell is the ultimate threat to the Ewings because he can convince the audience that Wendell is "that guy" - the one who not only wants to put them out of business but can.

To make things exciting, my philosophy is you put the best against the best - Jeremy Wendell against JR Ewing. JR did things to Jeremy that as far as we know, nobody was ever able to do, such as getting him to sign over all the property that he got when the government took from Ewing Oil, all in exchange for ownership of the land he needs to use to get the natural gas he bought from Cliff to the pipeline.

Like JR, Jeremy Wendell eats, sleeps and breathes the oil business. Unlike Cliff, Jeremy doesn't make decisions based on emotion. Jeremy is a shrewd, calculating man who runs a company significantly larger than Ewing Oil. We saw skirmishes between JR and Wendell, but since William Smithers was never in the main cast, he was never featured as extensively as he now would be. He had been underutilized. William Smithers is a new kind of opponent for JR, a careful calculating man in very good control of his emotions. He doesn't make stupid mistakes. Now for the first time, the Ewings are the underdogs. They're up against a bigger, stronger opponent. JR and Bobby are going to have to learn to work together to have any chance of winning this. Meanwhile, Wendell has a liability on his hands in the form of Cliff Barnes on his board of directors. There is potential there for some very entertaining scenes where an exasperated Wendell is trying to explain why they have to do things a certain way, but Cliff just doesn't get it- Cliff wants to do things his way. Cliff becomes the one chink in the armor of Westar that JR and Bobby can exploit to their advantage. Wendell finds himself fighting with Cliff when he should be carefully calculating his next move against the Ewings.

Your posts are always so insightful, I can actually see all of that happening and the more I think about it, the more Wendell fits the mould of perfect rival. A real fight for Ewing Oil in the last three seasons which, as you say, would put the Ewings on the backfoot and force JR and Bobby to work together, if they're to come out on top, which they shouldn't and this would lead to JR's suicide, he could be plagued by the ghost of his father, telling him how much damage he's done and how he can't win, how he's not fit to be a Ewing, far more exciting than the Scrooge type ending we got.
 

Kenny Coyote

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Your posts are always so insightful, I can actually see all of that happening and the more I think about it, the more Wendell fits the mould of perfect rival. A real fight for Ewing Oil in the last three seasons which, as you say, would put the Ewings on the backfoot and force JR and Bobby to work together, if they're to come out on top, which they shouldn't and this would lead to JR's suicide, he could be plagued by the ghost of his father, telling him how much damage he's done and how he can't win, how he's not fit to be a Ewing, far more exciting than the Scrooge type ending we got.

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Kenny Coyote

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Your posts are always so insightful, I can actually see all of that happening and the more I think about it, the more Wendell fits the mould of perfect rival. A real fight for Ewing Oil in the last three seasons which, as you say, would put the Ewings on the backfoot and force JR and Bobby to work together, if they're to come out on top, which they shouldn't and this would lead to JR's suicide, he could be plagued by the ghost of his father, telling him how much damage he's done and how he can't win, how he's not fit to be a Ewing, far more exciting than the Scrooge type ending we got.

I like that you think Wendell would prove to be an exciting adversary to the Ewings and that it would have lead to a far more exciting show than we got in the waning years of Dallas.

Dallas was a show about a family we grew to know and love so much that we wouldn't miss a single episode of it. If the writers of the show had decided to have the story go to a place where the Ewing family ends in ruins it would have been a monstrous decision and I would have resented it terribly.
 
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I've seen idea proposed where after Bobby "died" Pam would have become JR's biggest rival and the two of them would have battled it out for control of Ewing Oil. Not only does Pam only have a high school diploma, but in all the time she was married to Bobby, she never once showed an enthusiasm for the oil business to where she asked Bobby to teach her the business. The oil business didn't excite Pam enough to where she ever once asked Bobby to help her learn the business.
I'm rewatching season 7 where Pam is working with Cliff at Barnes-Wentworth. She insists that she wants to really learn the oil business not just be a figurehead.
 
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