- Awards
- 10
Call me a masochist, but I skipped ahead in my beautifully HD rendered Apple TV Dallas Boxed Set. I remember at the time that it started well, but that may have been judging from what was a low bar. Was it? So I checked out the first few episodes.
As if losing some of the main cast wasn't enough to strip away the show's already depleted identity, we also now have no Southfork or Dallas location shots (that weird Californian ranch pops up that is hilariously surrounded by rolling hills); the three way spit is gone; the freeze frame is gone; the titles begin like a cheap video game. Not an encouraging start.
To make up for the looming absence of Southfork and any image of Dallas in a show called Dallas, we have dozens of location shots on rigs. Good try, but it makes the absence more stark
The pacing is weird. Tommy MacKay comes back, is obligingly crazy, shoves a man to his death on an LA street, and comissions a briefcase with a bomb only to end up shooting himself. All of that in the space of three episodes - and his death comes in the middle of an episode! It just looks sloppy, even if some of the individual performances are fine.
This carelessness is evident in other things, not least the lazy redressing of sets. JR's old office from JRE pops up as Cally's new downtown art studio, although they had at least gone to the trouble of painting those sunburst office doors. Most comical of all, is Marilee trying to seduce JR in what we are made to think is her pool even though it has exactly the same tiles as the Sothfork pool and faces onto what is clearly the Southfork terrace that has been draped with curtains.
The actors soldier on. JR produces nothing more than an eye rolling sigh from Bobby who is now well on his way to becoming the super smug bore that we encounter in the TNT series. Hagman looks tired. Kercheval isn't funny any more. A Cliff shorn of his histrionics just isn't as much fun to watch.
Then there is the arrival of James Beamont. I was struck by how handsome the actor was, but I also know his appearance means that the absurd Vanessa-JR brief encounter style stuff is imminent. So there is where I will stop.
Good points? The introduction of Michelle livens things up. She would have been fantastic had she appeared at a time when the show was in the hands of people who actually cared about it.
Oh, and Miss Ellie and her Angela Lansbury cosplay turn was just as tiresome this time around.
As if losing some of the main cast wasn't enough to strip away the show's already depleted identity, we also now have no Southfork or Dallas location shots (that weird Californian ranch pops up that is hilariously surrounded by rolling hills); the three way spit is gone; the freeze frame is gone; the titles begin like a cheap video game. Not an encouraging start.
To make up for the looming absence of Southfork and any image of Dallas in a show called Dallas, we have dozens of location shots on rigs. Good try, but it makes the absence more stark
The pacing is weird. Tommy MacKay comes back, is obligingly crazy, shoves a man to his death on an LA street, and comissions a briefcase with a bomb only to end up shooting himself. All of that in the space of three episodes - and his death comes in the middle of an episode! It just looks sloppy, even if some of the individual performances are fine.
This carelessness is evident in other things, not least the lazy redressing of sets. JR's old office from JRE pops up as Cally's new downtown art studio, although they had at least gone to the trouble of painting those sunburst office doors. Most comical of all, is Marilee trying to seduce JR in what we are made to think is her pool even though it has exactly the same tiles as the Sothfork pool and faces onto what is clearly the Southfork terrace that has been draped with curtains.
The actors soldier on. JR produces nothing more than an eye rolling sigh from Bobby who is now well on his way to becoming the super smug bore that we encounter in the TNT series. Hagman looks tired. Kercheval isn't funny any more. A Cliff shorn of his histrionics just isn't as much fun to watch.
Then there is the arrival of James Beamont. I was struck by how handsome the actor was, but I also know his appearance means that the absurd Vanessa-JR brief encounter style stuff is imminent. So there is where I will stop.
Good points? The introduction of Michelle livens things up. She would have been fantastic had she appeared at a time when the show was in the hands of people who actually cared about it.
Oh, and Miss Ellie and her Angela Lansbury cosplay turn was just as tiresome this time around.
