I haven't seen this discussed before...but I caught a clip of Dallas earlier this week and from the looks of things, Lucy was having a fling...with RAY!?!?! I know this came before it was revealed that Ray was Jock's son, but did they ever deal with Lucy having had sex with her uncle?!?!

No, they never addressed it on the show. In fact, we have been talking about that for awhile here; and until I saw the discussion here on the boards, I didn't remember that they never talked about it. I watched the show when I was very young so I didn't remember many of the plots, storylines, etc. I always just assumed that it was dealt with, but unfortunately, they really dropped the ball with it.

I got really pissed off when J.R. accidentally pushed Pam off the loft in the stables. They always seem to gang up on Pam and Bobby.

Even though I knew she originated the role, it was still rather bizarre seeing Morgan Fairchild as Jenna. She and the character were just a lot different from how I remember her as being when Priscilla Beaulieu Presley played her.

I have a question--this episode, the question of Charlie's paternity came up and Jenna said Naldo Marchetta was her father. Later on, doesn't her paternity come into question again? If so, who turned out to be the definite father--Bobby or Naldo?

I thought that Naldo turned out to be her definite father. That's why he was able to take her away, but I could be wrong.



Me too! I want to see Another World and Dallas!



When did this happen? I thought Clayton was always with Miss Ellie and Dusty was with Sue Ellen?



Me too! Now that TNN is the "Spike" channel, they probably would never show it, but what about TV land showing it late at night or the Hallmark channel? I've noticed that during the day and the late evening, the only thing that seems to be on is old tv shows!



Being blonde and from Dallas, people always called me "Lucy" while the show was popular. It sucked!



You and me both!

Somehow, I think it would be easier in a Southfork-type house, where each bedroom has its own bathroom and you have hired help to handle all the cleaning, laundry etc.

However, I am surprised that the bedrooms aren't suites with a separate sitting room with TV, sofa/chairs, etc.

In the early episodes, don't JR and SueEllen live in some sort of in-law house off the patio?

It seems like that.

Speaking of which, I really liked Saturday night's rerun with Sue Ellen trying to buy a baby; it really opened up her character. The show's kind of in this weird in-between stage, it seems, where it's not quite a soap yet but not self-contained like the opening "miniseries" episodes either, but I like it.

Was I the only one who was rooting for Cliff? (even more than good guy Bobby who was annoying as heck) - the way KK played him as such an unattractive (physically) loser who basically doomed to be Digger to JR's Jock - made me think he was such an underdog. Even the love of his life (Ashton or Sue Ellen take your pick) were JR's leftovers. Everytime he succeeded JR just pulled the rug from under him and yet reading the UltimateDallas website's bio of Mr.Barnes I'm reminded that in the end Digger's son did best Jock's - He had control of Ewing Oil and JR had nothing and in the end sold out (to Bobby no less) just for a chance for happiness with Ashton and daughter - meanwhile JR was still up to his machinations. Quite a character arc for both when you think about it. Though the only good part of the "dream" season for me was that Cliff and Jamie got to be a happy couple and things actually were going right for them until Bobby got out of that shower.

It's Afton. Funny on RTS (Dallas fanfic) her enemies called character Ashton to piss her off.

In Mini-series was used another ranch.

Clayton fell in love with Sue Ellen early on, but she rejected him gracefully and he later fell in love with Miss Ellie and that, as we all know, worked out rather better for him. I didn't mind him falling in love with her, but it bothered me that she acted as if she'd never really loved Jock - that it had been Digger originally, and Clayton later, but that Jock was more 'the appropriate match' than someone she loved.

Oh, and count me in among the Cliff Barnes fans. I always wanted him to find happiness... one of the highlights of the last actual episode - where Joel Grey shows JR what life in Dallas would have been if he had never been born - was that Cliff was happily married with terrific kids, and Vice President of the United States - that is, until he's notified that the top guy is dead and JR watches as his 'loser' nemesis becomes President!

I never watched the show when it aired in prime time years ago, so I'm just discovering it now that we have Soapnet. Is your impression of Miss Ellie never having loved Jock based on something that happens in later seasons? Because since I've started watching it (right around the "who shot JR" episodes), throughout all the Jock-is-missing-but-he-can't-be-dead season, and now that she's with Clayton, Miss Ellie has made Jock out to be the true love of her life. Perhaps it was a marriage of convenience in the beginning, but she's been practically worshipful of Jock since his disappearance in South America.

This part puzzles me--exactly when does the Dream Season start? Which of the story lines and characters are part of the Dream Season only?

The current story line brings in so many new characters--Mandy and Jamie were introduced in back to back episodes. I suppose the show did need change. At least Peter (who could not act) left. Of all the improbable plots, that may have been the stupidest.

I know I saw that Miss Ellie and Clayton return to Southfork on one of the episodes this week. Is this when we get Donna Reed as Miss Ellie? I remember it happening when the show first ran, but can't, for the life of me, remember when. I'm assuming it's now, since I notice BBG is not in the credits of the current season. And how long did the Donna Reed period last? Was it just the remainder of the season? I don't think I ever got used to her being Ellie. I was probably all of 12 years old at the time, and it just didn't seem right to me.

As for the dream season, if I'm not mistaken, I believe it's the season after the one that just started. The only SL's I can remember being a part of the dream season are Pam discovering Mark is still alive and I believe Donna gets pregnant and they find the child might have Downs Syndrome.

Yep. This is the Donna Reed season, but she doesn't appear until a few episodes into the season. Barbara Bel Geddes returned to the role the following year, which was also the dream season.

I was about 10 when at the time, and I always loved to spend the night at my friend's house across the street because her parents let her watch Dallas, unlike my own. All I wanted to do was watch. Now, many years later, in my own home, I can do just that!

Correct on both counts. She and Raaaaaaaaaaaay wrestle over whether to abort, give up for adoption, or keep the child, and ultimately decide to keep. But then she miscarries when she gets knocked over by a bull. By then, they're so into the idea of raising a Down's child that they attempt to adopt an adolescent boy.

Other dream-season stories:

- All the Marinos Shipping/Ewing Oil intrigue with Barbara Carrera as Angelica Nero (she of the very cool gigantic lizard hatpin), which ties in somehow with Jack's striking resemblance to a dead shipping magnate, and an attempt to pass Jack off as that man at a masquerade ball. Larry Hagman particularly hated all of this, and it was controversial with the fans. I liked Carrera's villainness, though. She could be genuinely frightening without ever even raising her voice.

- Jenna's post-Bobby's-death mental breakdown, and her ultimate acceptance that Pam was the one he really loved. This climaxes in a good verbal showdown between Pam and Psycho Jenny at Southfork.

- All that South American emerald mine crap featuring the guy from V and Beastmaster. Pam gets kidnapped and is missing for an episode or two, presumably to cover Victoria's ill-advised cosmetic surgery. She comes back with a completely different nose.

- Sue Ellen hitting rock bottom, living on the streets, ultimately rehabbing, becoming a stronger person, having a brief fling with a "good" man (Mark's doctor friend in this case), and then falling in love again with JR. I know that it seems some variation of this story is in every other season, but it was really well-done in the dream season -- Sue Ellen's "homeless" scenes were harrowing -- and I was sorry to see it flushed. The version they do in the following season (because of course they have to start out with her as a drunk again) is abysmal. She basically just says, "I know that I have to stop drinking," and that's that.

- Pam assuming Bobby's position at Ewing Oil, and alternately battling and working in tandem with JR. (Some of this was also really good.)

- The beginning of the "new ranch hand who may or may not be a resurrected Jock Ewing" saga, which they simply begin all over again with the same actor under a different character name (in one season he's "Ben Stivers" and in the other he's "Wes Parmalee"). So, weirdly, Pam dreams about something that happens at Southfork later, but never says, "Gosh, that's so strange -- I dreamed about that guy!"

The dream season gets a lot of guff, and some of it is deserved, but I've never thought it was as bad as the last few seasons which are "canon." For me, anything from Fall 1987 on (all the nonsense with George Kennedy and his trashy kids, April and her sister, JR's 20-year-old son, Barbara Eden, Susan Lucci, Callie, etc.) is dispensable -- an embarrassingly irrelevant show hanging around long past its sell-by date.

Thank you! I totall forgot about Sue Ellen's story and how pissed off I was when her entire arc from the dream season was just trashed. That was such an awesome, strong version of her, and it was just gone.

And I now remember that, even as a youngster, I was annoyed as hell by the Donna Reed era. Who on earth advised her to play Miss Ellie as if she's always got some sinister plan running in the back of her head?? This? Is not Miss Ellie.



I loved Bobby and April. The rest of that stuff, though? Blech. I used to cringe everytime I saw George Kennedy show up in an ep.

Am I imagining things, or do Jenna and Ray end up together at some point during the show's run? I have to say, if you were going to go for one of Jock's boys--that was the way to go.

The cliffhanger end of Dream Season also has both Sue Ellen and Jamie blown up in separate explosions - before Pam wakes up. I guess that Jamie's return was the price we had to pay for retaining Sue Ellen.

Yeah, Jenna and Ray -- having gotten the short end with Bobby and Donna, respectively -- end up together in the first post-dream season.

I never liked the Donna Reed Miss Ellie either (did anyone?). Recasts who follow popular and/or great actors (Bel Geddes was both) are always in a tough spot, and I'm all for being bold and attempting to make a role your own instead of just aping what's been done, but she went too far too fast in trying to reshape Miss Ellie as her idea of a glamorous Texas matriarch. I always just thought she was doing Nancy Reagan with a twang (this was at the height of the Reagan era, and if I'm not mistaken, DR was a rock-ribbed Republican, so I'm sure that was a large part of her inspiration). It was also extremely bad strategy on her part to openly diss BBG's Ellie as a common-looking frump.

However, I did gain some sympathy for Reed when I watched one of those E! True Story-type things (can't remember if the subject was her life or the series), and heard about the miserable time she had on the set almost from the first day: cold shoulders and rudeness from some of the cast; feeling undermined and even sabotaged by crew, especially the lighting people. According to her husband, she was coming home in tears nearly every day, and considering that she was a Hollywood vet as well as, by most accounts, a tough lady, that makes me think it must have been a dismal working situation, and might have contributed to her extreme stiffness. I mean, it's not as though she herself was a villain in the picture, and had shoved BBG out of the show in some geriatric All About Eve situation -- BBG had to opt out, and the show had come to her. I believe she was also in the early stages of her illness at this time (it's ironic that she got the gig because of BBG's failing health, and yet she was dead within a couple of years and BBG is still around).

So, I'm kind of ambivalent -- I'm glad they got BBG back, but also glad Reed soaked the producers for millions.

I read that if the 1985-86 season had not been nullified as Pam's dream, and if the writers had decided to go with some other way of getting Bobby out of the ground that preserved the continuity, the plan was to have Sue Ellen survive the bomb Angelica had set off at Ewing Oil, but be blind (at least, for a while).

That was the first place DR went wrong. Miss Ellie was many things, but glamorous she was not. BBG's Miss Ellie was a warm woman, who was unaffected by the amount of money in her bank account. Miss Ellie, as played by BBG, always seemed like someone I could or would want to know. DR's Miss Ellie seemed way too harsh.

Even if the conditions on set were not great between DR and the rest of the company, it should not have bled over to her performance. ACT like everything off-stage is fine. That is the job of an actor.

I agree that Donna Reed was rather bizarre as Miss Ellie. Although I doubt she was channelling Nancy Reagan in her performance. Ms. Reed was a prominent anti-Vietnam war and anti-nuclear activist in Hollywood in the sixties and seventies.

Oops. If I did, indeed, mischaracterize the late DR's politics, I apologize. It's likely I just remembered her as being politically outspoken, got a "Nancy-ish" vibe from her icy, designer-gown-sporting Ellie, thought about the year [1984], and did a 2 + 2 = 5.

OK, so my soap worlds collided in last night's Dysfunctional episode. I was like, "Mary! What would Johnny and Maeve say?"

Although now I'm confused. If Ray supposedly just showed up at the ranch looking for work when he was 15 after drifting around for years, did Jock know he was his son then? How was this explained later?

It more than likely was never the original plan that Ray was Jock's son (let's hope not, considering the Ray/Lucy fling). So, to a certain extent, you have to create your own backstory there. I figure Ray turned up at Southfork because he may have heard his mother mention Jock at some point or another, and figured their being acquainted would help him get work there. The wya it plays out on the show from there is that Jock didn't know he was his son until Ray's "father" showed up in town. He went to Jock with this information, looking for money. Jock paid him off to leave town, and then he told Ray himself, giving him the option as to how well known he wanted this information to be.

I pictured her as Janeway. I can't picture anyone on Ryan's Hope without Maeve's sheep voice resonating through my eardrums. Ma-a-a-a-a-a-ry!

That ep always has me going ahh! mary, no! And then I ponder if Ray and Jack fought, who would win? And aren't there lots of parallels between Ray and Jack?

Hey, I liked DR's Miss Ellie. I like that she didn't try to BBG's Miss Ellie (whom I also always loved). She really tried to make the role uniquely her own. I also could see with her Miss Ellie how her sons turned out the way they did, in a different way than I could with BBG's Ellie.

It wasn’t the original plan but Larry Hagman came up with it early on, I think around the first full season. The reason they waited so long to do it was because of the Ray/Lucy fling. They wanted to give the audience plenty of time to forget about it.

When Steve Kanaly was thinking of leaving Dallas, Larry Hagman came up with the idea of making Ray Jock's son in order to keep him on the show.

I thought Bobby & Pam were the best, but Bobby & April were pretty good. I don't have SoapNet (stupid Comcast!) but I do remember the end of their storyline being that April was kidnapped in Europe. What was that about? Why was she kidnapped? Didn't she get killed? What happened after that? The only thing I remember after that was the horrible "Wonderful Life" reunion movie.

Am I correct in remembering that when April & Bobby were getting together, he saw someone who we were supposed to think was Pam? Was it Pam? If so, why did he end up with April and if not, who was she?

Does anyone know if the dvd releases are going to have the uncut episodes?



It wasn't Pam..it was a woman who looked amazingly like her. They did some kind of lame writing to gloss it over and make people remember what a great actress VP was, and then they dropped it. Bobby ended up with April largely because she was the only female character on the cast that was available at the time, and the writers toned her down from being JR's girlfriend to someone more Bobby's speed.

It doesn't really matter, though, because after about 88, the seasons were getting worse and worse.

does anyone else see the resemblance between a young larry hagman and joshua jackson (aka pacey) or is it just me?

The actress who played her was Margaret Michaels (only reason why I know that is that she was Santana #2 on Santa Barbara). Weird thing though? She appeared on the show in 1990, and Soap Opera Digest erroneously reported in the fall of 1988 that she had been cast as Pam herself. So it seems like they were bouncing around how to use her for a couple years.

ETA: Huh! According to her IMDB entry, she actually did appear as Pam for an episode in 1988 (under "Guest Appearances"). Does anyone know offhand what that was about?

We found out that Pam had plastic surgery and recovered from being burned. She told Bobby she was in love with her doctor and the he should move on with her life. Then they showed a scene that led us to believe that she was dying and was sparing Bobby from having to watch her die.

Lhag and Charlene Tilton are supposed to do commentaries on the dvd, according to tvshowsondvd.com.

I've enjoyed Donna Reed's portrayal of Miss Ellie, too. Dallas with out Ellie, even for one season, wouldn't have been too believable, but most of all I have enjoyed seeing Donna Reed again. I notice when she says her lines that she used the actual cadence that Barbara Bel Geddes would have used--she was a very strong actress and I believe that she was trying to incorporate herself into a role that was firmly entrenched in the story.

The Jenna Wade trial and Pam looking for Mark have been interesting diversions. I do dread the dream season.....it's getting closer. Personally, I wouldn't have minded Pam leaving Dallas and Bobby marrying Jenna Wade.

The " dream season " starts next Friday on Soapnet, be afraid, be very afraid !

That's funny because that happened to VP in real life.

Isn't there a bigscreen Dallas in the works?

I just saw the episode that started the dream season, where Bobby was killed, for the first time in my life. Let the dream season begin! Although, I'll be very sad to not have Bobby to ogle for a whole season (I now understand why it must have sucked so bad).

Also, did anyone catch the minireunion on Soap Talk? Very cursory, but I love me some Patrick Duffy.

I absolutely didn't remember Bobby's death scene being so melodramatic. Good grief. And now, Pam has reason to cry and whine.

I kept saying to myself in last night's episode, which was the first episode of the new season, "it's the dream season. It's the dream season..."

If the seasons were 24 episodes or so, we have 5 weeks to go, right?

Not only was Bobby's death melodramatic, where were the doctors? Code blue!

I really do not like Jamie. She's rather plastic. I never thought I'd miss Lucy, either. Hurry Dream Season, be gone.

Greatest DALLAS line of all time today; we're into the dream season.

Pam looks deep into the eyes of the supposedly dead Mark Graison and says, "Tell me I'm not dreaming". A pure riot.

I'm enjoying the dream season, especially with every plot turn and character development -- I just think, "It's going to be erased and won''t ever have happened." It seems clear that Dirk Ramb0 aka Jack Ewing was brought in to be a substitute Bobby.

I hope Jamie disappears soon -- I think this is her last year, according to the Dallas web site. I mean, she married Cliff Barnes. Please.

Let`s see if you feel that way in a week or 2 as they get further into the shipping magnate arc.

I keep forgetting to come on and post this, but did my eyes deceive me or was the interior of the Ewing house completely made over in episode one of this season (when the family came back from the hospital after Bobby died)? Now if this had been intended as a dream season from the start, I'd find it pretty funny. But, it was not, so it came off as them leaving the house looking one way and coming back the same night to a remodel.

Also, I know this was back in the 80's and a majority of TV actors were probably showing up in various stages of drunk and/or high, but was anyone else distracted in yesterday's ep by exactly how out of it the actress who played Mandy seemed at the Oil Barons' Ball? I was amazed she was able to get her lines out.

It makes me laugh, knowing this is ends up being the dream season, seeing how quickly Pam's subconscious has Jenna getting past Bobby's death and moving on to Jack.

Heh. I haven't seen any of this stuff since it originally aired (I don't get the cable channel in question), but if you think Pam's subconscious has Jenna getting over Bobby quickly, stay tuned. The "shell-shocked-or-shrieking basket case" period just has a curiously delayed onset. (In light of Dack Rambo's allegations about his treatment on the show, I wonder if the breakdown was a second-choice storyline for Jenna after TPTB [or Presley?] nixed the Jenna/Jack hookup.)

[Edited, just because of general dissatisfaction]

For whatever reasons, I don't remember this season either--dream or not. The story line about Donna and Ray's baby is touching yet nothing I remember. Guess the producers were struggling mightily to put new characters and plots together at every corner of the SF ranch.

KerleyQ, the only major makeover of the set that I've recognized is the one from season before last, while real Ellie and Clayton were "vacationing" and a fire almost destroyed Southfork. The brothers worked hard to restore and redecorate it completely so that real Ellie wouldn't see it as it was.

Maybe I'm just losing it. For some reason, some parts of the set seem so different to me in this season than they were just prior to it--particularly the staircase and the living room. But maybe I'm just remembering the pre-fire appearance as being more recent or something.

Or maybe the interior design is dream season decorating?

The one thing I do like so much about the dream season is the new Sue Ellen--such a positive change in her character, post rehab. Linda Gray, now and then, is one of my favorites--a true steel magnolia.

Ooh, Marc Singer is officially on the show. Love him from his "V" days. I have this memory of him and Pam in the jungle, from my childhood days and I always thought I imagined that. Now, I think its really going to happen. Yay!