Based on the original Emmy award-winning CBS show of the same name, the new series of Dallas, currently showing on Channel 5 in the UK, follows the lives of JR and Sue Ellen's son John Ross, and Bobby and Pam's son Christopher, as they battle it out over whether to drill for oil on the South Fork ranch, or look for more "green" energy sources in Texas.
That's the official blurb, now let's look at some of the fine detail. It's ironic that it's Larry Hagman who's been fighting with cancer off-screen, while it's Patrick Duffy's character Bobby who's battling with the disease on-screen – making it tempting to side with JR's team right from the off. Meanwhile poor old Larry is clearly struggling to learn his lines – reading every word painstakingly through bloodshot eyes from an off-camera autocue.
Do we care? No. We're so damned pleased to see JR back on our TV screens we wouldn't mind if Hagman played every scene with his script written in lipstick on the heavily botoxed forehead of Sue Ellen.
Should we be concerned that all the 20-something male actors in the cast look so similar to each other that it's often difficult to tell them apart and keep track of who's zooming who? Not really. And who gives a heck if Victoria Principal is too busy to do the gig at all, and Cliff Barnes can't even be bothered to show up until episode three? Dallas got as popular as it did in the UK partly because Terry Wogan talked about it so much on BBC radio. It was he who coined such immortal phrases as "The Poison Dwarf" and catapulted the series to the cult status it enjoys today. Thanks to Terry, the Brits learned to love Dallas like we love the Eurovision Song Contest. Because it was so bad it was good. Well, it's still bad, and it's still good.
In this new incarnation we can additionally enjoy JR's massive eyebrows. It is rumoured that they have already been offered a spin-off series of their own. But best of all, we can hungrily devour such classic lines as, "I was gonna tell you about the earthquake, dad. Really I was." Long live Dallas. Now that it's in High Definition we can more clearly see the irony.
