Is this for Real

Taylor Bennett Jr.

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Absolutely ...................................................................NOT! :yikey:
but… perhaps the greatest Dallas chronicler of all, the legendary James of London, literally goes back to his classic Dallas episode reviews and amends his totally accurate old opinions based on new insights from watching New Dallas.. which reads to me like “after reading ‘Ray And Jenna Forever’ on lousyfanfiction.tv I now consider them the #1 supercouple in the history of television!”

it’s a long-held-world-view-questioning-level curiosity, but he’s certainly earned the right to go against the forum zeitgeist!

Are James and the also-great Willie Oleson trolling us with their radical pro-Cidre agenda?? I don’t think so!?
 
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Seaviewer

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Out of curiosity, do other people here actually view it as a part of the original series? I mean, for me, the original show kinda stops with the reunion movies, but I mean...is it canon, not canon?? I can't quite make my mind up. Quite frankly, I almost wish nothing past 1990 was canon.
I do regard it as canon, but . . .
I thought it was a huge mistake to make the reunions not canon. Now, there are three multiverses we know of: the dream, 1986 to 1998, and TNT lol. It is sci-fi now.
. . . inconsistencies abound even within each,
Honestly, I'm sort of surprised we haven't had a remake (not a reboot). So many older shows (Magnum PI, Hawaii 5.0, etc) have been redone with new actors. An updated Dallas would be kind of interesting.
I guess I'd watch it out of curiosity.
Art should never be fixed, let alone by AI. It would be like watching lots of Dream Season scenarios because it didn't really happen.
Again, I'd watch them out of curiosity.
a continuation may be dead, but whoever owns the rights is sitting on several already-conceived storylines with the “Middle Years”. In the right hands, the thing would pretty much write itself. If they want to add raciness, they can always grab some inspiration from the great Lee Raintree…
Forward is always my preference over prequels and midquels.
 

Toni

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I´m happy to disregard the telemovies and not consider them canon. They were incongruous (JR "shot the mirror" but we didn´t hear it breaking into pieces?), PSA-like (John Ross and Chris as representation of being Un-PC and PC resp.?), miscast (Pamela Rebecca being much taller that her parents?), characters acting out-of-character (Miss Ellie not attending EVEN her son´s funeral, J.R. faking his death), fan-ficcy (Sue Ellen rushing to sleep with him, Cliff thinking he was PR´s dad again).

Actually, the Cider House took the better things from it (J.R. back into action, Bobby wanting to sell Southfork, Cliff as a tycoon, Sue Ellen and John Ross living in Dallas again, Bobby coupled with another woman, and, of course, J.R. orchestrating his own death, now definitive) and then mixed up with the worst trashy ideas she could find (insert here your choices). Also, her cast was so much better than what they did with the Reunions, especially re. Josh Henderson and Julie Gonzalo. I would watch any continuation with these two as John Ross and Rebecca.
 

Michelle Stevens

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It's a shame. I felt that TNT Dallas was 1/3 good, 2/3 bad. The two reunion movies didn't bother me. In hindsight a new Dallas series could have worked soon after the 2004 The Return to Southfork television special and when the DVD's of the original series began to be released.
 

CeeCee72

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It's a shame. I felt that TNT Dallas was 1/3 good, 2/3 bad. The two reunion movies didn't bother me. In hindsight a new Dallas series could have worked soon after the 2004 The Return to Southfork television special and when the DVD's of the original series began to be released.
I thought JR returns was fine until I recently watched it on YouTube. All the things @Toni pointed out above bothered me too.

I've always hated the War of the Ewings. First of, the entire plot was built around Ray still owning his ranch which had LONG been gone.

I hate discounting continuity. Both TV movies did that and the TNT revival did as well.

If they had have done a continuation after Return to Southfork, I think they might have been stuck sticking to the continuity of the TV movies.
 

Michelle Stevens

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I wrote briefly a prequel to my Dallas Reborn fanfic, taking place 1991 to J.R. Returns. In the first episode, Michelle sold the ranch back to Ray.
I hope for a good price and that she got a happily ever-after life in your fanfic.

The continuity errors and lackluster writing were major factors in the decline of the Dallas franchise as a whole as I see it.
 

CeeCee72

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The turn this discussion has taken has reminded me of this long-forgotten thread where we mused over what's canon and what's sci-fi.
I wasn't around back then, but I want to believe everything up to and including the dream season was canon and everything else was sci-fi. Maybe Pam waking up from her dream was really her being kidnapped by Aliens and taken to another dimension with another timeline.
 

Rove

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I guess it's true, though, that you can't go home again.
Perhaps, but there is something comforting about the familiar. The number of eyeballs that tuned in for the premiere of TNT Dallas were there but quickly fell off the following week. In short viewers were keen to revisit the Ewing family but the concept of the continuation was what let it down.
  • Having Pamela Rebecca Barnes masquerading as Rebecca Sutter was an insult to old fans.
  • JR Ewing collecting dust in a nursing home.
  • Cliff Barnes seeking revenge on the Ewing family yet again without a solid back-story as to what tipped him over the edge.
  • The Ramos family. As though this family grew up with the Ewing's way back when.
I could go on but the failure of TNT Dallas tells me no commercial or streaming service will touch Dallas as a continuation...not even in expert hands. Times have changed.
 

Toni

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I wrote briefly a prequel to my Dallas Reborn fanfic, taking place 1991 to J.R. Returns. In the first episode, Michelle sold the ranch back to Ray.
In mine, Michelle was stolen the house and the fortune by Cliff, who had just bought Ewing Oil. Then he blackmailed a district attorney and her case was re-opened and went to jail for murdering Hillary Taylor. A few years later (actually, in episode 1 or 2 of "Ewing Empire"), she exchanged identities with a fellow prisoner and they faked Michelle´s death, who was buried officially. When the real Michelle got out of prison, she used the identity of her friend and started following James and all the people she considered guilty of what had happened to her... I had a lot of fun with that!
 

Bobby Southworth

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'll be honest.. The last season of Dallas, and the two reunion movies didn't really do much for me. I hated what they did to Dallas with season 14... The JR, Bobby, James, and to a lesser extent Cliff and Carter McKay show. No thanks. "JR Returns" was ok, but really..Ellie couldn't even mayke it to JR's memorial?? Comc on.

"War Of The Ewings" just sucked.. it just seemed like 90 minutes of nothing.

Yes, they were already messing things up with continuity in the two reunion movies.. doesn't J.R. reference Lucy being married to Mitch in one of the movies? I mean, I suppose we could assume they got back together...yet again, but I think it's more that whoever wrote it just wasn't thinking that hard.Then, yes, you have Ray and his old house again in "WOTE". It seems like there are more errors, but these are all that's coming to mind at the moment.

Now, Nu-Dallas..It was better written, more exciting than the last season of Dallas, and the two reunion movies, but what it did to the Cliff character for one. WTF? Carmen's daughter supposedly growing up with John Ross and Christopher. All Cidre had to do was make her Terressa's daughter. Problem solved, but I doubt she even knew about Terressa,`There were things to like about the new show, but Cidre seemed to have an agenda, and that agenda was not about Dallas, and it showed. Cliff has an adopted son that we just somehow never knew about?? Just so much craziness, that it's insulting to the viewers that knew these characters never would have acted like this,

Still, though, we got one last hoorah, I guess. Unfortunately, though, this last hoorah probably ruined it forever.
 
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