How would you define each era of DALLAS?

Awk now come on... Everyone knows it's really just The Pam Years and then The What Came After Years.

 

If your wife was constantly cheating on you, in your face, would you be enjoying life? I don’t know if there’s an alternative version of Dallas that you’ve come across, but JR was not this good guy you make him out to be.

 

for me, there were the Jock Years (which I'm most familiar with), the 4 or 5 seasons after where the show was still in its prime, then a few years of decline followed by the last couple of years where it was barely recognizable as the same show.

things evolved quickly in the Jock years, which were really 3 'sub-eras':

-miniseries/pilot (dark and foreboding and more raw than what came later... although much of that might have been the wintry weather and the far less cozy original Southfork)

-the first 70 or 80% of season 1/2 dvd, where there were mostly self-contained episodes of variable quality - some were good, some like the 'Lucy runs away' one were objectively pretty bad (though good fodder for the 'ABC of Dallas' thread!) I feel like they deliberately lightened the tone with the sunny new pool-centric Southfork... was it broadcast at an earlier time than the miniseries?

-the end of that season into the 'Who Shot JR' era, starting with Cliff and Sue Ellen's affair and Cliff's rise at the OLM. By the 2-part finale with Sue Ellen in the sanitarium I feel the show had found its footing.

 

No need to add my thoughts to this thread because Karin has summed it up beautifully

 

@Karin Schill you always write that I think too. On Dallas we have the same opinion on everything

 

1978-1985 The Golden Years
1985-1987 Still pretty good although has a few speed bumps in the road. lol
1987-1989 The Mediocre years-a few good stories but also too much camp
1989-1991 The awful years-most of the cast that made Dallas great are gone
The TNT Years-Not really Dallas-the less said the better

 

I'd say the pre-Donna years, the Donna years and the post-Donna years.

 

In my house we just called it DONNAS.

 

My home is not a house, as it were.

 

78-80: The early years
80-81: The post-'Who Shot JR?' year
81-86: The post-Jock years
86-89: The post-Pam's Dream years
89-91: The low-budget years
2012-2014: New DALLAS!

 

Thanks, that's the only way how i could describe the seasons.