At least he had charm. At least he had Jock and Miss Ellie to look up to. At least he had Jeannie in a bottle. Oh wait, wrong show. Larry Hagman went from perplexed astronaut on a hit sitcom to one of the greatest villains in broadcast history, and even today, outside of the final episode of "MASH". nobody can top the ratings in finding out "Who shot J.R.?" Decades after the show went off the air and a couple of TV movies, "Dallas" was brought back with Hagman once again holding the reigns, and when he passed away, it was obvious that the new "Dallas" could not go on without him. Rather than have J.R. die like any normal 80 something year old would, J.R. was murdered, and something tells me that this is exactly how he wanted to go, pulling the strings and still fully feisty, and yet smarter than most people in charge and lovable in spite of all those evil schemes on his roster.
The original "Dallas" brought back the prime-time soap as daytime soaps were at their height, the Luke & Laura years just around the bend, and the success of this show changed the serial format of daytime TV as pretty much every daily soap brought in a power hungry patriarch businessman to run the show and emulate what was going on at Southfork and at Ewing oil. From "Dallas", we got a spin-off (the classy "Knot's Landing"), a campy hit rip-off ("Dynasty") and a replacement of oil for wine ("Falcon Crest"), but they owe it all to "Dallas". Without J.R., there would be no Palmer Cortlandt, no Asa Buchannan, no Alan Spaulding (he might have been introduced before J.R., but the "Guiding Light" patriarch really developed even more after "Dallas" was created).
Where there was bad, there had to be good, and as bad as J.R. was, there was still some good in him, seen every time he felt that he was losing control of his baby-doll wife Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) who got a backbone in season 3 and divorced him after finding out he had slept with her own sister. Good brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) fought to keep his love for Pamela Barnes Ewing (Victoria Principal) from being destroyed by his brother's schemes, but the animosity between J.R. and Pamela's equally scheming brother Cliff (Ken Kercheval) kept that from happening. The Barnes/Ewing feud went back decades, but with matriarchs Miss Ellie and Rebecca being friends, it seemed not to be of the Capulet/Montague or Hatfield/McCoy variety. It was complex, and even though Miss Ellie had once been involved with Pamela's father, that didn't pass on in resentment to Pamela's mother. Barbara Bel Geddes and Priscilla Pointer shared a great dynamic, and when they decided to kill off Rebecca, I was sorely disappointed.
Over the years, there were some great regular cast members and many guest stars. David Wayne and Keenan Wynn as Digger, Tina Louise as J.R.'s lovelorn first secretary who didn't get stranded on an island, but ended up face down on pavement after being tossed off a roof; MGM musical star Howard Keel, initially recurring, and later a regular as Miss Ellie's second husband, Clayton; Alexis Smith as his psychotic sister who locked Miss Ellie in a car trunk; Audrey Landers as the luscious Afton Cooper, lover of both J.R.'s and Bobby's; "Three's Company" veteran Jenilee Harrison as a Ewing cousin; Dack Rambo as her brother; and of course, other regulars like Steve Kanaly as the illegitimate Ewing, Susan Howard as his ethical wife who stood up to J.R. with every immoral act he tried to commit, and of course, the diminutive but irrepressible Charlene Tilton as Ewing granddaughter Lucy who unknowingly slept with her uncle.
The complexities of the series are too numerous to mention, but if you start from season one and get at least through the episode before Bobby "died" (then came back after a season where everything was wiped out), you can see how very "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" this is. Bobby and J.R. both had sisters-in-laws who shot them, and while I could have seen more of Morgan Brittany's Katherine, I was ready to let go of Mary Crosby's Kristen. Veteran movie star Martha Scott was delightfully obnoxious as Sue Ellen and Kristen's mother, a stark contrast to Miss Ellie and Rebecca. Even glimpses of Jock's first wife Amanda (played by soap veteran Lesley Woods and later the elegant Susan French) showed her to be quite gentle, even if suffering from a mental illness that made Jock's wildcatting absences even more stressful. Barbara Bel Geddes' Miss Ellie showed what it was to be a lady, strong and determined, although she needed to give J.R. a wallop and remind him that she could take him down if she needed to. Instead, the writers simply wrote her and Clayton out, making it clear that she was sick of it all, certainly not true to the character. By this time, it was apparent that they didn't care anymore, and in its last couple of seasons, "Dallas" became a shell of itself, almost as ridiculous as "Dynasty". TV movies fooled around with the history even more and the new TV series didn't even acknowledge facts that had been brought up during those times.
The original "Dallas" brought back the prime-time soap as daytime soaps were at their height, the Luke & Laura years just around the bend, and the success of this show changed the serial format of daytime TV as pretty much every daily soap brought in a power hungry patriarch businessman to run the show and emulate what was going on at Southfork and at Ewing oil. From "Dallas", we got a spin-off (the classy "Knot's Landing"), a campy hit rip-off ("Dynasty") and a replacement of oil for wine ("Falcon Crest"), but they owe it all to "Dallas". Without J.R., there would be no Palmer Cortlandt, no Asa Buchannan, no Alan Spaulding (he might have been introduced before J.R., but the "Guiding Light" patriarch really developed even more after "Dallas" was created).
Where there was bad, there had to be good, and as bad as J.R. was, there was still some good in him, seen every time he felt that he was losing control of his baby-doll wife Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) who got a backbone in season 3 and divorced him after finding out he had slept with her own sister. Good brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) fought to keep his love for Pamela Barnes Ewing (Victoria Principal) from being destroyed by his brother's schemes, but the animosity between J.R. and Pamela's equally scheming brother Cliff (Ken Kercheval) kept that from happening. The Barnes/Ewing feud went back decades, but with matriarchs Miss Ellie and Rebecca being friends, it seemed not to be of the Capulet/Montague or Hatfield/McCoy variety. It was complex, and even though Miss Ellie had once been involved with Pamela's father, that didn't pass on in resentment to Pamela's mother. Barbara Bel Geddes and Priscilla Pointer shared a great dynamic, and when they decided to kill off Rebecca, I was sorely disappointed.
Over the years, there were some great regular cast members and many guest stars. David Wayne and Keenan Wynn as Digger, Tina Louise as J.R.'s lovelorn first secretary who didn't get stranded on an island, but ended up face down on pavement after being tossed off a roof; MGM musical star Howard Keel, initially recurring, and later a regular as Miss Ellie's second husband, Clayton; Alexis Smith as his psychotic sister who locked Miss Ellie in a car trunk; Audrey Landers as the luscious Afton Cooper, lover of both J.R.'s and Bobby's; "Three's Company" veteran Jenilee Harrison as a Ewing cousin; Dack Rambo as her brother; and of course, other regulars like Steve Kanaly as the illegitimate Ewing, Susan Howard as his ethical wife who stood up to J.R. with every immoral act he tried to commit, and of course, the diminutive but irrepressible Charlene Tilton as Ewing granddaughter Lucy who unknowingly slept with her uncle.
The complexities of the series are too numerous to mention, but if you start from season one and get at least through the episode before Bobby "died" (then came back after a season where everything was wiped out), you can see how very "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" this is. Bobby and J.R. both had sisters-in-laws who shot them, and while I could have seen more of Morgan Brittany's Katherine, I was ready to let go of Mary Crosby's Kristen. Veteran movie star Martha Scott was delightfully obnoxious as Sue Ellen and Kristen's mother, a stark contrast to Miss Ellie and Rebecca. Even glimpses of Jock's first wife Amanda (played by soap veteran Lesley Woods and later the elegant Susan French) showed her to be quite gentle, even if suffering from a mental illness that made Jock's wildcatting absences even more stressful. Barbara Bel Geddes' Miss Ellie showed what it was to be a lady, strong and determined, although she needed to give J.R. a wallop and remind him that she could take him down if she needed to. Instead, the writers simply wrote her and Clayton out, making it clear that she was sick of it all, certainly not true to the character. By this time, it was apparent that they didn't care anymore, and in its last couple of seasons, "Dallas" became a shell of itself, almost as ridiculous as "Dynasty". TV movies fooled around with the history even more and the new TV series didn't even acknowledge facts that had been brought up during those times.