
	LIVING DREAMS ON CBS

Release Date:

November 22, 2008

Press Release:

CBS Watch! Magazine

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by Jim Colucci

UNEXPECTED TWISTS AND TURNS ARE EASY TO EXPLAIN AWAY, THANKS TO THE FAMOUS, DREAM SEQUENCE

Long before "The Wizard of OZ's Dorothy took her fateful trip over the rainbow, the "Dream Sequence" was the powerful storytelling device. On the small screen, a touch of reverie can be even more useful for writers looking to transport their regular casts into daring a new territory. As Watch! Magazine celebrates this "dream" issue, we rate the most memorable daydreams and nightmares that have kept CBS fans enraptured for decades.

1) DALLAS - "Blast From the Past" Aired May 16, 1986

In 1985, at the end of Dallas' eighth season, star Patrick Duffy left Southfork in pursuit of silver screen opportunities. But when his character Bobby Ewing was mowed dawn by a jealous mistress, he took some viewers with him. After ratings plummeted in season nine, Duffy was lured back to start season 10. So, how to explain Bobby's rising from the dead? Turn season nine's story line-viewed as an unwelcome departure from the show's tried and-true J.R. vs. Bobby formula anyway-into one giant dream. Shrouding his plan in secrecy, show runner Leonard Katzman rented studio space off the show's usual lot, built a shower and pretended to shoot Duffy doing a commercial for Irish Spring soap. A few frames of that footage were then tacked onto the already existing season nine finale. And so, making the most infamous appearance in a shower since Norman Bates in Psycho, a lathered-up Bobby returns with a simple "Hello," shocking groggy "widow" Pam and audiences around the world.

2) NEWHART - "The Last Newhart" Aired May 21, 1990

In the middle of a town meeting, a Japanese visitor announces his plan to buyout all of Strattford, Vt., as land for a giant golf course. Innkeeper Dick Loudon remains the lone holdout to the plan, witnessing the strange effect the infusion of Japanese cash has on his New England neighbors. Before long, the golf balls start to fly, with an errant drive striking Dick in the head. When he awakens, the lights are low in his bedroom and he's in bed not with wife Joanna Loudon but with his wife from his previous TV series, played by Suzanne Pleshette. It turns out, Dick's entire existence in Vermont has been a strange dream for Chicago psychiatrist Bob Hartley-a twist that turned "The Last Newhart" into an episode that would long be remembered as its series' best.

3) I LOVE LUCY - "Lucy Goes to Scotland" Aired February 20, 1956

Amid the grape-stomping and cheese-smuggling fun of the Ricardos' and Mertzes' 1956 tour of Europe, Lucy visits Scotland to seek out her ancestral MacGillicuddy clan. In one of TV's first and most notable dream sequences, Lucy discovers she is the last living MacGillicuddy, doomed by tradition to be fed to a two headed dragon that looks an awful lot like Fred and Ethel. Luckily, her boastful dream lover, the strangely Cuban accented Scotty MacTavish MacDougal "MacCardo," vows to come to her rescue.

4) GHOST WHISPERER "Stranglehold" Aired May 9, 2008

Melinda Gordon is great at interpreting other people's visions and now it's time to turn her skills inward. After dreaming of a masked man menacing her missing father, TV's favorite psychic sets out to uncover the truth in a 1979 murder case that her dad had originally investigated. Melinda puts the pieces together just in time to save Dad from a vengeful ghost-or does she? Because this is May, the month of big season finales, "Stranglehold" is one episode of Ghost Whisperer that ends with a definite bang.

5) DESIGNING WOMEN "I'll Be Seeing You" Aired November 23, 1987

When handsome Col. Bill Stillfield shows up, receptionist Charlene is convinced her co-workers have arranged his appearance in response to her birthday wish for a WWII soldier. Later, after a dinner date with Bill, Charlene dreams that the ladies of Sugarbaker's design firm are all characters in a USO canteen-Suzanne gets to strut her stuff as "Miss War Bonds," Julia croons a wistful "I'll Be Seeing You" and Charlene gets the ultimate "meet-cute" with Bill, the man who would soon become her husband.

6) GILLIGAN'S ISLAND - "V for Vitamins" Aired April 14, 1966

After the Professor foolishly puts him in charge of guarding a package of citrus seeds that has washed ashore, Gilligan dreams himself into an island version of "Jack and the Beanstalk." As in the original tale, his theft of the Goose-here, that lays the golden oranges doesn't sit well with the mean and cruel giant, a doppelganger of the Skipper.

7) THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW - "It May Look Like a Walnut" Aired February 6, 1963

For the apparently impressionable comedy writer Rob Petrie, a late night of TV horror movies results in a nightmare involving walnuts, missing thumbs and an alien creature named Kolac. And for viewers of The Dick Van Dyke Show, the result is a particularly beloved episode of this classic series.

8) NORTHERN EXPOSURE - "Mr. Sandman" Aired January 10, 1994

The aurora borealis brings a strange phenomenon to Cicely, Alaska, a town not at all unfamiliar with odd goings-on. When the townspeople begin swapping dreams and so Maggie has Holling's dream about driving a cab in Quebec, Holling has Dave's dream about kayaking with only a spatula, and so on-secrets are revealed and everyone's (relative) sanity is at stake.