Elizabeth Carswell
COM-290
Oral Presentation
Dallas was the first of a genre to be named a “prime-time soap”. It established the features of serial plots. It wasn’t until part way through the first full season that it became a serial; each episode had previously consisted of a self-contained storyline with little relationship to the episode that would follow. It was created by David Jacobs for CBS and was originally a 5-episode mini series. The first episode of the mini series aired on April 2, 1978 called “Diggers Daughter”. It was well received by the public, so producers decided to turn it into a prime time soap opera. It was filmed on location in Dallas, TX at the Southfork Ranch and also in Hollywood’s MGM Studios.
The central premise was a Romeo and Juliet conflict. Pamela Barnes and Bobby Ewing were the young lovers, their two families carried on the feud of their elders, Jock Ewing and Digger Barnes over the rightful ownership of oil fields claimed by the Ewings. The Ewing brothers, their wives, their offspring and all assorted relatives passing through continue to live under one roof on Southfork Ranch. The family is big, rich, and dramatic but remained believable.
The show focused on these aspects and the overall pursuit of money in the Ewing family. This is what drew men to become avid prime-time soap opera viewers. They were drawn to the business relations while the women were into the love affairs. There were many characters throughout the different seasons of Dallas but here a few of the main characters are listed below:
- Jock Ewing (Jim Davis) - the patriarch, head of the Ewing empire
- Eleanor Ewing (Barbara Bel Geddes) – the matriarch, his wife
- JR (Larry Hagman) – was their eldest son married to Sue Ellen (Linda Gray)
- Gary (David Ackroyd) – another son, had an illegitimate teenage daughter named Lucy
- Bobby (Patrick Duffy) – their youngest son, married to Pamela Barnes (Victoria Principal)
J.R. became a new kind of villain for TV. His centrality to the program and the depth to his character made him popular. On March 2, 1980 the “Who Shot J.R.” episode aired as the second season’s final episode cliffhanger. J.R. Ewing was shot in his office and no one knows who did it. Fans were forced to wait eight months through a long summer of reruns and then a seven-week actors strike just to find out who had fired the shot “heard literally around the world”. 300 million fans from 57 different countries tuned in to find out. The fourth episode of the third season aired on November 21, 1980 revealing that Kristin Shepard, Sue Ellen's sister, had shot him. In order to keep the secret from being divulged to the public, producers filmed several different actors firing the gun. They did not decide who would actually fire the shot until the night before the episode aired. Kristin had shot him because they had had an affair and she claimed that she was carrying his unborn child, therefore he did not press charges. Later she ended up having a miscarriage. This episode earned the biggest audience share in television history until the last episode of MASH aired in 1983.
Other Cliffhangers like the “Who Shot J.R.” episode were common in serials. Every season of Dallas ended with one:
- 1978: Pam suffers a miscarriage in a fall from a hayloft after a confrontation with J.R., but she and Bobby decide to remain at Southfork.
- 1979: Sue Ellen has prematurely delivered John Ross as a result of an auto accident, and both their lives are in jeopardy.
- 1980: Who shot J.R.?
- 1981: Who is the dead woman in the Southfork pool?
- 1982: Cliff is in a coma as a result of a suicide attempt, and Sue Ellen tells J.R. that she can’t remarry him if Cliff dies.
- 1983: Southfork’s on fire.
- 1984: Who shot Bobby?
- 1985: Bobby dies.
- 1986: Bobby’s in the shower.
- 1987: Pam’s car hits a truck and goes up in flames.
- 1988: Sue Ellen’s boyfriend, Nicholas Pearce, falls from a balcony following a struggle with J.R., after which Sue Ellen shoots J.R.
- 1989: Sue Ellen tells J.R. that she has produced a film about him that will make him a laughing stock.
- 1990: J.R. is committed to a mental institution by his son James Richard.
- 1991: The final episode:Adam, a supernatural being, shows a drunken and suicidal J.R. what life, for his family and friends, would be like if J.R. had never been born. Once he comes back to reality, J.R. realizes that Adam, who he thought was an angel, is really the devil. He appears in J.R.’s mirror as J.R. points the gun. Bobby is shown walking into the upstairs hallway, and a shot rings out. Bobby runs to J.R.’s room, opens the door, and cries out, “Oh, my God”. This left audiences all over wondering if J.R. had shot himself in the series finale.
Dallas, the TV show, led to several different movies. Viewers would not learn what had happened to J.R. until the film “JR Returns” aired five years later. Audiences discovered that J.R. had actually shot the mirror and then ran off to Europe. Other films made for TV were “The Early Years”(1986), and “The War of the Ewings”(1998). A Film for the theater, titled Dallas the Movie, is expected to be released late 2003. Dallas was on 13 years, ending on May 3, 1991 after 356 episodes. Dallas was a gateway for other programs, especially serials joining the prime time schedule. Knots Landing began as a spin-off of Dallas. ABC released its own series, Dynasty.
Sources:
Brown, L. Encyclopedia of Television (1992). 3rd ed. V.1. North Carolina: Mcfarland
and Co.
Morris, B. Prime time network serials: episode guides,
casts, and credits for 37
continuing television dramas, 1964-1993 (1997). Detroit: Gale Research.
http://www.ultimatedallas.com/
http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/