The Paulsen Effect has been mentioned several times in several threads throughout the years. What was it that he had license to do that, for example, Art Lewis didn’t? What creative input do we know of that we can we definitively attribute to Paulsen?
Paulsen was particularly good at structure.
When he left DALLAS in Spring 1988 to go produce DYNASTY, it was said in the media that "a DALLAS head honcho" was taking over its rival soap.
My initial thoughts were: why bother at this point?, and I assumed he was just being brought in to take the blame for DYNASTY's imminent cancellation. (And some did).
I'd seen his name before many times on several shows, mostly DALLAS (and KNOTS' Season 7). But when I saw the very first episode of Season 9 of DYNASTY that November 1988, it was clear this was indeed the same writer-producer who'd so impacted DALLAS' best post-'WSJR?' years.
And he was.
Katzman apparently recognized Paulsen's structural skill near the latter part of the 80/81 season of DALLAS when Katzman had assembled a group of staff (and non-staff, I think) writers who had worked on the show in order to brainstorm their way out of a corner they'd written their way into. And, Paulsen being Paulsen, did it. And from that point on, Paulsen had a lot of influence.