Break out the shoulder pads — Dallas is back
Yessir, ole’ JR Ewing, the sharpest prong in Southfork, is oilin’ up for a return with the show that made the Borgias look like Little House on the Prairie.
Dallas, which last aired 20 years ago, is back in production with 10 episodes and a promise that, despite turning 80 this year, JR, still played by Larry Hagman, has lost none of his teeth nor his appetite for sinking them into a rival’s jugular.
Metaphorically speaking, of course — JR liked to play dirty but his $1,000-dollar suits were always pristine and those cowboy boots had a shine only the teeth in his snakish smile could compete with.
Viewers here will have to wait a while to see if Irish broadcasters will buy the show.
An RTÉ spokeswoman said that until the episodes were completed, a pilot aired in the US and ratings assessed — probably this time next year — the station couldn’t put it on its shopping list.
But fans can live in hope and the really good news for those who’ve loyally kept their shoulder pads in a vacuum pack under the bed all these years and still hum the iconic theme tune in the shower is that the show’s producers have also enticed back arguably JR’s best sparring partner.
Yup, Sue Ellen — she of the quarterback shoulders, quivering lip, ever-present double vodkas and constantly looming nervous breakdown — is also being resurrected with publicity photos showing actress Linda Gray looking like she hasn’t been away a fortnight never mind two decades.
And speaking of lost time, JR’s other love-hate target, his little brother Bobby, otherwise known as Patrick Duffy who infamously returned to the show after the two-year absence following his “death” was explained away as a dream sequence, is also rejoining the fold.
In truth, Dallas never really went away. After 13 seasons and 356 episodes, it was as firmly dug into the minds of worldwide TV audiences as one of JR’s oil wells.
Southfork, the ranch where the series was filmed is today a hugely successful conference, event and wedding venue; box sets of the series are big sellers and I Shot JR T-shirts have never gone out of production.
Time has moved on though and the new series, which will air in the US from next summer, will be brought up to date with young actors Jesse Metcalfe of Desperate Housewives and Josh Henderson of 90210 playing JR and Bobby’s sons and showing — surprise, surprise — that sibling rivalry survives the generations.
One thing that has changed, however, is that Hagman recently became the posterboy for solar power in the US, playing on his oil baron past to boost the campaign. So how will JR/Larry get over that most un-Ewing like conversion?
Well, as JR himself might advise: “Like my daddy always said — if you can’t keep up, keep quiet.”
