Biggest Drop in Quality

[Snarky Oracle!]

even Pam went from “tangling with JR in the boardroom” to “fainting into the conveniently re-animated Mark Graison’s arms” in the span of 2 or 3 episodes…

Oh, yes. But Victoria's acting had improved so much (really, by Season 6) that Pam still seemed "stronger" because of it... And, y'know, her mid-season plastic surgery.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

Oh, yes. But Victoria's acting had improved so much (really, by Season 6) that Pam still seemed "stronger" because of it... And, y'know, her mid-season plastic surgery.

they’re just plastic surgery fiends down there in South America! Random bandits abduct Pam from camp for a quick facelift even as the major reconstruction of Jock Ewing into Ben Stivers and/or Wes Parmalee had recently reached its conclusion… Dr. Mitchell Cooper would have wielded like the 8th-sharpest scalpel in the average small-town Uruguayan clinic.

 

[Chris2]

You could see the fatigue setting in even before Bobby left:

• The silly retcon of the Ewing Oil origin story, now with Jason Ewing, and Jock legitimately buying out Digger and his never-before-mentioned brother (wouldn’t Jock have told Ellie this story at some point?).
• The introduction of the Ewing cousins (note to soap opera writers: cousin relationships are generally not as compelling as sibling relationships).
• Miss Elie’s dull new marriage, which added nothing to the show.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

You could see the fatigue setting in even before Bobby left:

• The silly retcon of the Ewing Oil origin story, now with Jason Ewing, and Jock legitimately buying out Digger and his never-before-mentioned brother (wouldn’t Jock have told Ellie this story at some point?).
• The introduction of the Ewing cousins (note to soap opera writers: cousin relationships are generally not as compelling as sibling relationships).
• Miss Elie’s dull new marriage, which added nothing to the show.

Although I don't view those things as retcons per se, there's no question that there was a bit of a pall over Season 8 -- which I attribute, if not entirely, to the recasting of Miss Ellie. There was a sense that something special had now been ruined.

Also, a series has a natural arc, and DALLAS' was probably seven years (Season 8 in TV talk)... 1978 to 1985.

I'd've hated to have missed Season 10 (although not the dream resolution which opened it). But Bobby's death, and the months leading up to it, had a finality about we even mentioned at the time.

But that was true about all the nighttime soaps by the Spring of 1985 -- a slightly forlorn sense of ambivalent closure.

 

[Toni]

Oh, yes. But Victoria's acting had improved so much (really, by Season 6) that Pam still seemed "stronger" because of it... And, y'know, her mid-season plastic surgery.

I did notice her face being more rounded just after she was released by the kidnappers (actually, previously too, in the few scenes she did in the episode when she arrived at "The Cats, Colombia", which makes me think that, if she hadn´t had "back problems" then, the plot would have been different...Meeting Ben Stivers there? I wouldn´t have minded that!) but Victoria might have been taking meds for her abovementioned "problems" that affected her looks somehow.

Oh and plastic surgery, at least now, is terribly cheap and frequent in South America (not kidding!).

 

[Toni]

You could see the fatigue setting in even before Bobby left:

• The silly retcon of the Ewing Oil origin story, now with Jason Ewing, and Jock legitimately buying out Digger and his never-before-mentioned brother (wouldn’t Jock have told Ellie this story at some point?).
• The introduction of the Ewing cousins (note to soap opera writers: cousin relationships are generally not as compelling as sibling relationships).
• Miss Elie’s dull new marriage, which added nothing to the show.

I don´t see that as retcons either. I have aunts and cousins I don´t mention by rule (don´t ask why) so the Ewings ignoring everything Jason-related is believable to me. The worst about Miss Ellie wasn´t the recasting only, but the fact that post-Dream Season, her marriage became as dull as Donna Reed´s Ellie´s, only a crying fest for BBG, and having her limited to this kind of scenes is just a crime.