Was Dallas The First Drama To Have All It's Main Characters Be Bad?

[KayLloyd]

Upon reflection Dallas should not have been the success it became. I can understand its popularity in America but really, this show should not have spiraled into the mega hit around the world. Why would the working class care for an American wealthy family and their issues? On paper it should not have worked.

Others have suggested Dallas aired at the right time as America clawed its way out of a recession into the Ronald Reagan led era of growth and wealth. This still doesn't explain its popularity around the globe. Maybe we were over the niceness of "The Waltons", another Lorimar Production mega-hit. Or that other huge hit, "Little House on the Prairie."

It's a weird concept that as we walked into the 80's with its wealth and opulence, bright colours, big hair, shoulders pads that any player in the NFL would die for, a woman prancing around Venice singing "Like a Virgin" to the horror of the Vatican and parents around the world we all sat down and watched this show that had us enthralled with characters we really should not have cared about, since they were so removed from our ordinary lives.

Dallas arrived at the cusp of change. Finally moving on from the decade that fashion forgot it was like the world had woken up from its 70's induced coma with its dreary brown shades. We had colour!

I'm so thankful that I grew up in the 80's. It was my era. As if Michael Jackson's "Thriller" wasn't enough to wet the appetite another young brash pop star was about to unleash herself onto the world - Madonna.

Indeed the planets had aligned. Everything was good in the world. Great TV viewing (in general), bloody good music (vinyl baby), fashion and amazing friends (which I still have today). Who knew that in 2016 I'd still be sharing my life with those mates now with dad bods and kids who think we know nothing of the world.

More importantly a site like this exists which allows us to reminisce and debate about one of the best shows ever to appear on the small screen.

Amen.

One word: Escapism. Dallas took them away from their own problems for an hour each week.

 

[Presea]

Isn't that itself an interesting concept to explore?

I think there's an element of the old saying "see how the other half live" I remember been completely taken by living in a big house that had servants to deal with all the boring chores. The thought of someone waiting on you is like living on a very long vacation.

It was interesting because in some ways, I thought that the Ewings weren't living in as much luxury as they could have. Oddly enough, the house had no security system. Everyone seemed to be living on the same floor right down the hall from each other. lol! And I found it odd that they didn't even have a family vacation home, or that a lot of them didn't really seem to want to travel a lot. Although if they did, it wouldn't really be Dallas and we would be stuck with even more of those episodes of them dancing away in Europe like in the later seasons. I actually thought that the Wentworths' house looked cooler than Southfork. And in terms of living the high life, I would say that Mark Graison knew how to live it up more than the Ewings.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

It was interesting because in some ways, I thought that the Ewings weren't living in as much luxury as they could have. Oddly enough, the house had no security system. Everyone seemed to be living on the same floor right down the hall from each other. lol! And I found it odd that they didn't even have a family vacation home, or that a lot of them didn't really seem to want to travel a lot. Although if they did, it wouldn't really be Dallas and we would be stuck with even more of those episodes of them dancing away in Europe like in the later seasons. I actually thought that the Wentworths' house looked cooler than Southfork. And in terms of living the high life, I would say that Mark Graison knew how to live it up more than the Ewings.

They didn't have the security system with an alarm but they did have a security of system of sorts - rifles and shotguns! LOL

BTW, did you notice that when they got married Bobby and Pam didn't have a honeymoon the first or second time and neither did JR or Sue Ellen the second time they married? I understand not traveling a lot in JR's case - he couldn't be away from Ewing Oil too much, but he and Sue Ellen should have at least taken a honeymoon. Also Ray and Donna should have taken a honeymoon!

 

[Rove]

I thought that the Ewings weren't living in as much luxury as they could have.

It's only years later and multiple viewings of Lorimar Dallas (watching it again by the way) that I'm questioning that very scenario.
What I love about Dallas is how it entrenched itself not to be to extravagant. It was firmly rooted in that Texas soil. The rodeo's, Ewing Bar-b-Que's. Then at the other end of the spectrum, The Oil Baron's Ball. The men in their tuxedo's and the women resplendent in their evening gowns and jewelry.
This is why I preferred Dallas over Dynasty. As their seasons progressed you rarely spotted the characters like Alexis and Krystal in outdoor scenes. It was obvious the writers deliberately created scenarios to occur indoors so as not to mess with Joan and Linda's perfectly coiffed hair (wigs). I mean we can't have make-up/hair stylists spending hours on actresses only to see that work messed up by the environment.

 

[Rove]

They didn't have the security system with an alarm but they did have a security of system of sorts - rifles and shotguns!

And if those failed Sue Ellen was pretty good with a bottle of Vodka, though more often than not she failed to hit her target.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I wouldn't say all the characters were bad. They were certainly flawed as others have noted on here. Besides having a purely good family gets boring after a while. Take The Waltons, nice good wholesome show but it does get boring re-watching it now! Dallas is far more refreshing because the character's had problems. They weren't perfect by any means & that whole Barnes Ewing feud gave the show an extra dynamic by eventually making the characters endearing to us whilst providing us with some good meaty storylines along the way for us to enjoy.

The year long battle for Ewing Oil between Bobby & JR was one of the more notable seasons which involved nearly all the show's characters. Dallas worked best when JR's conniving affected everyone & they all took different sides. This I think was one of shows downfalls in it's later years when they turned it into the JR & Bobby show. JR & Bobby aren't the core of Dallas, they're just a very small cog in a very big wheel. The dynamic of the Barnes Ewing feud was more or less lost when Victoria Principal left the show. Barbara Bel Geddes absence in the shows final year was another fatal mistake, but by then the show was a shadow of it's former self, filled with characters that we didn't warm to because they didn't want to pay Linda Gray & Steve Kanaly any more money to keep them!

It's worth noting how some of the characters changed over the course of the show, take JR, he started out as a conniving manipulative bully & ended up a buffoon who hardly ever got away with anything by the time the show ended.

Miss Ellie & Jock were initially distrustful of Pam for quite a while but this changed over the course of the series run.

Bobby certainly wasn't the good wholesome brother he would've liked us to believe he was. Look at that carry on with Walt Driscoll which resulted in Mickey Trotter's accident. Don't start me on all the women he had too once Victoria Principal left.

Ray started off a bit like JR's sidekick in the early years, but once we discovered he was a Ewing the character began to change.

It's interesting watching the show from start to finish to see how the characters changed. Even poor Pam who started out a strong female character got diluted down in her final series because of the actress leaving the show.

Still that's Dallas and that's why he we love it I guess.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

DALLAS was indeed the first primetime drama whose lead character -- JR -- was an out-and-out villain.

It's only years later and multiple viewings of Lorimar Dallas (watching it again by the way) that I'm questioning that very scenario.
What I love about Dallas is how it entrenched itself not to be to extravagant. It was firmly rooted in that Texas soil. The rodeo's, Ewing Bar-b-Que's. Then at the other end of the spectrum, The Oil Baron's Ball. The men in their tuxedo's and the women resplendent in their evening gowns and jewelry.
This is why I preferred Dallas over Dynasty. As their seasons progressed you rarely spotted the characters like Alexis and Krystal in outdoor scenes. It was obvious the writers deliberately created scenarios to occur indoors so as not to mess with Joan and Linda's perfectly coiffed hair (wigs). I mean we can't have make-up/hair stylists spending hours on actresses only to see that work messed up by the environment.

We used to make fun of the decor, the clothes, those dentists' offices Bobby and JR worked in during the early seasons before DYNASTY even existed. By any measure, early-DALLAS so downscaled the accoutrement it was silly.

It was what trailor park rednecks might think was unattainable: just having a house with a pool.

In contrast, DYNASTY became so enamored of its own glitz-n-glamour image, they soon neglected everything else from story to character to any sense of geographic location whatsoever. Surely a happy medium was possible.

 

[Werewillie Oleson]

This is why I preferred Dallas over Dynasty. As their seasons progressed you rarely spotted the characters like Alexis and Krystal in outdoor scenes

That may be true, but that wasn't the essence of Dynasty, and also not the quintessential difference between Dallas and Dynasty.
From the very start, the Carringtons were presented as America's high society, the biggest and the best.
Ewing Oil (and Falcon Crest, for that matter) were family businesses, while Denver-Carrington (and later the even bigger Colby Enterprises) were more like conglomerates (despite the lacklustre business storylines).
Ranches like Southfork were their holiday homes.

Dallas looked 70s country & western, JR ruled Dallas the way Titus Semple ruled Truro, and Dallas' idea of mondain was Miss Ellie and Sue Ellen going to town.

 

[ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989]

Upon reflection Dallas should not have been the success it became. I can understand its popularity in America but really, this show should not have spiraled into the mega hit around the world. Why would the working class care for an American wealthy family and their issues? On paper it should not have worked.

Others have suggested Dallas aired at the right time as America clawed its way out of a recession into the Ronald Reagan led era of growth and wealth. This still doesn't explain its popularity around the globe. Maybe we were over the niceness of "The Waltons", another Lorimar Production mega-hit. Or that other huge hit, "Little House on the Prairie."

It's a weird concept that as we walked into the 80's with its wealth and opulence, bright colours, big hair, shoulders pads that any player in the NFL would die for, a woman prancing around Venice singing "Like a Virgin" to the horror of the Vatican and parents around the world we all sat down and watched this show that had us enthralled with characters we really should not have cared about, since they were so removed from our ordinary lives.

Dallas arrived at the cusp of change. Finally moving on from the decade that fashion forgot it was like the world had woken up from its 70's induced coma with its dreary brown shades. We had colour!

I'm so thankful that I grew up in the 80's. It was my era. As if Michael Jackson's "Thriller" wasn't enough to wet the appetite another young brash pop star was about to unleash herself onto the world - Madonna.

Indeed the planets had aligned. Everything was good in the world. Great TV viewing (in general), bloody good music (vinyl baby), fashion and amazing friends (which I still have today). Who knew that in 2016 I'd still be sharing my life with those mates now with dad bods and kids who think we know nothing of the world.

More importantly a site like this exists which allows us to reminisce and debate about one of the best shows ever to appear on the small screen.

Amen.

It's true

Dallas came along at just the right time, it was rather ahead of its time when you think how the 80s would turn out, this was during the Jimmy Carter era when Dallas premiered in 1978, it was filmed in the Winter of 1977; the year he got in, so the Carter era was only just beginning, who Shot JR phenomenon also predated the Regan era by months.

You could argue that Dynasty and Falcon Crest were most definetly influenced by the Regan era as they both started in 1981, but not Dallas and Knots, and as a result both shows are more timeless than D & FC, even though Dallas and Knots are older and outlasted both shows.

My main point is, is that as much as the 70s was a great era, it's sadly overshadowed by the 60s on one end and the 80s on the other and even then much of the decade was still largely influenced by the 60s, I think viewers all over the globe were fed up with "safe and tame" shows like sitcoms, cop shows and period dramas that dominated the television landscape on both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific for much of the decade, Dallas comes along and it's something completely new; yes there was Peyton Place and Coronation Street in the 60s (70s and beyond in Corrie's case) but this was the first time we saw the trials and tribulations of a wealthy family, on prime time and shown all over the world, and the characters - all of them I might add - were shady and hiding something except for Miss Ellie, we loved to see this rich American family in turmoil every week and that's why it became the Global phenomenon it was, and thank goodness!

 

[ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989]

That may be true, but that wasn't the essence of Dynasty, and also not the quintessential difference between Dallas and Dynasty.
From the very start, the Carringtons were presented as America's high society, the biggest and the best.
Ewing Oil (and Falcon Crest, for that matter) were family businesses, while Denver-Carrington (and later the even bigger Colby Enterprises) were more like conglomerates (despite the lacklustre business storylines).
Ranches like Southfork were their holiday homes.

Dallas looked 70s country & western, JR ruled Dallas the way Titus Semple ruled Truro, and Dallas' idea of mondain was Miss Ellie and Sue Ellen going to town.

The fact that Dallas looked 70s country and western, well into the mid 1980s was part of the charm, and it was more timeless than Dynasty, the early years of Dallas (1978-81) almost had a late 50s/early 60s vibe, Dallas didn't need to constantly remind the viewers what decade it was in every week, Sue Ellen wore bigger shoulder pads than Alexis during the 1985-88 era yet Dallas still feels timeless, Dynasty dated itself awfully by then.

 

[ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989]

This was why I liked Pam's growth, in the early seasons she was a fire cracker but wary of her place on Southfork, careful not to tread on too many toes, by the time of Jock's Will storyline comes around, she isn't prepared to sit back and side completely with Bobby, she calls him out on his equally dirty tricks and divorces him because of this, then we get to season 8 and just as when it seems the lovebirds will reunite, Katherine snuffs out Bobby and we see
Pam without Bobby completely in season 9, she no longer needed a knight by this point, but now she's on equal footing with JR.
Pam had grown into her potential that been growing since the first day she set foot on Southfork a decade earlier, then TPTB have the "bright" ideas of turning it all into a dream and Pam loses all of her decade long development literally overnight and morphs into Mrs Bobby Ewing.

 

[Werewillie Oleson]

The fact that Dallas looked 70s country and western, well into the mid 1980s was part of the charm, and it was more timeless than Dynasty

But being "different" doesn't mean that one show has to be better than the other.
I like Dallas for being Dallas, and I like Dynasty for being Dynasty. I don't want to choose, I want it all.

 

[ArchieLucasCarringtonEwing1989]

But being "different" doesn't mean that one show has to be better than the other.
I like Dallas for being Dallas, and I like Dynasty for being Dynasty. I don't want to choose, I want it all.

True, Dallas and Dynasty had their ups and downs and I still love 'em :-D

 

[Rove]

DALLAS was indeed the first primetime drama whose lead character -- JR -- was an out-and-out villain.

I just wish they kept him that way. In those early seasons he was ruthless and I was fascinated to witness how far the writers would take the character. But then that dreaded smile of JR Ewing kept finishing off an episode. Towards the back end of Dallas I just didn't care anymore. Instead of that "love to hate" feeling I began to just pity the character.

 

[Rove]

We used to make fun of the decor, the clothes, those dentists' offices Bobby and JR worked in during the early seasons before DYNASTY even existed. By any measure, early-DALLAS so downscaled the accoutrement it was silly.

I wouldn't be so harsh. I accept those early years looked down-scaled however I also accept the limitations and era of the time. Lorimar certainly were not yet fully aware of the mega-hit they had - Dallas was still building - but by the time "Who Shot JR" rolled around the money would have been flooding in, especially from those overseas sales. But what I really noticed in those early years is how they used actual locations. I loved the fact JR is conducting business from his office and you really see movement in the city, not some giant poster propped up in the background.

What I didn't excuse was when the producers scaled back their filming commitments in Dallas and used that replica Southfork on some Hollywood Sound Studio. The background scenery was a dead giveaway, the clouds never moved. I hated this period as it lacked soul. Watching early episodes when filming was conducted at THE ranch I could often hear a thunderstorm in the background - it added to the drama.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

I wouldn't be so harsh. I accept those early years looked down-scaled however I also accept the limitations and era of the time.

No, that was our reaction at the time.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

It was what trailor park rednecks might think was unattainable: just having a house with a pool.

Possibly, but it was also what most people would definitely think is unattainable: owning over 100,000 acres of land. That doesn't just apply to rednecks, it could apply to almost any type of people, whether its white people in a middle class suburb, blacks in the ghetto, or some New York jews living in condos who wouldn't know how to maintain even one acre of land if they had it because they've never lived outside the city.

The land was what made Southfork what it was.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Possibly, but it was also what most people would definitely think is unattainable: owning over 100,000 acres of land. That doesn't just apply to rednecks, it could apply to almost any type of people, whether its white people in a middle class suburb, blacks in the ghetto, or some New York jews living in condos who wouldn't know how to maintain even one acre of land if they had it because they've never lived outside the city.

The land was what made Southfork what it was.

But the paltry decor and wardrobe of the early seasons were viewed as such even before DYNASTY. So it's not just the contrast between the two shows, as some have suggested.