According to ‘Dallas’ star Steve Kanaly, several performers were dissatisfied “because their storylines were lost” after a notorious plot twist made the entirety of season 9 a dream.

At the end of season 9, Bobby Ewing made his return to Dallas, which became a legendary moment in primetime soap opera history. While many people were delighted to see the much-loved figure still alive and well, others, including his co-stars, were less enthused.

Bobby was restored as a long dream by Bobby’s wife Pam (Victoria Principal), who woke up in the closing scene of season 9 to discover Bobby in the shower, after being presumably killed off at the conclusion of season 8 when actor Patrick Duffy left the show.

Steve Kanaly, 77, who portrayed Ray Krebbs on the program, told PEOPLE at a cast reunion in Palm Springs, California, “It was about a 10% audience loss, at least from that, because people were offended to see the [death] storyline just tossed.”

Krebbs said, “I don’t want to mention them, but various cast members were pissed because their storylines were lost as a result of that,” as the ensemble gathered in front of Dallas’ 45th anniversary in September. And the effect was significant.

By coming up with such a novel story surprise at the time, the show’s creators were aware of the significant risk they were taking.

“We’ve got Patrick back,” recalled Kanaly. “Patrick returns to the program. How do we explain what happened over the entire season 8? Making the choice was difficult. I’m aware that everyone in production was searching for a solution, and the simplest solution was to simply toss everything out the window and declare, “Oh, it was all a dream.” After that, you can resume where you left off and omit the entire year.”

Despite the mixed reaction to the resurrection of Bobby Ewing, Duffy told PEOPLE viewers who were happy to see him back on the show that they should thank his costar Larry Hagman, who played the main antagonist — and Bobby’s big brother — J.R. Ewing.

“I had an answering machine message, and it was from Larry Hagman, saying, ‘Patrick, I want you to come out to the house, get drunk in the jacuzzi. I want to talk to you,’” recalled Duffy, 74. “I told my wife that Larry was going to ask me to come back on the show … and I did it because Haggy asked me to.”

Duffy’s wife’s “literary knowledge” helped the couple predict how his return would happen. “My wife said instantly, ‘Well, you can’t come back on the show unless that whole season was a dream,’” the actor says. “We’ve talked about what she said years and years after that, and she based it on her literary knowledge. Half of Shakespeare’s plays have dreams.”

Speaking on the legacy of Dallas, Linda Gray, 82, who played J.R. Ewing’s wife, Sue Ellen, tells PEOPLE, “Because the show ran for so many years, the audience got to know the characters so genuinely, and they cared for [them], and the characters all went through so much.”

“And I think the fans loved to relate to the stories bigger than life. They were bigger than life so that they could live vicariously through those characters. Dallas was so influential.”

All 13 original seasons of Dallas can be streamed on Amazon Freevee.