Just married

What a dark place “Dallas” is when we arrive!

“Digger’s Daughter,” the show’s first episode, was filmed in the real-life Dallas in early 1978, when the city was being walloped by its coldest-ever winter.

The result: The straightforward plot – boy marries girl, boy brings girl home, girl outwits boy’s scheming older brother – unfolds against a backdrop of deadened skies and stark landscapes, making it seem moodier and more metaphorical than the show’s producers probably intended.

For example, when Bobby and Pamela bounce up to the Southfork ranch to announce their elopement, Miss Ellie comes to the door wearing a heavy coat. It’s as if she’s warning Pam: This is a cold house, full of cold people. Enter at your own risk.

Later, J.R. stands on Southfork’s darkened front porch, stewing because he fears Bobby and Pam will soon give Jock his long-awaited first grandson. The camera pans above the porch to Bobby and Pam’s brightly lit bedroom window and we see how the couple is literally overshadowing J.R.

Also, when Ray tosses Pam into the freezing pond, is it not unlike the dangerous situation she has plunged into by marrying a Ewing?

Southfork lends itself to the atmospherics, too.

The ranch we know best – the one real-life Texans call the world’s second most famous white house – isn’t seen until “Dallas’s” second season. In “Digger’s Daughter” and the other inaugural episodes, another estate stands in for the Ewings’ homestead.

This Southfork is bigger and feels more mysterious. It sits in a sea of yellow grass, making it look a little lifeless, if not downright haunted.

Some of the performances in “Digger’s Daughter” are as unfamiliar as the setting. Victoria Principal is more relaxed here than in later seasons, and Larry Hagman’s initial outing as J.R. is more sinister than mischievous.

In this episode’s final scene, when J.R. declares he won’t underestimate Pam again, Hagman smiles – not with his mouth, but with his eyes.

It isn’t the J.R. grin we’re used to, but it still leaves us wanting more.

Grade: A

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Oh, brother

‘DIGGER’S DAUGHTER’

Season 1, Episode 1

Airdate: April 2, 1978

Audience: 15.7 million homes, ranking 18th in the weekly ratings

Writer: David Jacobs

Director: Robert Day

Synopsis: Bobby Ewing, son of a wealthy oil-and-cattle clan, marries Pamela Barnes, the daughter of his father’s enemy. Bobby’s brother J.R. tries to break up the marriage by recruiting her ex-boyfriend Ray Krebbs, the Ewings’ ranch foreman, to seduce her, but Pam turns the tables on Ray by threatening to expose his secret affair with Lucy, J.R. and Bobby’s teenage niece.

Cast: Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Donna Bullock (Connie), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Desmond Dhooge (Harvey), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Tina Louise (Julie Grey), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Bill Thurman (Phil Bradley), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing), David Wayne (Digger Barnes)

“Digger’s Daughter” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com, iTunes and TNT.tv. Watch the episode and share your comments below.