The shower scene was the problem, not the dream explanation

Kenny Coyote

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Interesting points, Grangehill.

When the audience wanted Bobby back, and Parick Duffy wanted to come back, the producers had very few choices:

1. Bring Patrick Duffy back as Bobby's long lost twin brother
2. Reveal that Bobby faked his own death
3. Just bring Bobby back and pretend that nothing ever happened.
4. Bring Bobby back and pretend that the entire prior season never happened.

And that brought us to the shower scene.

I think the biggest problem with the storyline is that the show had already started to go downhill. The shower scene was just such a big event that people could point to and say, "This is when I quit watching."

Those four choices aren't even feasible choices.
1. Bring back Patrick Duffy as Bobby's long lost twin brother - Why would we have only found out in the tenth season of Dallas that Bobby had a twin brother? Why would he have been "long lost"?I f any family could pay any amount required to find a long lost soon theirs, it was the Ewings.

2. Reveal that Bobby faked his own death - Not only wouldn't Bobby have been coherent enough after sustaining massive internal injuries to formulate and execute such a plan but it was completely out of character to put his wife, son parents and the rest of his family through that hell.

3. Just bring Bobby back and pretend that nothing ever happened - Once they can bring a dead character back - one of the most intregal characters to the show, and not have to give any explanation, not even the explanation of it being Pam's dream, they would have lost even more credibility than they did. It would be crazy to blame a second character coming back from the dead because of a dream, especially considering how poorly received the dream was received by the audience. So fans could be pretty sure nothing like that would happen again. But of they can bring dead characters back and not have to provide any explanation at all, then how could the audience take any future death seriously?

4. Bring Bobby back and pretend that the entire prior season never happened - That's basically what they did except they even would be taking away the one explanation to make it even slightly believable - Pam's dream. If Pam's dream wasn't good enough, why would less explanation or no explanation at all be better?
 

Lastkidpicked

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Very good points, Kenny Coyote. It seems like the writers painted themselves into a corner by killing off Bobby.
 

Grangehill1

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They painted themselves into a bigger corner with the shower scene. The shower scene was the problem. In the rush to get an extra cliffhanger out, logic was thrown out or the window. If they'd have waited and brought back Bobby at the beginning of season ten, they would have brought themselves more time to logically think about what to do and they 'may' have gone with the Bobby in a coma scenario which arguably makes more sense and would probably have been easier for the audience to swallow.
 

Grangehill1

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We've heard all the different scenarios before of what explanation could be given for Bobby being alive from the dream to the evil twin to Bobby in hiding etc. Sticking on that shower scene at the end of season 9 severely limited which way the story could have gone and that was the problem.

Also from what we've all heard the shower scene was shot in the up most secrecy with everybody involved thinking it was a soap commercial. So
Maybe 4, 5 people know what was going on? Maybe it needed a 6th person to point out the audience are never going to buy this. And that 6th could have said something in the break if they'd only waited to bring Bobby back at the beginning of season 10.
 

Rove

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they can bring dead characters back and not have to provide any explanation at all, then how could the audience take any future death seriously?
This explains why the writers messed up Pam's exist. Despite Victoria being adamant she was done with Dallas the writers kept the character alive, wrapped in bandages, in the faint hope Victoria would do a Patrick, realize her monumental error in calling it quits and beg the producers to return.
 

Rove

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Does anyone know at what point during the dream season that Patrick agreed to come back?
I'm hoping one of the smart posters on soapchat will have the answer for that. It would appear once the decision was made there was a mad scramble on how to do it, hence the shower scene and we'll figure out the rest later.

I personally would have went with the scenario this was part Bobby's dream with some of the elements during the 'Dream Season' remaining intact, for example Ray and Donna's strong story-arc. Depending on how many episodes had already gone to air I would have had some of the characters return to film additional scenes to be inserted into already finished episodes. Scenes that would question the viewer to think, "What the?" Perhaps a scene showing showing Miss Ellie leaning against a railing at Southfork. We then cut to Clayton stepping outside the house and spotting Miss Ellie in the distance. JR exists the door and walks up behind Clayton. "Good morning Clayton. Have you seen momma this morning?" Clayton gestures towards the distant Miss Ellie.

"I worry about her JR. She spends so much time at the hospital," says Clayton. JR replies, "We all do." JR walks towards his car and drives off leaving a concerned Clayton watching his wife in the distance.

Dropping a scene like this, in yet to be screened episodes would puzzle the viewer, something a little unexpected with no relevance to the story arc that was already occurring in the 'Dream Season'. I'd be very clever with words. In the above conversation between Clayton and JR I added "We all do" in JR's response to a concerned Clayton. What does this imply? Only when Bobby returns will the viewers realize the hints sprinkled throughout the back-half of the dream season. Little scenes that made no sense to the previous season but now tell a different story when reviewed.

"We all do" would imply JR is indicating the families concerns about Miss Ellie when in fact he is speaking of his frequent visits to Bobby lying comatose at the hospital.
 

pete lashmar

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I'm hoping one of the smart posters on soapchat will have the answer for that. It would appear once the decision was made there was a mad scramble on how to do it, hence the shower scene and we'll figure out the rest later.

I personally would have went with the scenario this was part Bobby's dream with some of the elements during the 'Dream Season' remaining intact, for example Ray and Donna's strong story-arc. Depending on how many episodes had already gone to air I would have had some of the characters return to film additional scenes to be inserted into already finished episodes. Scenes that would question the viewer to think, "What the?" Perhaps a scene showing showing Miss Ellie leaning against a railing at Southfork. We then cut to Clayton stepping outside the house and spotting Miss Ellie in the distance. JR exists the door and walks up behind Clayton. "Good morning Clayton. Have you seen momma this morning?" Clayton gestures towards the distant Miss Ellie.

"I worry about her JR. She spends so much time at the hospital," says Clayton. JR replies, "We all do." JR walks towards his car and drives off leaving a concerned Clayton watching his wife in the distance.

Dropping a scene like this, in yet to be screened episodes would puzzle the viewer, something a little unexpected with no relevance to the story arc that was already occurring in the 'Dream Season'. I'd be very clever with words. In the above conversation between Clayton and JR I added "We all do" in JR's response to a concerned Clayton. What does this imply? Only when Bobby returns will the viewers realize the hints sprinkled throughout the back-half of the dream season. Little scenes that made no sense to the previous season but now tell a different story when reviewed.

"We all do" would imply JR is indicating the families concerns about Miss Ellie when in fact he is speaking of his frequent visits to Bobby lying comatose at the hospital.

Yes, absolutely, it would all have made absolute sense - but why they went with Pam's dream over Bobby's is beyond me, surely given what happened to him someone MUST have considered he survived and was in a coma and therefore it was his dream...
 

Rove

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but why they went with Pam's dream over Bobby's is beyond me, surely given what happened to him someone MUST have considered he survived and was in a coma and therefore it was his dream...
It would appear logical to us now however to be fair to those involved the process of getting Patrick/Bobby back must have been their worst nightmare. How the hell do we do this without pi%#ing off the viewers? It would appear in their desperate attempts to create one of the most spectacular returns in television history the producers/writers decided to risk it all with the shower scene rather than slow walk us to Bobby's return.

If the writers had been given half the chance to develop a thought provoking, intelligent story, then I believe we would have sailed with them. Instead their vision was for us to accept the previous season did not exist - at all. For most viewers that was insulting...and the drift began.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about Dallas up until this point was its sometimes taboo subjects, for example; Ray and Donna discovering their unborn child will have Downs Syndrome. Their visit to a special needs school. Dallas wasn't always about JR's scheming ways and his winning smile.

Like others here I do not understand why they didn't make this Bobby's dream? Clever writers could have seen an opportunity to push an interesting and complex story by beginning to create a collision of parallel Dallas's. Inserting scenes that appeared disjointed during the back-half of the Dream Season would begin that road to Bobby's reveal.

Instead of the shower scene I would have went with something which I touched on in another thread. The screen is black, we begin to hear a soft but recognizable voice, it's Miss Ellie. Without the viewer still understanding what the hell is happening (since we're watching this from Bobby's perspective) the screen begins to reveal light, but we're seeing things through a sea of fog. Miss Ellie is quietly talking. We still cannot get a clear picture but understand she is reading from a novel. Then the reveal as the picture becomes clearer. It's not Donna Reed but Barbara Bel Geddes. Her reading glasses sitting comfortably towards the end of her nose as she continues to read. Suddenly a hand reaches out and touches Miss Ellie's arm. Without flinching she turns and looks directly down at the camera. "Bobby. You've come home."

Freeze frame.

BOOM! Two of our favourite actors/characters have returned in a double whammy spectacular cliffhanger.
 

Mustard

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And the dream goofed up a lot of things. Katherine was stalking Pam and Bobby, Dusty had met with Sue Ellen to tell her he left his wife, Ben Stivers looked like Wes. So many things that we had to pretend never happened when the dream was over.

I've just watched the Season 8 DVD finale again on my latest marathon, and Dusty meeting Sue Ellen in the restaurant came during the early part of the dream. The last scene before the dream starts during Swansong is Ray and Donna at night, with Ray trying to convince a pregnant Donna that their marriage is worth saving. The moment when it cuts to the next scene, the next morning outside Pam's house (about 51 minutes and 5 seconds into the episode), is when the dream begins. By memory, the last few times that Dusty was mentioned before the dream involved Sue Ellen asking Clayton at Southfork if she had seen Dusty the night before, and Clayton confirming to Sue Ellen that Dusty was in town because of the Rodeo in Fort Worth, so she wasn't hallucinating the night before. Dusty and Clayton are then talking at a bar, where Dusty says that his wife Linda has left him because he couldn't get over Sue Ellen. Clayton also asked Sue Ellen if it was wise for her to see Dusty, as it would complicate things.

So, Dusty not showing up in Season 10 DVD after the dream is over is easily explained. Either he didn't think it was a good idea, or Clayton told him so etc. and he didn't meet her at the restaurant. The post-dream bits not explained are where Katherine went, or whoever that mysterious figure was outside Pam's house; and Ray and Donna's home being different. Ben looking like Wes can be a premonition on Pam's part. I myself have dreamed something before on a random day, and something similar happens during that very day. Nobody really knows what dreams are fully, to this day.

Science fiction fans can see Season 9 DVD as an alternate Dallas universe, where Bobby died. This is the same universe as the Knots Landing that we watched on TV. Personally, I much prefer the way that events developed in Season 9 DVD than in Season 10 DVD.
 
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ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989

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I think the general consensus here is that it should have been Bobby's dream and not Pam's.

Which is only logical, the shower scene/Pam's dream was like it was written by one of the DYNASTY staff writers and not a DALLAS one, it was too inconsistent, at the end of swansong Jenna accepted that she and Bobby shouldn't marry yet in the season 10 premier (bear in only less than a day has passed between both interactions between Bobby and Jenna, despite an unusual amount of overnight hair growth Jenna had) Jenna is acting erratically and obsessed with marrying Bobby again, just like how she acted in the dream season!
It made zero sense.

I liked the poster who said that DALLAS and KNOTS were on two parallel universes, so in the Bobby dies universe, by 1993 Pam was still very much alive, JR owned all of Ewing Oil possibly still married to Sue Ellen, Miss Ellie and Clayton never left for Europe, Ray, Donna and Tony were a happy family and Jenna was probably involved with
Jack Ewing, its pretty mind bending!
 

TJames03

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They painted themselves into a bigger corner with the shower scene. The shower scene was the problem. In the rush to get an extra cliffhanger out, logic was thrown out or the window. If they'd have waited and brought back Bobby at the beginning of season ten, they would have brought themselves more time to logically think about what to do and they 'may' have gone with the Bobby in a coma scenario which arguably makes more sense and would probably have been easier for the audience to swallow.

It was political. Certain people wanted the events in the dream season never to have happened, period.
 

Snarky Oracle!

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It was political. Certain people wanted the events in the dream season never to have happened, period.
And that's it.

Katzman wasn't trying to make it work. He had no control over or any real involvement in DALLAS during the year Bobby and Patrick were gone, so when Katzman came back with Patrick, he just erased everything that had occurred on the show off of his watch with an "eff you" to the interim writers (and the fans) and just moved on.

Yes, all they had to do was take a single episode to provide a better explanation for Bobby's revival, or at least make the year-long dream scenario a result of Bobby's dream and not Pam's.

But Leonard Katzman wasn't really interested in any of that.
 

B.J. Ewing

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That would have made a lot more sense! I wonder why they didn't think of it.

Yes, well, everyone makes decisions in life, I guess. And not every decision has been a good one, has it? I know I regret some of the things I've done (or haven't done). Lots of ifs and what ifs, but what's done's done. :)
 

MenaceTheDennis

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It really showed, by wiping the season out in such a lazy way, Katzman had no respect for the fans. They thought they could just continue on with the end of the 84 through 85 season and no one would bat an eye and the show would regain its number 1 status. They soon found out when Dallas dropped out of the top 10 for the first time in many years this season you don’t screw with your fan base. I personally believe it would’ve been more dramatic and compelling to bring him back and not wipe out the dream season. Certainly no worse than the nonsense we got.
 

Mustard

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Which is only logical, the shower scene/Pam's dream was like it was written by one of the DYNASTY staff writers and not a DALLAS one, it was too inconsistent, at the end of swansong Jenna accepted that she and Bobby shouldn't marry yet in the season 10 premier (bear in only less than a day has passed between both interactions between Bobby and Jenna, despite an unusual amount of overnight hair growth Jenna had) Jenna is acting erratically and obsessed with marrying Bobby again, just like how she acted in the dream season!

It made zero sense.

For devil's advocate arguments sake. I'll argue the point.

In Swansong, Bobby said to Pam that Jenna called off their engagement after it had showed on Bobby's face that it was Pam that he really loved. In reality, it could just have been that Jenna could see that her relationship with Bobby was in a different place compared to the time before Naldo kidnapped Charlie just before Bobby and Jenna's wedding. If so, Bobby showing up the next day (after Pam's dream) to say that he was marrying Pam would have been a shock to Jenna.

Yeah, the Gary and Val we saw in TNT were not the same ones from '85-'93.

Correct. 1985-1986 on Knots Landing had Gary grieving for Bobby as Abby consoled him and then travelling to Dallas for Bobby's funeral, with Abby and Greg using Gary's absence to advance their plans at Empire Valley. Therefore, in the Knots Landing universe that we watched on screen, the events of Pam's dream (the 1985-86 Dallas season) really happened over in Dallas. The TNT Dallas versions of Gary and Val are from the universe where Bobby didn't die in 1985, so the events of 1985-1993 Knots Landing (Seasons 7-14 of Knots Landing, plus 1997 Back to the Cul-de-sac) would have been different to some extent in the universe where Bobby lived on compared to the Knots Landing we watched on screen which is the universe where Bobby died.

I wanted to stay in the universe where Bobby was dead, personally. I much preferred the way that events developed there compared to the universe where Bobby carried on living.

It was political. Certain people wanted the events in the dream season never to have happened, period.

I wish I knew the entire full story behind it. It obviously starts with the increasing conflicts between Capice and Katzman way before Bobby's on screen death. In the spring and summer of 1985, and for some time afterwards, Capice seemed to have won that particular battle, but it soon went the other way very fast with Capice out of Dallas entirely and Katzman as the big boss in the Executive Producer's chair. I know that Katzman's biggest supporters were Larry Hagman and Patrick Duffy, and Capice's biggest supporters were Susan Howard, Victoria Principal, Dack Rambo and Barbara Bel Geddes. Others seemed to be in the middle. It speaks volumes though that Rambo was politically dead as far as Dallas was concerned once Capice was gone and Duffy came back, with Rambo's promotion to main starring status painting a false picture of the real situation behind the scenes. Susan Howard disliked the new way that the storyline with Donna went after the dream, with Donna and Ray drifting apart and those very good previous season storylines with Donna and Ray annulled. Victoria Principal was obviously very unimpressed by the dumbing down of Pam. Rambo, Howard and Principal were soon gone altogether from Dallas, although Principal's departure was her own choice.

I've mentioned it before, but it's really makes me laugh that Katzman and Hagman used the excuse that J.R. was unacceptably weak and the women were too strong in raging against Capice in 1985-1986, and then Katzman and Hagman together from 1988-1991 as Executive Producers made J.R. far weaker than he had ever been.

And I wonder what Barbara Carrera's part in all this political conflict is, too? I noticed that she doesn't really like to comment on the behind the scenes stuff regarding her time on Dallas. I bet she ruffled some chauvinistic feathers on the Dallas set, and I would guess with Principal backing her up. I think this came across on screen when Angelica said to Pam (I might be paraphrasing slightly) "Such a pleasure doing business with a woman. Women always manage to dispense with subterfuge. Don't you agree?". Considering the ultra-machismo of the following season, this exchange between Angelica and Pam must have rattled certain people's cages on Dallas.
 
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Mustard

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And that's it.

Katzman wasn't trying to make it work. He had no control over or any real involvement in DALLAS during the year Bobby and Patrick were gone

Katzman wrote about 5 episodes or thereabouts that season, didn't he? But yes, far less influence than any other season of Dallas, as he wasn't Producer and didn't direct any episodes.

so when Katzman came back with Patrick, he just erased everything that had occurred on the show off of his watch with an "eff you" to the interim writers (and the fans) and just moved on.

It's interesting how many people were involved in Dallas for just that one season, and no other seasons:

Peter Dunne
James H. Brown
Joel J. Feigenbaum
Hollace White
Stephanie Garman
Linda Day

I'm sure there's others. But that season more than any other seemed to have more people involved in Dallas behind the camera who worked on Dallas for just that season only.
 

Snarky Oracle!

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Katzman wrote about 5 episodes or thereabouts that season, didn't he? But yes, far less influence than any other season of Dallas, as he wasn't Producer and didn't direct any episodes.
Yes, Katzman wrote some episodes, created the character of Angelica Nero (who was supposed to be gone after ~10 episodes), and was listed as "creative consultant" yet had no control of the show and its plots and he completely disavowed that season.

The team that came in to run the show that year came from KNOTS LANDING.
 

Mustard

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I said before that Peter Dunne only worked on the dream season in Dallas, but he did write a few episodes late in the previous season.
 
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