Fake Pams and season 12...

I suppose it's odd what I will accept from "Dallas" and what I wont... As much as I despised the "Dream" explanation of 1986, strangely enough, I DIDN'T really mind the Jean O'Brien-fake Pam plotline from season 12 (or season 13, depending on how you count 'em) although I think they certainly could have built that story a little more mysteriously than they did... Had they done so, and had they handled the Lady Jessica murder-spree in a more menacing and macabre fashion (which they most certainly didn't) then the 1989-90 season could have been on of "Dallas'" most ominous, one of its darkest.

Of course, this didn't seem to be the manner with which they were handling ANYthing on "Dallas" by this stage in the game.

But one more point: should the woman whom Cliff met in Houston in 1988, one year after Pam's crash-- the woamn who claimed to be Pam who had married her doctor.... should she have really been Pam? Or should she have really been Jean O'Brien, planting her first seeds of deception ? (Especially since they were both played by Margaret Michaels).

Opinions?

Oh, and another thing... when Pam crashed into that tractor trailer and Victoria Principal exited the show, it probably should've been an oil tanker and, eventually, we would learn it was carrying on illegal business on behalf of J.R. in order to allow Pam's exodus some Ewing-style irony, AND give Bobby something to forever blame J.R. for once this is revealed to him (after a long period of J.R. scrambling panic-stricken to cover it up, lest his brother find out). Now THAT just sounds like "Dallas".

I like the oil tanker idea. Oh, the irony...

[Sarah]

Me too! That would've been really something. http://images.bravenet.com/brpics/smilie/user.gif

JR: "Sue Ellen, whatever problems we've had in our lives, I just want you to know that I have loved you"

Sue Ellen "I know that, and I have loved you"

JR: "More than I deserved"

[R.B]

Maybe an oil tanker loaded with contraband oil from some banished middle east country.....*L*. Or better yet some waste oil laced with pcb's.

R.B.

<color=866>Sometimes all a cowboy has are his beans and his boots.

[Seaviewer]

I would've preferred that Margaret Michaels had returned as the real Pam. That whole "saying goodbye to the lookalike who didn't even look that much like her" storyline was ridiculous. She looked enough like her allowing for the surgery but I don't believe Bobby would have recognised her from across the room. Cliff even had to confirm for him that that was what she had looked like when he saw her.

"The doctor asked me if I wanted to know the baby's sex now or be surprised so I said, 'Surprise me now.'"

[James from London]

I like your idea, Marky, of the Jeanne O'Brien story given a more sinister edge. As it was, I never really bought it. It felt like an obstacle artificially contrivedÂ*in anÂ*attempt to generate some dramatic heat between Bobby and April -Â*a completely uininteresting couple.Â*Â*

I also agree that Pam's exit, and those of Ray, Jenna, Miss Ellie, Lucy and Sue Ellen, wereÂ*crying out for "some Ewing-style irony". JR should have had a hand in all of their departures, and driven at least some of them out of Dallas the way he had Gary and Val all those years before.

Donna's was the only exit I really liked. It was understated, believable, poignant and dramatically pleasing. In her last scene, it is she who holds the fates of the Ewing brothers in her hands as she decides whether or not to ask Andrew Dowling to intercede on their behalf, or let them all hang forÂ*JR's crimes.Â*

This is my idea forÂ*how Pamela could have been written out:Â*

Imagine what might have been had the programme makers not been so anxious to wrap up the story of Christopher's parentage at the end of the season 4. What if JR really had been Christopher's father and he and Bobby agreed to keep it secret? In order to keep JR from blackmailing him over Ewing Oil, perhaps Bobby would have uncovered (or manufactured!) evidence implicating JR in Kristin's (or Jeff Farraday's) death. Each holding a gun toÂ*the other's head, JR and Bobby (plus Sue Ellen) would have kept the secret of Christopher's paternity for years (imagine the tension!) - until the time that Pam and Bobby remarry. Furious to have her back on the ranch, JR claims Christopher as his own, and Pam - devastated by the loss of her son and unable forgive Bobby (or Sue Ellen) for lying to her all those years - loses her marbles again, and THAT'S the reason she leaves Dallas, never to return!!! (You gotta admit, it's better than what we ended up with!)

James

Not a bad idea about Christopher's parentage (although I hate the idea of J.R. winning even THAT).

The problem with the other womens' exits on "Dallas" is that boss Leonard Katzman hated strong women... So they all bowed out stupidly or unnecessarily (or without adequate explanation)... Actually, I kinda liked Sue Ellen's exit ...go figure....

But the fake-Pam thing.... I don't know that I'm prepared for her to have been the REAL Pam, but they sure did make Margaret Michaels SEEM like Pam...

I'm even for the woman that Cliff met in the fall '88 season opener ("Carousel"?) in Houston to have turned out to have been the same girl that Bobby went chasing after a year later...

REMEMBER folks, that the only reason Katzman couldn't get Principal for the final 1991 episode ("Cunundrum") was because he couldn't guarantee to her that it WOULD be the final episode (it was shot without their knowing for sure that the show had been cancelled).

What that means was that Victoria WAS willing to come back for the final show, if it were guaranteed it WOULD be the final installment...

Pam should have reappeared, diagnosed perhaps with HIV because of an on-the-spot transfusion she got after her collision, which is the real reason she kept away from Bobby & Christopher for so long... but now she's on medication (AZT?) and its working for her...

Not everybody would like this turn of events, but it would have made "Dallas" timely in its final chapter [remember the era], given Pam's reappearance some true cultural relevance, and explained her lengthy absenteeism...

Opinions...?

[gerardv]

Having just watched season five again, I'm not sure at all I want Pam to come back: talking about a woman wrecking her marriage and hurting her husband http://www.soapchat.net/infopop/emoticons/icon_mad.gif

markt,
thats the real reason y pam didnt come back. i wish april wasnt killed, i really liked her

I liked April too, but i HAVE to say that I never accepted Bobby and April as a couple.

i liked her relationship with cliff and jr also. I think they could of sent her on her way, in a different fashion though, so she could come back someday, without her there was no need for michelle.

[James from London]

I hated April once she became a "good girl" and was delighted when she was killed!

How I wish Sue Ellen and Miss Ellie should have been written out of Dallas

I always thought that Sue Ellen's send off could have been more dramatic. I agree, Marky, that her final speech to JR was fun, but the movie plot contained more holes than a well drilled oil field ;.

I would have liked Sue Ellen's departure to have in some way been a result of the Ewings closing rank against her after she shot JR at the end of Season 10. The way it was dealt with at bthe time, with just a mild telling off from Miss Ellie, was kinda lame. Regardless of whether Sue Ellen was morally right to pull the trigger, there should have been some lasting dramatic consequences to her actions. At the very least, she should have been banned from Southfork - Jock would have had her run out of town on a rail!

Once she had been estranged from the Ewings, JR could then have taken advantage of her brief association with Jeremy Wendell to make it appear as though she had been in cahoots with him during the range war on Southfork. As Season 11 draws to a close, Sue Ellen is facing a mighty long prison sentence and so, with Carter Mackay's help, she snatches John Ross and flees town by road. JR and his henchmen give chase, there is a collision - Sue Ellen and John Ross are apparently dead. However, it is revealed to the viewers that the accident was pre-planned to allow Sue Ellen to escape JR's clutches and be with her son. Only Mack knows the truth ...

Season 12 then kicks off with JR dealing with his grief by becoming more ruthless than ever before. He picks up where Jeremy Wendell left off by tricking his own mother into signing over the drilling rights to Section 40 of Southfork. This of course goes against Miss Ellie's daddy's dying wish, and she is effectively destroyed by her son's betrayal. As drilling begins on Southfork, Miss Ellie whispers to Clayton on her deathbed that JR was not Jock's son, but Digger's ... End of Season 12.

Clayton would keep the truth secret until halfway through the final season when Little Jimmy, James's son with Debra Lynn and JR's grandson, begins displaying symptoms of neurofibromatosis ...

James

Oh, very, VERY GOOD, James!! Excellent! If only you'd been there in "Dallas" final seasons instead of-- well, apparently nobody, going by the plots.

And I agree, there should have been more of a "family movement" toward Sue Ellen after the shooting, just because that's realistic. But by that late in the series, "lasting" consequences didn't really seem to exist with much of ANY plot on "Dallas". It was too much of a cartoon by that point.

On second thought, James... We could have John Ross start to show signs of the neurological disease, and if later, the audience -- or the show-- seemed to demand that J.R. wind up being Jock's son after all (Miss Ellie just hadn't been sure which dude did the deed! After all, the "prequel" movie did have Miss Ellie turn out to be pregnant when she got married, didn't it?), then the explanation could be provided that John Ross, all this time, HAD been Cliff Barnes' son after all! (Maybe Sue Ellen paid off somebody to skew the tests back in '79 so she could keep the Ewing money? Who knows? Or even Jock to save the family scandal?)

[James from London]

I still reckon having JR discover in the final episode that he's actually a Barnes would have been the ultimate irony and the most poetic justice of all ... I don't think there'd have been any need to worry about the demands of the audience at this point, Marky. Don't forget - nobody was actually watching anymore!

James

[gerardv]

My points of view:

- Bobby and April were a lovely couple, they had chemistry and sex appeal. I'm watching early season six now and I must say that Bobby and Pam really are screwing their relationship (and still no Jenna in sight)

- April was more interesting as a "baddy", Dallas was having too many saints of the female kind and "baddies" like Kristin, Katherine were sadly missed

- JR could have been the result of Miss Ellie's and Digger's short lived affair in the war when Jock was with Margareth

[lusciousl]

James: If JR had found he was a Barnes, Conundrum would have been real because he would have killed himself for real! http://www.soapchat.net/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[James from London]

Lusciousl: Well it certainly would have turned everything on its head, that's for sure!

As for Gerard's idea of Ellie becoming pregnant while Jock was in Europe during the war: I can't really imagine Miss Ellie being unfaithful to Jock during their marriage. (The original Lee Raintree novel has Ellie and Digger sleeping together shortly before she gets together with Jock to save the ranch, and in The Early Years she is already pregnant at the time of their marriage). Also, if she became preganant while Jock was away during the war, it would be fairly apparent that he wasn't the father. Plus, that would make JR and Ray more or less the same age, so the whole thing of JR being the oldest Ewing heir wouldn't've worked ...

James

[R.B]

J.R. a <font size=4>Barnes....!!!<font size=2>................James that would be ironic.

R.B. http://images.bravenet.com/brpics/smilie/cowboy.gif

<color=866>Sometimes all a cowboy has are his beans and his boots.