Channel 4 and Entertainment Tonight

[Mr S]

Greetings!

I have noticed the board has become a bit dead these last few weeks...

Anyway, on a different note. I watched the Dallas theme night on Channel 4 (UK) a while back. I have to admit as a Dallas fan I found it very disappointing. It seemed that the film makers was struggling to find material - it just seemed so padded out. Even in some parts it was, dare I say, boring?

I was delighted to see some of the old faces though.

I downloaded Entertainment Tonight from the Dallas Online site. The program seems to be much more fresh, lively and had much more material. Even our Vicky was in it.

Any opinions?

PS I was watching the news the other night, and saw a feature on gun laws in the United States, and behold, who did I see talking to Mr President Bill Clinton? Susan Howard. I may be wrong, but seemed so hostile to the President. I guess she must play an active part in gun politics over there.

Sorry to ramble. Cheerio for now.

Regards, Oilman.

[Anti-Krebbs]

Being from the US, I did not get a chance to see the Dallas Night in the UK (but I would love to be able to, lol). I did, however, watch all but the first fifteen minutes of the ET Dallas Special, Secrets of Southfork.

I enjoyed all that I saw. Interesting moments and words from the cast, and it went by very fast.

Now, on to the good part of your post, lol...

Yes indeed Susan Howard plays an active part. She plays the part of a puppett with the hand of Charlton Heston up her ass (a la puppett). Those crazy NRA people are so worthless. If they had any sense, they would listen to reason, and this country would be a better place.

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"Steal me away..."

[Director]

It is disappointing you did not enjoy the U.K Dallas night. I had a significant involvement in the project down to choosing which episodes aired. In defence of Channel 4 this was not going to be your average Dallas documentary. Channel 4 is not mainstream and were required to take an intelligent angle on Dallas. They also were not just targeting Dallas fans but viewers who had never seen Dallas with a focus on how Dallas affected society.
But I agree the finished product was not splendid. Certain aspects were too long such as the people who changed their names to J.R, the Romanian aspect was interesting but again too long and how Dallas changed the city from being the assassination capital of the world in peoples minds to the television show was again interesting but too long.
Larry Hagman agreed to take part on the basis that this would be an intelligent look at the impact Dallas had on society, the same applied to Susan Howard.
Each interview was an hour or so in length and snipped down to a minimum. Lois Chiles was also interviewed but none of her footage was shown. I am lucky enough to be in possession of the rushes (unedited interviews) of each of the cast members. These are wonderful and a real insight into the show and the actors. Victoria was unable to participate due to filming commitments. The main problem was too much information packed into fifty minutes.

[Pamela Barnes]

Well the uk special was ok I guess but I wanted to hear more from the cast, they also took out Ewing84's interview which annoyed me. I would of thought with all that footage of the actors they would of used more, I cared less about the oddballs changeing their names, I cared even lesss about the porn Dallas movie made and I really didn`t expect to see breasts popping out on a Dallas documentary. April needs to put on some weight and Susan Howard could of spoken more about Dallas than her stupid gun lobbying. I wanted to know why she was sacked from Dallas not why she thinks guns should be allowed.
All the Dallas documentarys are the same, the same people saying the same old stuff thats why I was excited to hear from Susan but alas she didn`t say anything of interest.

[Jock]

I guess it's good I got bumped from my scheduled interview then. If E84's ended up on the cutting room floor, mine would have been too, lol :-). I would have primped up for nothing, haha. On another note, a Dallas porno, lol? Anyway, sounds like they should have made the doc longer to fit in more cast interviews and clipped some of the wackier stuff, but maybe they went for an arsty thing, a la David Lynch, baha :-).

As for Oilman's initial post about things being dead, add comments to the gun debate & things will heat up in a hurry as everyone piles on to argue, lol :-) (Remember those days, haha--only to be topped by Francis the talking mule, or jackass depending on which camp you were in) :-).

I would be up for a tape trade though to take a look at the UK special even though it sounds like it missed the mark a bit. I could offer some US Dallas specials or Bloopers. Have a great day all :-).

[This message has been edited by Jock (edited 05-23-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Jock (edited 05-23-2000).]

[Sarah]

I loved it. I was so proud that after 22 years, people are still talking about it. And of course I was thrilled to see my pal, Linda!!

If I could have changed anything, it would have been the fact that all the episodes were from so early on. I can understand the showing of A House Divided, but I think some of episodes from the mid eighties were worth showing too.

It also ticked me off a bit that they interviewed that man...not the one called JR with all the pictures on the wall, the other one....who only had a couple of American flags!!! Have you seen MY bedroom??????? I've said it before and I'll say it again....I'm emigrating....to London anyway so as to get a look in from some of these documentary makers!!!!

But I did enjoy it. Anyone in the UK who missed it.....I'd be happy to tape it for you!

Oh yeah, I agree Pamela, I thought Sheree J Wilson was far too thin!!!!

[This message has been edited by Sarah B (edited 05-29-2000).]

[Caroline]

I was interested to hear about the director's involvement with C4's Dallas night. Iwould really like to know especially what Patrick talked about in the parts of the interview which weren't shown. Thanks.

[Charro]

Mr. S, its a shame you didn't enjoy the Channel 4 special because it re-enforced a Dallas interest in at least one person and that was myself. I just wish Channel 4 would repeat "Doing Dallas". They show so many repeated things on E4 that there is bound to be space. I suppose its all to do with copyright. Anybody know who produced and owns the show?. If I had not see "Doing Dallas" I probably would not have got the idea in my head of recording TV shows. That seemed bizarre to me before hand but when I saw some guy on the show saying he had every episode I thought that this was a good idea. Now I record the entire series of all my favourite shows when they come on (it costs a fortune)