Tied Up in Knots (Landing): The Dissemination of Dual Meanings on Television

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The role of Miss Ellie was then recast with Donna Reed for season 8 , with Reed signing a 3-year contract. Reed died unexpectedly of pancreatic cancer a few months later, in January Following her exit from Dallas in , Bel Geddes retired from acting. When the 14th and final season of the series commenced, ten actors received regular cast status. Although half of them would leave the show prior to the series finale , all of them remained billed in the series' opening sequence throughout the year.

Clayton Farlow made four appearances, clearing up business that included deeding Southfork to Bobby; April Stevens Ewing died early on in the season while kidnapped on her honeymoon by the psychotic Hilary Taylor guest star Susan Lucci ; Cally Harper Ewing left Dallas midway through the season to build a new life away from the Ewings, with a new boyfriend, and her and J.

As the series concluded, Carter McKay stayed put at WestStar, as powerful as ever; Michelle Stevens was left heartbroken and humiliated, all alone in the ranch she had bought from McKay hoping to live there with James; Cliff Barnes was once and for all the sole owner of Ewing Oil; and Bobby Ewing , now owner of Southfork, was finally able to find closure after April's death. Ewing , however, having lost both Ewing Oil and Southfork, as well as being abandoned by his sons, was at the end of his rope; the series ended with the unanswered question whether or not he had killed himself.

Series creator David Jacobs wrote the first and the final episode of the original five-part miniseries season 1 , with the other three episodes being written by Arthur Bernard Lewis , Camille Marchetta and Virginia Aldrige. While Aldrige didn't return to the series again and Marchetta left during season 4 , Lewis grew to be one of Dallas's most influential writers.

Leonard Katzman had been a part of season 1 as producer, and during season 2 his influence increased, as he began writing and directing episodes. Series creator David Jacobs left his day-to-day duties as executive story consultant at the end of season 2, in order to focus on the production of spin-off Knots Landing.

During the first 8 seasons of the show, Dallas ' s production team remained basically intact the main exception being Rich's leaving after season 3. And, although 25 writers contributed with scripts, the trio of Katzman, Lewis and David Paulsen wrote nearly two-thirds of the episodes during these first eight seasons. Paulsen had joined the show during the season 4 and was promoted to story editor for season 6.

Notably, the three of them wrote every episode but two during seasons 7 and 8. Creative conflicts between executive producer Philip Capice and producer Leonard Katzman led to Katzman leaving the show at the end of season 8. Feigenbaum, and story editors Hollace White and Stephanie Garman. However, increased production costs [18] and the claim of decreased ratings though the veracity of this has been disputed [7] caused production company Lorimar to persuade both Patrick Duffy and Leonard Katzman to return.

As season 9 came to a close, Katzman was on board to return as showrunner for the following season and the season finale saw Patrick Duffy inexplicably resurface on screen. As of the season 10 premiere, there was another major overhaul of the crew, with Leonard Katzman not only returning to the production side of the show but also getting promoted to executive producer, reportedly under the condition that he would get "total authority" of the show, [18] while Philip Capice and most of the season 9 staff left the production.

Alongside Katzman, David Paulsen was brought back as the show's new producer, while the position as supervising producer was offered to newcomer Calvin Clements Jr. A new writing staff was hired to work alongside the producers, including Katzman's son Mitchell Wayne Katzman as story editor and Leah Markus as story consultant.

Markus left after two years, while the others remained until the show's end. Scriptwise, Patrick Duffy 's return was explained by having the entire season 9 being a dream of Victoria Principal 's character Pam , effectively sweeping away the events occurring during the period in which Katzman's involvement with the show had been minimized. Even the cast were affected by the production and political struggles.

While Larry Hagman J. While she returned to write another episode for season 10, she left the show, both as a writer and as a cast member, at the end of the season. During the final four years of the show, Leonard Katzman remained showrunner, with series star Larry Hagman joining him as executive producer beginning with season 12 and Ken Horton as co-executive producer as of season Supervising producer Calvin Clements Jr.


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Lewis was thus reuniting with Leonard Katzman and David Paulsen. Paulsen did however leave Dallas at the end of the 11th season, and was replaced as the show's producer first by Howard Lakin for season 12, and then by longtime associate producer Cliff Fenneman for the final two years.

Lakin spent seasons 13 and 14 as supervising producer. Mitchell Wayne Katzman was promoted to co-producer as of season 12, while Frank Katzman the other son of Leonard Katzman and John Rettino Leonard Katzman's son-in-law , served as associate producers during seasons 13 and The final major addition to the staff was Lisa Seidman , who joined the show as executive story consultant for the final two seasons.

For season 13 , rising production costs led to all filming being relocated to California. Typically the cast and crew would spend six to eight weeks filming on-location sequences in the Dallas area during the summer prior to the season, then film the remainder of the season in the Los Angeles area; less than half of the episodes in a given season had on-location sequences filmed in Dallas.

MGM built a full-size replica of the Southfork Ranch backyard and pool on one of its soundstages, allowing for filming of "location" shots during the latter part of the season. Leonard Katzman is the most prominent director on the show, having directed episodes of every season except seasons 1 , 9 and Next to Katzman, Michael Preece , is responsible for having directed the most Dallas episodes, having joined the show during season 4 and remaining until the end.

Of the two directors attached to the original miniseries, Robert Day did not return for subsequent seasons, while Irving J.

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Moore remained on the show until season 5 , and then returned for the final three. Five of the series' stars also directed episodes: Dallas originally aired on Saturday nights when it debuted as a regular series. Within a month, the show was moved to Sunday nights, where it would stay until halfway through the season, when it took a Friday-night slot. Dallas remained on Fridays until the show ended in , alternating between 9 p. Although the soap's audience had consistently declined since the "Who Done It" episode of , the series finale of Dallas , " Conundrum ", garnered 33 million viewers and a 22 household rating from pm on May 3, , becoming the country's 14th most watched television series finale.

Its competition, Manhunter on NBC , only drew a 9.

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Only the first episodes seasons 1 through 9 were part of the syndication package. However, Dallas did not achieve the same type of rating success in local markets as it did during its CBS primetime run. During the s, the show aired briefly on TNT from September to August , again the first nine seasons only , followed by a run on TNN beginning in the fall of the first network to air all episodes of the original series, but the episodes were heavily edited for time , and from to the entire run aired on SoapNet.

On January 1, , CMT aired the show for one day, and prior to the premiere of the sequel, select episodes were shown on CMT and its website. Dallas is notable for its cliffhangers. Throughout the series' run, nearly every season ended with some sort of cliffhanging ending designed to drive ratings up for the season premiere later in the year.

Although this really was not a cliffhanger, the end of the fifth episode of the original Dallas miniseries saw J. However, she does not want to be bothered, and, in trying to escape J. Pam, who is pregnant, miscarries her unborn child. Later, Sue Ellen questions J. Sue Ellen's drinking problem has landed her in a sanitarium, where she is pregnant with a child she believes is Cliff Barnes'. She escapes from the sanitarium, gets drunk, and then gets into a severe car accident, putting her life and the baby's life in danger.

The doctors deliver the baby, named John Ross Ewing III , but he is very small on delivery and is not out of the woods yet; nor is Sue Ellen, who, as the episode ends, is clinging to life. A very distraught J. After all this, somebody waits outside J. The cliffhanger to this episode leads to the now infamous " Who shot J.

While heading to a late-night business meeting with Bobby, Cliff finds a woman's body floating in the Southfork pool. He jumps into the pool to see who it is, and when he looks back up, J. Earlier in the season, Cliff had J. In order to stockpile the Farlows' crude oil, J. With Cliff seemingly putting one over on J. By the season's end, J. Cliff attempts suicide with an overdose of pills, and a guilt-ridden Sue Ellen rushes to his bedside as Cliff lies in a coma.

Cliff's life hangs in the balance as the season ends. Earlier in the season, Sue Ellen gets drunk after having seen J. She gets into a car and Ray Krebbs' cousin Mickey Trotter tries to stop her and they are involved in an accident, in a car belonging to J. Sue Ellen emerges with nothing worse than bruises, but Mickey is paralyzed from the neck down and in a coma. In the final episode of the season, Ray finds out that the driver of the other car was Walt Driscoll, J. He also learns that Driscoll deliberately caused the accident, thinking that J. An angered Ray comes to Southfork late at night demanding answers from J.

As the two brawl, the candles ignite a fire and the smoke starts to creep into both John Ross and Sue Ellen's bedrooms as they sleep. Sue Ellen had been given a sedative by the doctor earlier in the day so she doesn't wake up. Ray recovers and runs after J. Reminiscent of the season three cliffhanger, a mysterious figure enters the Ewing Oil building late one night. As the victim falls out of the chair and to the ground, we see it is Bobby Ewing that has been shot. Bobby, who has been divorced from Pam for over a year and is now engaged to Jenna Wade, decides that he wants to remarry his ex-wife instead, and Pam agrees.

The next morning, as Bobby is leaving Pam's house, someone drives a car at high speed toward Pam. Bobby shoves her out of the way just before she is hit but cannot get out of the way of the car in time to save himself. We see that it is Katherine who was driving the car, and that she was also killed when her car crashed after running over Bobby.

Bobby is rushed to the hospital, where he later dies. Evil businesswoman Angelica Nero intends to kill J. Unfortunately, Angelica has already had a bomb attached to Jack's car, which explodes with Jamie inside. After hearing this on the phone, J. As he leaves the office, Sue Ellen arrives in the other elevator looking for him.

As soon as she enters J. The scene then shifts to Pam in bed, the day after her marriage to Mark Graison. Pam wakes up to hear the shower running. Assuming it's Mark, she opens the shower door, only to find Bobby Ewing, alive and well. Pam, on her way home to Bobby from the doctor's office after finding out she can finally conceive a baby, crashes into a fuel tanker, which then explodes.

As the fight turns very ugly and ends up with both of them on the balcony, Pearce falls over the balcony and to his death. Shocked by what she has just seen, Sue Ellen then picks up a gun from the floor and shoots J. She then picks up the phone and tells the police she would like to report a double murder. Sue Ellen prepares to leave Dallas for good, but before she does she has one last surprise for her ex-husband J. Sue Ellen has made a biographical motion picture about her marriage to him with actors portraying them and the other Ewings and previews the film to J.

Sue Ellen tells J. She then leaves Dallas, triumphant at last. After deliberately committing himself into a sanitarium in order to persuade a patient Clayton's sister, Jessica to sign over her voting majority in WestStar Oil, J. Once he does, James tears up J. After finally losing Ewing Oil to Cliff Barnes, control of Southfork to Bobby, and being abandoned by his wife and children, a drunk and despondent J. A gunshot is later fired in J. Prior to Dallas' premiere, series creator David Jacobs originated the idea for a drama series about four married couples in different stages of marriage, inspired by Ingmar Bergman 's Scenes from a Marriage.

Knots Landing followed the lives of Lucy's parents, Gary Ted Shackelford and Valene Joan Van Ark , as they move to California to start a new life following the start of their second marriage in During the early seasons of Knots Landing , several Dallas actors Larry Hagman , Patrick Duffy , Charlene Tilton , and Mary Crosby made guest appearance in the new series, portraying their Dallas characters, and Shackelford and Van Ark continued to make occasional appearances in Dallas.

In addition to this, some storylines crossed over, such as the reading of Jock Ewing's will, with events having an impact on characters in both shows. The ongoing bond between the two series was eventually cut in , as the 10th-season premiere of Dallas declared Bobby's death the previous year had been a dream. Bobby's death had had some influence on the Knots Landing storylines as well, with Gary grieving for his dead brother while Gary's wife Abby, who had lost her brother Sid a few years earlier, consoled him.

Val also named her and Gary's son "Bobby" in memory of his late uncle. Unlike the Dallas producers, the Knots Landing producers were not prepared to reset their series, resulting in the Knots Landing producers cutting their show's ties with Dallas. As a result, there were no further crossover episodes or storylines.

Bobby's return was simply never addressed on Knots Landing , nor was he mentioned again. However, Shackelford and Van Ark did reprise their roles for the Dallas series finale " Conundrum " in , which showed what would have happened to their characters if J. Between Seasons 1 and 4 of Knots Landing , there were nine episodes where Dallas characters appeared, played by their respective actors.

In addition to the above, the characters of Gary Ewing and Valene Ewing appeared in the following episodes of Dallas , as listed below. A prequel story, Dallas: Detailing the origins of the Barnes-Ewing feud and the creation of Ewing Oil, and covering a timespan from to , the movie was written by series creator David Jacobs. There were also two made-for-TV reunion movies that aired on CBS several years after the series ended: Returns , which resolved the series finale cliffhanger; and the 20th anniversary movie Dallas: War of the Ewings Petrie , the two telefilms also introduced new characters — most notably up-and-coming lawyer Anita Smithfield, played by Tracy Scoggins.

The Return to Southfork , in which the stars reminisced about their work on the series by coincidence, actor Howard Keel , who played Clayton Farlow , had died earlier that same day. On November 8, , Dallas: The front and back lawn of the fictional Ewing family home played host to a massive barbecue filled with people from the Dallas area, across the U.

During the festivities, Kercheval said he was shocked to see the continued support for the show 17 years after it last aired: It was a time when there weren't a hundred million channels and the Internet and all of the other things that came to existence. It was sponsored by the nationally distributed J. The celebrations included Southfork tours, a meet-and-greet with the cast, an array of Dallas memorabilia at the "Dallas Legends" exhibit and closing out with a party at the historic Longhorn Ballroom. In , cable network TNT announced they had ordered a pilot for the continuation of the Dallas series.

After viewing the completed pilot episode, TNT proceeded to order a full season of 10 episodes. The new series, which premiered on June 13, , focused primarily on John Ross and Christopher Ewing, the now-grown sons of J. Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray returned in full-time capacity, reprising their original roles.

The new series is a continuation of the old series, with the story continuing after a year break. It does not take the events of the s TV movies Dallas: War of the Ewings as canon. Instead we find the characters 20 years after the events of the Season 14 cliffhanger. She responded, "I tried to be really, really respectful of the original Dallas because it was really clear to me that the people who love Dallas are [like] Trekkies , really committed to that show and I really did not understand that before, so I never wanted to violate anything that had happened in the past.

Due to a well-financed radio service and film industry already in existence Egypt, unlike other Arab countries, was able to start television production without importing engineering staff from abroad.

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Even with this beginning, however, the development of television has been complicated by many other social and cultural factors. In the late s, following the revolution, Egyptian President Gamel Abdul Nasser realized television's potential for helping to build Egypt into a new nation. Though the decision to start television service had been made earlier, the joint British-French-Israeli Suez invasion delayed work until late Egypt then signed a contract with Radio Corporation of America RCA to provide the country with a television network and the capacity to manufacture sets.

After the RCA contract was signed, Egypt began construction of a radio and television center, completed in , and the first television pictures appeared on 21 July , using the line European standard. From the start, Egypt did everything on a grand scale. Thus, while most nations began their systems modestly with one channel, Egypt began with three.

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The entire system was initially totally subsidized by the government, receiving a direct grant every year. At the present time, a surcharge, which goes to the broadcasting authority, is added to all electricity bills and provides additional funding for the system. Egyptian television began its a multi-channel operation under the control of the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance, an organization that figured prominently in the Nasser regime from the start. This ministry also used radio and television broadcasting for propaganda to support the ruling regime.

Television's role in the culture was heightened following the June war with Israel which resulted in an Egyptian defeat that was militarily, economically and psychologically devastating.

Immediately after the war, there was a decrease in the amount of foreign programming shown. The third channel, over which much programming had been telecast, was eliminated, and the British and American programs that constituted the bulk of imported programs were deemed unacceptable due to the break in diplomatic relations with those countries. Almost all forms of programming on television placed less emphasis on Egypt's military capability, tending instead, toward the nationalistic, the educational and the religious. Moving closer to the country's new military supplier, the former Soviet Union, television began showing films about Soviet and East European life.

These programs were either provided free of charge or were inexpensive to purchase or lease. The general technical quality of Egyptian television declined between and when there was less money for new equipment. Generally, however, the change in government after Nasser's death and Sadat's ascendancy to the presidency in did not appear to have much effect on television programming or the structure of the federation.

On 13 August , radio, television and broadcast engineering were established as separate departments under the Ministry of Information. Following the October war, the Egyptian media took a very different approach the national situation. Television programming, which took longer to produce and air than radio information, was somewhat more upbeat. As good news came in, it reflected confidence in an Egyptian recovery. Agreements regarding military disengagements received a high priority for broadcast on the air.

More than any other Egyptian mass medium, television was set to reflect the changing international political orientation of the country. Sadat's government gradually changed Egypt during the s from a socialist orientation to one that was more hospitable to free enterprise and decidedly pro-West and after , the door was formally opened to the West.

Consequently, the number of Western programs on Egyptian television schedules increased. The television organization decided during this time to continue the development of color. Though some believed color television was a luxury that Egypt could not afford, the favorable attitude among broadcasting officials prevailed. After the war, the decision was made to convert both production and transmission facilities to color, an action which improved the technical quality of Egyptian television by discarding the monochrome equipment that had been installed by RCA long before Older switchers and cameras, which were becoming difficult to repair or to purchase, were replaced.

The new equipment was necessary for the production of programs to be sold to other countries that were also converting to color and after television revenues derived from advertising and from program sales to other Arab countries increased significantly. Because of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, many Arab countries joined the call by the more militant countries to isolate Egypt, remove it from the Arab League and boycott its exports.

Many countries broke diplomatic relations with Egypt or reduced the size of diplomatic missions in Cairo. Countries that supported the boycott no longer purchased Egyptian television programs, stating that they did not need to buy directly from Egypt because so much quality material was available from Egyptian artists living outside the country. One response held that "The boycott organizers are interested in drawing the distinction between the Egyptian people and the Egyptian government. However, Egyptian television program sales to the Arab World did not decrease as a result; they actually have increased.

During this period the Egyptian government was very seriously considering plans for a new satellite system.


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Technical staff personnel had already been sent to be trained in the United States. This undertaking, the Space Center Project, was mainly designed for the distribution of television signals that would link the country through ground stations which would receive and rebroadcast programming to the villages. The proposal became active when the Egyptian President signed a document for the beginning of Nile Satellite in , a satellite that not only covers the Egyptian state but also services the Arab World. In addition to the two centralized television networks, a new strategy to decentralize the television broadcasting system was introduced in The policy was implemented by starting a third television channel which covers only the capital city.

This was followed in by Channel 4 which covers the Suez Zone. Yet another channel was added in to cover Alexandria, and in Channel 6 was created to cover the Middle Delta. Most recently, in late , Channel 7 was introduced in Southern Egypt. Egypt was also the first to start a foreign national network, Nile TV, to serve expatriates in Egypt as well as to promote tourism in English and French languages. In part as a result of these available channels, a television set has become a priority for any young couple getting married.

Most prefer buying a television set to purchasing other important things for the house.

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Even a color set is considered a normal part of the household in middle-class families and the number of such sets has increased greatly since This has led most Egyptians to buy their sets from abroad. Most Egyptian people working outside the country, especially in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, return to Egypt with television sets because of the low prices found in the Gulf countries. Many purchasers within the lower-income class may also acquire second-hand sets from individuals or dealers who sometimes help finance such transactions.

Egyptian shops do carry a variety of television receivers. These include foreign brands as well as sets assembled in Egypt, but the imported sets have a reputation of being more reliable. The government is attempting to reduce prices of locally made sets and in the number of television sets was estimated at 6,, From the beginning, Egyptian television has had a strong tie with Arab culture.