Tag Archives: Dallas on TNT

‘Dallas’ – Five things we want to see

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dallas season 3

The third-season premiere of TNT’s continuation of “Dallas” aired last night and I was missing Larry Hagman.

Although Hagman’s illness reduced his presence on the first two seasons of the new take on the classic nighttime soap, I have to say I wish that, before his death, producer Cynthia Cidre had shot several hours of Hagman talking on the phone, riding in the back of a limo and just walking across the room that she could generously salt through upcoming seasons.

But I guess that wouldn’t be right.

Anyway, in this, its first season without the venerable J.R. Ewing, “Dallas” will have to make its way on its own soapy power. I think it can do this … if it gives us a few things we want to see.

Plenty of the young’uns. I’m really growing to like the new generation of Ewings. Josh Henderson (John Ross) and Jesse Metcalfe (Christopher) are getting to be pretty good antagonists and I’ve already fallen for Julie Gonzalo as Pamela and Jordana Brewster as Elena.

But plenty of the original Ewings too. Patrick Duffy is stalwart as Bobby and Linda Gray is plainly filling the Hagman role in some scenes with their son John Ross this season. I’m enjoying both. And even though I’m wincing at the thought they’re going to have Sue Ellen fall off the wagon and begin drinking again, it would give Gray, a wonderful soap opera actress, a juicy season.

Faces from the original “Dallas.” We’re seeing plenty of Ken Kercheval (who is 78!) as Cliff Barnes, but I want to see more of Gary Ewing and Lucy Ewing and Val Ewing and Ray Krebbs. I’d really enjoy seeing Ted Shackelford in several episodes, clashing with nephew John Ross over the fate of Southfork.

More of Judith Light. Last season, the “Who’s the Boss” star made a big impression as the mother of Mitch Pileggi’s character … despite the fact that Light is, at 65, just four years older than her on-screen son. I didn’t like Light much when she first appeared, but she’s just the right kind of looney character the show could use.

The drama. The drama. Not just drama from the Ewing Global boardroom, but from Southfork, where it looks like most of the characters will be in residence this season. We need more dinner scenes with all the Ewings staring daggers at each other from their spots around the bar.

Here’s to another good season.

‘Dallas’ returns in fine form

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JR Ewing is back and he’s sportin’ some damn fine eyebrows.

More importantly, below those tangled white brows is a gleam in Larry Hagman’s eye. In tonight’s premiere of the “Dallas” continuation on TNT, Hagman returned as Texas bidnessman JR Ewing. He began the episode in a nursing home — faking out family members — cast off his walker and ended the two-hour premiere by finding out his son, John Ross, is double-crossing his own efforts to double-cross brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy), in his efforts to seize control of Southfork Ranch, the family stronghold.

The show was really pretty fun. Some quick impressions:

Hagman and Duffy were, as before, the focus of the show.

Linda Gray had some good scenes as Sue Ellen, but unless the character starts hitting the bottle again, she’s gonna need some beefier plot lines.

I didn’t mind the younger generation of Ewings — JR’s son John Ross, Bobby’s son Christopher, Christopher’s new wife Rebecca and Elena, the maid’s daughter who is the object of affection of both cousins — nearly as much as I might have.

John Ross’ wispy little beard-substitute really should go.

We need more Ewing family members. We had cameos from Ray (Steve Kanaly) and Lucy (Charlene Tilton) tonight, but we need bigger roles for them and others, including “Knots Landing” brother Gary and his wife, Val.

Cliff Barnes got name-dropped, but hasn’t shown up. Yet.

Christopher’s new wife, Rebecca, has a brother, Tommy, who just happened to drift into town before the wedding. Of course, Tommy is up to no good. Good soap stuff here.

We really need video/pictures of the cast in the credits. If you’re gonna continue the series and even have a minor variation on them, we need to see the cast in the credits.

The new “Dallas” is fun stuff. I’ll watch again next week.

New ‘Dallas’ series: What we want to see

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For the better part of the 1980s, my friends and I would get together on Friday nights for dinner and a movie. It wasn’t unheard of for us to see a movie during the afternoon or evening, sometimes at a local drive-in theater, then see another at a midnight show.

But we always carved an hour out of our Friday nights for “Dallas.”

It might seem strange, a group of 20-something movie, sci-fi and comic book geeks calling a halt to everything else for an hour to tune into CBS to watch a night-time soap.

But “Dallas,” like any good TV show, became a viewing ritual for us. The show began with a limited season in 1978 and lasted until 1991, when, I have to admit, I was no longer regularly watching. But during the prime years, including the third season, which climaxed with the “Who Shot J.R.” cliffhanger, and the eighth season, which was later revealed to be Pam’s dream that Bobby had been killed, you couldn’t budge me from in front of the TV.

A couple of TV-movie sequels and a failed attempt at a big-screen movie — John Travolta as J.R.? No. Just no. — didn’t seem nearly as promising as TNT’s continuation of the series, which debuts Wednesday.

Larry Hagman is back as J.R., along with Patrick Duffy as Bobby Ewing and Linda Gray as Sue Ellen. There are some new characters too, including the grown-up versions of Ewing offspring Christopher and John Ross.

I’ll be watching Wednesday night. And here are five things I’m really hoping to see on the new “Dallas:”

A robust J.R. Larry Hagman is in his 80s, for goodness sake, and his eyebrows look like the tangled back-country brush on Southfork Ranch after an unexpected Texas frost. I’ve seen Hagman in a few clips and interviews and he looks pretty good. But what the new “Dallas” really needs is a vigorous, conniving, gleefully evil J.R. I’m hoping that Hagman is up to it and still has that wonderful malevolent twinkle.

Drinking. Lots of drinking. If you think the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce ad execs drink a lot, you didn’t watch “Dallas.” Every time a Ewing would walk into the family room at Southfork Ranch, he or she would make a stop at the bar cart and pour a scotch. Drinking was such a part of the show that, when I visited friends in Canada in 1984, everybody up there expected me to drink “Bourbon and branch.”

A trip to the Cattlemen’s Club. J.R. and the rest of the Ewings frequently had lunch at this upscale eatery in downtown Dallas. It became a joking reference for my friends and me. We’ve got to have at least one visit to the Cattlemen’s Club this season.

Southfork Ranch. I want to see the new show roam all over the Ewings’ sprawling spread, from the remote oil fields — kept as nostalgia pieces by the family — to the pastures where cattle grazed to the barns and haylofts where Lucy once tussled.

Visits from lots of familiar faces. I’ve heard that Charlene Tilton might return as Lucy Ewing Cooper and Steve Kanaly could show up as Ray Krebbs. I really want to see Indiana’s own Ken Kercheval as J.R.’s antagonist Cliff Barnes. And why not bring back, at least in some form, other favorites like Carter McKay and Jenna Wade?

Lots of nostalgia. I want to hear a lot of references to Miss Ellie and Jock. I want to see that portrait of Jock in the family room. I want somebody, somebody, to make a reference to J.R. getting shot before this first season is out.

Then I’ll know we’re back in “Dallas.”