Dallas - The Complete Ninth Season (1978)

Episodes:1. The Family Ewing2. Rock Bottom3. Those Eyes4. Resurrection5. Saving Grace6. Mothers7. The Wind of Change8. Quandary9. Close Encounters10. Suffer the Little Children11. The Prize12. En Passant13. Goodbye Farewell and Amen14. Curiosity Killed the Cat15. The Missing Link16. Twenty-Four Hours17. The Deadly Game18. Blame it on Bogota19. Shadow Games20. Missing21. Dire Straits22. Overture23. Sitting Ducks24. Masquerade25. Just Desserts26. Nothing's Ever Perfect27. J.R. Rising28. Serendipity29. Thrice in a Lifetime30. Hello Goodbye Hello31. Blast From the PastFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 883929023783 Manufacturer No: 1000039444 Product Description

An Odd Season

I am a huge 'Dallas' fan and yet I find myself on the fence about this Ninth Season. When stacked up against the previous seasons released, the ninth is just strange, oddly paced and not as exciting and thrilling as the previous ones. Is it good? Yes, of course, but it's just an average good, not the 'great' stamp you could put on the other seasons.

What you'll like about The Ninth Season is how we finally get a break from all the 'fight for Ewing Oil' saga. There is a plot element of this season that I won't spoil that has someone new moving into Bobby's now vacant office, but I never really perceived this as a fight for control as in the previous seasons. With Bobby out of the picture, the show seemed to shift the focus from the Ewing men to the Ewing women. Did it work? I thought so. Linda Gray's performance early on in this season is just beyond words. We get to see Sue Ellen's descent into pure drunkdom and how she falls to pieces as a result. I liked that Miss Ellie (played again by Barbara Bel Geddes) steps in this season and instead of always being whisked away by Clayton to some exotic vacation as in the previous seasons, Miss Ellie stays put at Southfork and realizes that she needs to keep everyone in line. We see a very strong, determined, motherly but wise Miss Ellie pretty much set everyone straight. The other women of the show including Donna, Pam and Jenna all have rather big plot arcs that dominate the season. The show even added a femme fatal character, Angelica Nero, to shake things up. I enjoyed the break from the usual oil and fight for the business plots and the focus being on the family and the characters as they cope with Bobby's lost and try to find new paths and directions in their lives.

What you won't like is the pacing. I found this season to be rather uneven, unfocused, always seeming to shift and switch to different plots which left me as a viewer feeling jarred and confused. I still don't really understand the entire Angelica Nero plot; she seemed to be added in just to wear fancy clothes and threaten J.R. and Jack Ewing. Then we have Pam in the middle of the season going off to Colombia ... something else that left me wishing the focus of the show stayed on the city and happenings in and around Dallas, Texas. Sue Ellen's sobriety seemed to come too quickly from her departure from the sanatorium. There is also a point in the season where things that happened early on seem to be forgotten; Sue Ellen's re-adjusted quickly and not speaking of her early-season troubles, J.R. oddly goes from wanting to do away with Sue Ellen to being obsessed with re-capturing her heart, Jenna is over-the-top obsessed with Bobby until the final episodes of the season ... it was just confusing and a jumble of plots and odd behaviors and plots.

I won't touch the final episode of the season 'Blast from the Past' though many have already spoiled it. I think it's that episode that really leaves me on the fence about this season. The show appeared to have taken a big chance with many characters and even some plots such as Donna and Ray's pregnancy/child situation, but one episode pretty much undoes it all. An entire season of development, of confrontations such as one between Pam and Jenna that was a major twist, or Cliff finally coming to respect Jamie, undone to be re-written for the next season. Depending on your take of the season, it may have been a good or bad thing.

In all, this season was just okay for me. It is fun to watch knowing that it's a dream because there are sudden hints and allusions dropped throughout the season that hint that most of this is just a dream. There was a grittier feel to at least half the season - the second half felt more soap opera, over-the-top like similar to 'Dynasty' rather than having the drama edge of the past seasons. I also felt the quality of the DVD transfer could have been a bit better. In all, good, but not a great season. Check it out. August 4, 2008

Dallas, just as good now as it was then......

Dallas the 9th season, although not one of the best seasons its still interesting viewing.
My only complaint is that the DVD's take to long to be released.

August 1, 2008

It was all A Dream.......

I remember the famous scene, watching it original aired.

Man, A LOT of people were upset!!

Glad to get Bobby back but a wasted year.

One of my favorite shows going into the lesser seasons.

Something missing AGAIN with this DVD set.

NO CAST COMMENTARY. Most of the cast get long real well & are always happy to talk about the show.
Get a commentary from them.

The real Miss Ellie is back (Barbara Bel Geddes) which was definitely needed.
July 31, 2008

Wow

I was very curious before watching this season for the obvious reasons. Different producers and writers, and of course the changes in the cast since the end of the eighth season. I am not totally through with this season yet but what I saw until now is very, very interesting. I enjoy watching the beginnings of the new storylines. Also the "newer" characters, especially Barbara Carrera and Dack Rambo get interesting parts. Naturally I already know how it will conclude because it was not possible to avoid the cliffhanger but I still like this season. Cheers to y'all. July 29, 2008

Much better than I expected!

I was pleasantly surprised that this is actually a good season and much better than I remembered. There were changes made in this season to freshen up DALLAS and I found that most of the changes were okay, and there is some strong writing at times and strong lines. It appeared the story-lines of the Marinos and emerald scams went on for a couple of episodes too long. It's best viewed as an exclusive and self-contained/standalone season.

It's great having Barbara Bel Geddes back as Miss Ellie and she is a breath of fresh air and this season 9 is all the better because of her return. In fact, Barbara Bel Geddes and Larry Hagman are both strong in their performances and they both demonstrate their fine acting skills throughout. There are some good and interesting plotlines this season, and also a couple of mediocre ones. There are scenes in overseas locations which, like in the season 8 dvd, gets the characters out of the soundstage sets and into the outdoors.

There's some amazing acting by Linda Gray early on in the season during her rock bottom period. Linda Gray is on record as stating that her rock bottom story-line this season is one of her two favorite Sue Ellen story-lines of the entire series; her other favorite Sue Ellen story-line is the Valentine lingerie one in the next season.

Victoria Principal is great this season too and she's impressive at times, and in one powerful scene Pam explodes in a restaurant at Cliff, while in another scene Ken Kercheval gives a good performance when Cliff explodes at Pam in a nightclub. I would have liked there to have been fireworks between JR and Pam whilst she worked at Ewing Oil rather than the feeble sparks on one or two occasions. I found it an emotional moment as a viewer when Pam turns around and shockingly lays eyes on a past lover. I was caught by surprise at feeling emotional when you-know-who is back in the end-of-season cliffhanger!

There is some great acting by Susan Howard and Steve Kanaly during their story-line of Donna's pregnancy abnormality. Susan Howard is credited for writing the episode "Sitting Ducks" this season, and she is on record as stating that her downs syndrome story-line this season is her favorite story-line of the entire series.

Larry Hagman steals a lot of scenes he's in and he's on fine form as nasty ol' JR - "Now you listen to me, Kenderson. There was a time I wouldn't waste a minute on you. I'd simply have your legs broken." Barbara Carrera of James Bond "Never Say Never Again" fame is good as the femme fatale (and the series' most sinister female villain) but a lot of her outfits are outlandish. The character of Mark Graison makes a return and there are good scenes where Graison punches JR to the floor and another where an angry Graison threatens JR due to JR digging up dirt from his past.

JR is also digging into the past of Sue Ellen's new beau Jerry Kenderson and he tells his stooge Detective McSween, "I want dirt on Kenderson. Go back to Kindergarten if you have to. And Harry, the dirtier the better!" wearing his devilish grin! After JR learns that Kenderson has a clean past, he tells McSween that they'll have to put the dirt there! Martha Scott plays Sue Ellen's mother this season and in one witty line JR tells his mother-in-law (after she puts down Mandy Winger), "Of course, Sue Ellen descended from Royalty on your side of the family, or maybe her daddy's ?!"

I did enjoy the new 15 minute featurette "Seasons of Change" and found it more interesting than the several featurettes since the season 5 dvd. DALLAS producer and writer David Paulsen repeats the official line when he says, "I never heard anybody come up with a better solution to bringing Patrick Duffy as Bobby back onto that show, which is what was needed. I thought it was an absolutely perfect solution because of the reality of the unreality of dreams."

The episodes this season have strong colors and this is due to the original cinematography. To me, the episodes look a little better than the previous couple of seasons and they are relatively cleaner without much noticeable dirt or dust showing up on the episodes.

The episodes this season are available to be chosen from the initial dvd menu as soon as the disc is inserted. There are now four episodes on each side of the discs (the same as many other TV shows on DVD). There are four double-sided dvds housed in two slimline cases. Each side of the two slimline cases has a brief description for each episode and some nice pictures.

This season 9 dvd is region 1 only and not region-free like all the previous DALLAS seasons on DVD. The subtitles are in English only.

I hope that the excellent season 10 dvd - the last best season DALLAS had, IMO - is released later this year. I hope they release all fourteen seasons onto dvd so I can complete my DALLAS dvd collection. I like ALL seasons of DALLAS and there are some good episodes and some good drama even in the final three seasons which are better than some of the junk on TV nowadays.

July 26, 2008

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