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.

 

[Chris2]

I‘m not saying they retconned Jason’s existence. It’s that they retconned the Ewing Oil origin story.

In the first season, Jock tells Pamela his side of the story of how the feud started: Jock and Digger struck oil, and Jock decided to register the claim in his name only, in order to prevent Digger from gambling his share away. Digger misunderstood and thought Jock was trying to steal from him and went after him with a gun. So Jock decided to keep the well in retaliation, and built Ewing Oil from this well.

In season 8, the Ewing Oil origin story changed. Now, they said that Jason was a partner in the original strike, along with Jock and Digger. Jason and Digger sold their shares of Ewing Oil to Wallace. Windham, who then sold them to Jock. That contradicts the season 1 explanation, that Jock was always the sole legal owner of the well.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

they introduced/shoehorned Amanda Ewing and Hutch McKinney into the backstory, but in that case a main character was actively hiding that info from the other characters and revealed it to them (and us) in dramatic scenes.

With Jason it was just.. not a word for 7 years, and then “oh of course, you must be Jason’s daughter, ol’ Tumbleweed himself!” — everyone had known about Jason all along but just never bothered to mention him. I’d say there wasn’t occasion to mention him, but we’d heard about Jock and Digger and their feud enough times and from enough sources that it’s weird that Jason wouldn’t have come up.

If it had led to big-payoff storylines, that would have been one thing, but… the “replacement hot girl” from Three’s Company and the Taj Mahal of Nervous Chuckles (who mysteriously was never allowed to even kiss his “love interests”), neither of whom amounted to much of anything dramatically.. (well, Jamie dying 3 or 4 times was kind of interesting)

I guess the whole thing ultimately gave us “Cliff with a chunk of Ewing Oil” and Jack’s ex April?

 

[Seaviewer]

hm, I wonder if that’s because the initial episodes of the Dream Season were high-quality, before Angelica and the emeralds took over..

I do think that Season 9 has suffered unfairly by being lumbered retrospectively with the label "dream season." It was real when we first saw it, and is not responsible for the dream explanation added after.

 

[Taylor Bennett Jr.]

I do think that Season 9 has suffered unfairly by being lumbered retrospectively with the label "dream season." It was real when we first saw it, and is not responsible for the dream explanation added after.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I do think that Season 9 has suffered unfairly by being lumbered retrospectively with the label "dream season." It was real when we first saw it, and is not responsible for the dream explanation added after.

Oh, no. Although it didn't help.

We complained about what a mawkish mess Season 9 was at the time... The dream explanation certainly preserved the year's errors in amber, and had the unfortunate effect of trivializing the kooky brilliance of the season that it was opening.