I think you mean Professor Joe Moran, but I take your point.
Clive James used to be very funny about
Dallas. I think he was quite fond of it. I remember seeing a copy of the Observer Magazine in art class at school (for some reason, there was always a big stash of Sunday supplements in our art classes) with Linda Gray on the cover and a big article/interview James had done with the cast where he described that wobbly thing Sue Ellen does with her mouth (which I'd never noticed before) and how the Ewings seemed to assemble for a meal every twelve minutes. It just as the
Dallas phenomenon was taking off and was probably one of the first big features about it in the UK (that wasn't about Victoria Principal's love life). I'd love to read it again to see how it holds up, but I've looked on the net, but no luck.
Clive James's fascination with the '80s soaps lasted throughout the decade. I remember him on TV discussing Season 8 of
Dynasty with Germaine Greer of all people.
Just googled Clive James and Dallas together and came up with a few interesting things:
"From his books and beyond, it was clear that he was an ardent fan of Dallas (1978-91) writing on everything from the JR Ewing’s shooting to his vivid descriptions of JR’s screen wife Sue Ellen. He admitted to recording it twice and diagnosing himself as having Dallasosis which he defined as a “condition brought about by excess Dallas”.
https://weegiemidget.wordpress.com/remembrances/remembrances-2019/clive-james/
"Clive James, the Observer's TV critic at the time, called it: "Every American soap opera you have ever seen rolled into one and given an unlimited charge account at Neiman Marcus." The average Brit had never seen any other US soap opera, didn't know what a charge account was, and drew a total blank on Neiman Marcus, too, but that was all part of the fun."
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/sep/04/dallas-return-stetsons-dawn
He first came to general notice writing pithy and frequently hilarious TV criticism for the Observer newspaper in London some thirty or so years ago. His ability to take ephemeral material and turn it into something guaranteed to make one both think and yet laugh out loud was unmatched – I well remember how in one glorious series of articles he would take the mangled southern US drawl of the characters of “Dallas” and turn his column into something approaching comic genius by spelling their dialogue out phonetically.
Thus, you will see, Sue-Ellen Ewing wasn’t an alcoholic, she had someone with what was hilariously described as a “drinkin’ prarlm”.
https://wellthisiswhatithink.com/2013/09/04/a-true-genius-dont-go-just-yet-clive-james/
Any critic who describes "Dallas" as "every American soap opera you have ever seen all rolled into one and given an unlimited charge account at Neiman-Marcus" can't be all bad. By American standards, however, he might be considered by some as just a bit naughty. John Simon-like naughtiness, but less cutting and with more wit. Especially when he goes on to describe J. R. Ewing as wearing "an Astroturf haircut and a hatband composed of what appear to be crushed budgerigars [budgie birds]."
https://www.csmonitor.com/1981/0327/032700.html
It seemed like pretty much everyone in the UK watched Dallas, from the highbrow to the lowbrow. Terry Wogan would recap events sarcastically on his morning Radio 2 show, coining such epithets as “the poison dwarf” (for the diminutive Lucy Ewing), while Clive James regularly chimed in from his cerebral Observer column to guiltily admit that he couldn’t live without his weekly fix of Ewing action.
But such popularity rarely lasts, and Dallas was finally wound up in 1991. Its final episode was a surfeit of surreal plot excess, as an ‘angel’ turned up to show JR how the Ewings might have lived if he’d never been born. In a devilish inversion of It’s a Wonderful Life, they were of course a lot happier. At which point the ‘angel’ revealed himself to be quite the opposite, and urged JR to reach for what Clive James always referred to as his “gern”. We heard the gern go off, and that was it for the Ewings.
https://blog.incoherent.net/2012/09/05/dallas-the-next-generation-season-1-episode-1/
"James appeared on television too, becoming most famous for his shows … about television ... An in-depth discussion about Dallas prompted Stephen Fry to recall watching it dubbed into Italian abroad and realising that half the mesmerising power of JR’s villainry came from Larry Hagman’s decision to give him such a light, airy voice and manner in superb contrast to his diabolic nature."
https://www.theguardian.com/culture...wlingly-funny-critic-who-made-tv-writing-sing
"As if all that wasn't enough Clive James' reviews of [Dallas] in the Observer remain among the best television writing ever published. Genius."
https://www.insider.co.uk/special-reports/business-on-tv-dallas-10154064
"SOMEONE SHART JR
In a week which contained a full-scale production of Hamlet, the well-known tragedy by William Shakespeare, there could be no question about what was the most important event — the long-delayed episode of Dallas(BBC1) in which JR got shot.
The BBC overdid the joke, as the humourless are wont to do. After JR had been plugged there was an item on the Nine O’Clock News (BBC1) to tell the world that it had happened, almost as if anyone who hadn’t been watching would be interested in hearing about it. Before the episode rolled there was a great deal of preparatory barking from the link-men. ‘The long-awaited dramatic climax to the present series of Dallas — the shooting of JR!’ In the event, all you saw was JR getting mown down. You didn’t see who was pulling the trigger. Thus was the way left clear for another long tease-play before the next series arrives to put us out of our supposed misery.
The Beeb should realise, poor soft creature, that the Dallas thing is only a gag if you play it straight. After all, that’s what the actors are doing. With the possible exception of JR himself, everybody in the cast is working flat out to convey the full range of his or her, usually her, emotional commitment. Sue Ellen, in particular, was a study in passionate outrage when she realised the extent of her husband’s perfidy. Her mouth practically took off. You will remember that JR swindled all the other big oilmen in Dallas by selling them his oil wells ‘off the coast of South-East Asia’ just before the wells were nationalised, presumably by the South-East Asian Government. This behaviour filled Sue Ellen with disgerst, and she reached for her gern.
Sue Ellen keeps her gern in a bottom drawer. Or perhaps it is JR’s gern and on this occasion she was only borrowing it. Whatever the truth of that, you were left certain of one thing: that you could not be sure it was Sue Ellen who shot JR. Candidates for the honour were queueing up in the corridor. It is even possible that Miss Ellie shot him, since she has been showing increasing signs of madness, singing her dialogue instead of saying it. Don’t be surprised if the sheriff turns up with a wornt for her arrest. There could be a tornt of wornts."
https://wellthisiswhatithink.com/2013/09/04/a-true-genius-dont-go-just-yet-clive-james/
