Dallas — the next generation

It dominated Irish TV in the 1980s — and now Dallas is coming back. Suzanne Harrington on the return of JR and Bobby Ewing.

IF YOU remember the late ’70s and early ’80s, you may be excited by the resurrection of Dallas, the American soap opera that formed a glittery bridge between the visual glamour of Hollywood movies and the cliffhanger dynamic of weekly TV. At its peak it had a global audience of 300m and its principal character made the cover of Time magazine. That’s the character, not the actor who played him. This was a long, long way before the invention of reality TV — Dallas was the ultimate in unreality TV, and we could not get enough of it. For thirteen years, we were glued, even as the plots became unstuck and our disbelief was suspended to the point of no return.

Except it has returned — Dallas is back. Back, back, back. Older, saggier, madder, but back. Lucky us — TV3 will screen the new series in Ireland, and in the UK it will be shown by Channel 5. The three most important original cast members — JR, Sue Ellen and Bobby — have been wheeled out of retirement to do their thing, although, so as not to make it farcical, the plot does not centre around an 80-year-old oil megalomaniac, his goody-two shoes brother and his wobbly-lipped ex-wife, but their offspring.