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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 205073" data-attributes="member: 22">Battle Lines (DALLAS, 05 Oct 84) v Battle Lines (DALLAS, 28 Jan 13)Two episodes with the same title, twenty-nine years apart.In 1984, Pam urges Cliff to ask Afton to marry him, only to learn that they’ve split up and Afton left the series the previous week. (She was pregnant at the time, but no-one knows that yet.) Three decades later, Pam’s namesake, the newly unveiled Pamela Rebecca Barnes, reveals to Bobby and Christopher that she is Afton and Cliff's daughter.In the first Battle Lines, JR is still trying to come to terms with the fact that, thanks to him, Cliff has just struck it rich in the Gulf. By the second, Cliff is even richer. According to New Pamela, he can now buy and sell the Ewings several times over.Back in ’84, Cliff takes great satisfaction in rubbing his newfound success in the faces of those who tried to put him out of business — Vaughan Leland, Sly and especially JR, whom he embarrasses at the Oil Baron’s Club in front of Sue Ellen and the cartel. These two storylines dovetail in the episode's terrific final scene: Pam looks on in dismay as Cliff is arrested for shooting Bobby and then sees JR watching from afar, a smug look on his face. Her eyes narrow in anger. It’s all about the Barneses and the Ewings at the end of 2013 Battle Lines as well, but this time JR's son and Cliff's daughter are joining forces to bring down Christopher and Elena. And what an incredibly sexy couple they make.In 1984, JR is bemused to find Donna Krebbs sitting behind his brother's desk at Ewing Oil, Bobby having given her his power of attorney while he is in the hospital. “You are the one he needs protection from,” Donna tells JR. In 2013, JR is one making himself at home in John Ross’s office at Ewing Energies. “I tried to get him to leave,” John Ross’s secretary whispers to her irritated boss.In 1984, John Ross wants to know if his daddy is going take over Ewing Oil now that Bobby is blind, and JR teaches him that “there are rules” when it comes to family. In 2013, after sleeping with a bride-to-be on her hen night in order to blackmail her father, John Ross brags to JR that the student is about to surpass the master. “Love’s for pussies,” he declares.There’s a touching symmetry between JR and Sue Ellen in these two episodes. In ’84, she listens sympathetically as he explains how badly he feels about Cliff’s success. In 2013, the roles are reversed as an aged JR listens sorrowfully to the news of Sue Ellen’s humiliating defeat in the gubernatorial election.Ann Ewing spends much of New DALLAS collapsing in tears, as well she might after finding out the daughter who was Adam Carrington’d away from her twenty years earlier is still alive. Ann feels like a real person who has wandered into a soap opera by mistake. Her whole energy is different. After receiving confirmation that Emma is her daughter, she runs to Bobby in the living room to tell him — nobody runs inside Southfork.Oh, and John Ross meets his detective in the parking lot of what I’m pretty sure is the same movie theatre Lucy dragged his hero Peter to in Barbecue Four.And the winner is ... Battle Lines (1984)BONUS BEATS:[MEDIA=youtube]IopmR_6zDaE[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

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