Favorite Season For Sue Ellen !!!
Which seasons on the original Dallas did you enjoy Sue Ellen the most and felt that she was at her absolute best? Also how would you rate Sue Ellen for each season of her 11 years on the show?
shareI have a few favourite Sue Ellen seasons for different reasons. I'll list my opinion on all of her seasons though, minor spoilers I guess.
Season 1: Sue Ellen wasn't exactly likeable, but she wasn't really fully developed either. You basically just saw the broken wife of JR Ewing.
Season 2: Sue Ellen's backstory and why she is the way she is gets explained more this season. JR treats her terribly and then Kristin and Patricia show up and you get a taste of how Sue Ellen was raised and the lack of sympathy her family has for her situation. It's pretty terrible that no one really mentions that she shouldn't drink while pregnant.
Season 3: The audience really feels for Sue Ellen this season, nothing goes well for her. But she does make steps towards self improvement which is nice.
Season 4: I like seeing the lead up to the separation between JR and Sue Ellen and they were pretty cute in some scenes. Good season, but not a favourite of mine.
Season 5: I loved the brief independence of Sue Ellen and loved all of her storylines this season, the divorce, Dusty, Clayton, JR and the eventual re-engagement. Linda Gray also looked beautiful this season.
Season 6: Started off well for Sue Ellen, but I hated seeing her get hurt once again by JR.
Season 7: I like the jealousness of JR this season, but Peter Richards, no.
Season 8: I liked Sue Ellen's female relationships this season, Pam and Jamie, and she did have some good moments with JR, but it still ends badly with her going back to drinking and JR being a horrible person.
Season 9: Loved the change in Sue Ellen, all the way down, and then back up again. Brilliant acting by Linda Gray. Loved the JR and Sue Ellen stuff later on in the season. I also liked her relationship with Jerry Kenderson this season.
Season 10: Ugh, we're back to reality and JR is still treating Sue Ellen horribly. But this allows for the brilliant Valentine Lingerie plot. I love that JR begins to see Sue Ellen on more equal ground. I also liked the emotional connection they had over the B.D. Calhoun situation.
Season 11: Hated that JR didn't come to Sue Ellen and let her know what was going on with Kimberly Cryder to hatch a plan with her instead of against her. They had the opportunity to be the Dallas power couple, but the writers did not take it in that direction. Nicholas was ok, but his mob storyline was boring.
Season 12: I would have loved the movie plot, if it went somewhere. But it didn't. Loved Sue Ellen's ability to still get to JR and her friendship with Cally. I would have preferred a better exit storyline though.
Favourite seasons, 5, 9, 10 but every season had great moments.
Gray's best performances were in seasons 5 and 9 when she was drunk at her best
But my favorite Sue Ellen season was season 10 with the Valentine lingerie and during John Ross' kidnapping.
My favorite line of Sue Ellen's that season was to JR:
"You came into my room last night. I got so excited about the idea that I rolled over and went right back to sleep"
Al - Alicia
An - Andrew
Jo - Joseph
Be - Benjamin
I would say my favorite seasons of Sue Ellen were seasons 2-3. She was a secondary character, and Gray wasn't even featured in the opening credits in season 1. But in seasons 2-3, we see Gray become a female lead equal to Victoria Principal's Pam.
TV Guide gave Sue Ellen one of the best quotes of the season at the end of the 1984-1985 season (season 8).
Sue Ellen (to J.R.): "Joan of Arc would be a drunk too if she was married to you."
Yes...I loved season 9-- it was the best season for so many characters, especially Sue Ellen. Those episodes with her and her mother and John Ross living away from Southfork were excellent. Her whole empowerment and asserting her independence was great. I hated the fact she was made a drunk again the next season because of the dream. She becomes more cartoonish at that point.
Her exit storyline in season 12 was lackluster. I remember the final episode was interrupted in the time zone I watched it during the original airing-- because of the protests at Tiananmen Square in China. But Sue Ellen showing J.R. the movie she made was such a bore that the CBS news coverage was infinitely more interesting. Her exit should have been more dramatic, with long-reaching effects on her son and ex-husband.
" I hated the fact she was made a drunk again the next season because of the dream."
Not for long. In the season premiere, Sue Ellen told Pam that she found something better than alcohol, revenge against J.R. We didn't see her drink again. (Until the 2012 reboot, that is.)
To me, the dream was a dream. I think these characters exist, and their stories continue, in a different universe than what we saw in seasons 10-14, when the writing became more cartoonish and when it eventually became The J.R./Larry Hagman Show. Also, I do not consider anything in the reboot to be authentic, as I find it to be a soul-less rip-off of the original, and it basically is part of story going astray after Pam 'woke up.'
At some point, Linda Gray had to leave the show because Sue Ellen's fate was such that she had to either be collateral damage in J.R.'s schemes, or else she had to become his equal, a powerful rival (and the writers ultimately did not let her grow that much). So Sue Ellen was doomed. Considering that she had been established early on as a victim of J.R.'s numerous betrayals (infidelities) and that John Ross was born into a marriage where J.R. had pretty much been raping his wife-- I think Sue Ellen's exit should have been centered around her going off the wagon, and with it involving the death of the man she loved most (Dusty, with J.R. responsible for Dusty's death). That should have driven her over the edge where she became so erratic that she began to endanger John Ross' life. This is the only thing that would have caused Ellie and Clayton and Bobby and all the good Ewings to side with J.R. against her and have her locked up for good.
That storyline with Jessica Farlow at the end of season 13 could have instead featured Sue Ellen, where J.R. was face-to-face with the mother of his child that he had reduced to a pitiable wreck in an institution. Sue Ellen's last episodes should have played like a huge Greek tragedy. So that when we saw John Ross grown up years later, he was still wounded and reeling from that kind of mother that had been rendered damaged goods because of his father. She could have gotten out of the institution after twenty years and was trying to rebuild her life in Dallas with her son, despite her ex-husband's continuing attempts to discredit her. And when J.R.finally died, it should have been Sue Ellen that killed him, maybe with Cliff's help, getting even for everything he did to her sister, to Dusty, to John Ross, to Bobby and to herself.
In my opinion, the later seasons of the original show and the three seasons of the follow-up show were plagued with inconsistent, mostly uninspired writing where it was evil for the sake of evil, without any true character motivation. Sue Ellen should have been the linchpin, the one who pulled the curtain down on J.R.'s final act. She was the one with the most misery invested in him.
If I recall, Katzman usually asked long-term cast members how they wanted to go - or at least ran it by them. The only exception was probably Susan Howard. But they still gave Donna a very nice happy ending, even if it wasn't with Ray.
Victoria actually liked the way Pam went out - calling it 'explosive'. Sheree J Wilson also wanted her exit to be with a big BANG.
I can't remember if it was Gray's idea for the revenge storyline, but she seemed to like it.
Unlike Principal, I think Gray wanted it left open in case she decided to come back at some point. I could be wrong about that, though.
Al - Alicia
An - Andrew
Jo - Joseph
Be - Benjamin
"Unlike Principal, I think Gray wanted it left open in case she decided to come back at some point. I could be wrong about that, though. "
Yes, the original teaser for the 12th season finale showed Sue Ellen walking out, turning around and telling J.R., "I'll be back." However, when the episode aired, they cut the line. It was reported that Linda wanted to return as a recurring guest star, popping up from time to time. That didn't happen, although she did return for the series finale two years later.
Totally disagree on that. I always thought of how unfair it was that JR got off scot free where others paid the price for what he did. Look at the examples:
· JR knew the Asian oil wells would be nationalized, yet he allowed his cartel buddies to invest and later lose millions. Look at how many lives were wrecked while JR reaped the benefits.
· Alan Beam the attorney. Run out of town and unable to work.
· Kristen. We all know her fate.
· Walt Driscoll, totally had his life ruined in many ways from JR's dealings, although brothers Bobby and Ray did have a hand in that, too. In the end, Driscoll puts an innocent Mickey in a coma, although Sue Ellen played a hand in that, too, and Driscoll later killed himself. Let's not forget the fire at Southfork!
· Peter Richards, who should never have involved himself with Sue Ellen, and was run out of town on trumped up drug charges.
· Edgar Randolph, who JR blackmailed for his pedophilia.
· Jamie Ewing, not that JR killed her, but she could have lived had JR not run her off to marry Cliff.
· Many innocent family members during and after the BD Calhoun affair. In the real world, JR would have landed in prison for dealing with terrorists. Let's not forget how this nearly caused the death of his son, Sue Ellen being kidnapped, and Bobby and Ray going to jail.
· Nicholas Pearce, who fell to his death after fighting with JR, although technically, Pearce was the one trespassing. Still, JR caused his death and was never charged with a crime.
· Carter McKay, who JR framed for killing Johnny Dancer, who Cliff actually killed by accident.
· Michele Stevens. Despite JR to get the murder charges against her dropped, he had still ruined her life with James.
Despite all of this, JR never paid a price for these countless lives mentioned that he ruined. Sue Ellen always came back fighting and finally triumphed, and Cally even did as well. In fact, Cally's life was better after JR.
So, to say they should have put Sue Ellen away, that would have been an enormous injustice to her character since so many others had already paid a huge price while JR didn't.