i really liked Steve Forrest on the show, just not as Jock. If they had made him an antagonist fkr rhe Ewings in another way that would have been wonderful.

 

And that's what happens when I write on auto pilot

 

But that would have made him just another adversary. The Wes Parmalee plotline, though inevitably controversial, was at its heart what DALLAS was all about.

We even have a thread about it, one started by pete lashmar:

http://soapchat.net/threads/wes-parmalee-story-with-hindsight.3172/

 

Indeed....oddly, as I type this I'm watching Ellie discovering the buckle, knife & letters - how bizarre is that!

I loathed the story on broadcast but on every re-watch it gets better and better - just a shame it ended so abruptly.

 

All he really learned was that there had been another man on the helicopter. In no way was it proven which was which.

 

All of what Bobby found out was hearsay. Nothing could be proved & even if there was another man on the helicopter what are the chances of this guy having Jock's belt buckle, his knife & those letters?

Wes took a lie detector test. Yes, I know they're not admissable in court but he passed it. He also submitted to a full medical scan & X-ray's showed he had the same bone breakages as Jock as well as others. What are the odds of two different men having the same bone breakages? All the medical facts pointed to him actually being Jock.

 

Forrest likely signed on to do 13 episodes for season 10, which is a pretty standard contract, and either him or the producers decided not to extend it. But as you say, they didn't end it because of the audience reaction; it's the same thing with Karen Cellini on Dynasty. Her episodes had also barely started airing as she was written out, but in her case they of course put all the blame on her. It might've been a decision by the producers or Forrest himself to leave at that point - him signing up to do the Gunsmoke movie possibly actually points to it being his decision and the sudden wrap of the storyline indicates this.

 

Because it may have been a false confession. The show tossed out a lot of red herring to allow viewers to choose whatever they wanted to believe. That's what made the Wes Parmalee plot almost Shakespearean. It wasn't a "stupid plot", it was almost brilliant if bizarre.

Or, it would seem, overrate it.

 

Some won't … appreciate it.

 

Watching it all over again in my re-watch and boy Jock must have rambled on and on and on - Wes has just told Sue Ellen about Cliff being the possible father of John Ross, Punk said only 2 people know what was said in the helicopter - him and Jock Ewing - but it's still the fact that he recognises people on sight. The execs may not have plotted for him to be Jock but sorry, all the evidence points to the fact he was - they overcooked the pudding on this one IMO and ran away very quickly.

But in the age of DVDs and repeats, Wes most definitely comes across as being the genuine Jock Ewing IMO.

 

The first DNA test in a criminal case was in 1986, so it was in its infancy at that point and still raised eyebrows. I don't think it's that odd that no one thought of it.

 

I’d pay good money to see footage of Jim Davis as a fever-stricken Jock rambling for hours upon hours, telling the Ewing backstory and random details from all the previous seasons!

 

Especially if because of the fever, he told the backstory including secrets that he normally wouldn't tell. Secrets that J.R. and Bobby wouldn't even know.

It would put a whole new perspective on a re-watching of the series.

 

Seems to concern you.

They may very well have used the same surgeon for Pam.

 

it definitely could add story intrigue, but I was just trying to picture Davis playing that sort of scene, which is way outside the zone of anything he’d done on Dallas. I think the potential for spectacular unintentional comedy would be high!

 

I don't really care what they intended. On screen it's ambiguous at best.

That's irrelevant to me. Call it poor casting if you want but the differences between the two actors have no bearing on the story.