Opinion – Dallas Decoder

Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 5 – ‘Barbecue’

April 6, 2012 by Chris Baker 25 Comments

Barbecue, Dallas, David Wayne, Digger Barnes, Jim Davis, Jock Ewing

Best of enemies

“Barbecue,” the final entry in “Dallas’s” too-brief first season, is probably best remembered as the episode where J.R. accidentally causes a pregnant Pam to fall from the hayloft and lose her baby, but I think it’s notable for other reasons.

This is one of the few “Dallas” installments set during a single day. (“Winds of Vengeance,” the previous episode, is another.) “Barbecue” is also the first time Jock and Digger come face-to-face on the show, and seeing the characters together reminds us how smartly the producers cast the roles.

More than anyone else in the “Dallas” ensemble, Jim Davis and David Wayne look like their characters. Davis is as big as Texas. Wayne is small and pitiful. They are Jock and Digger.

I also love the actors’ use of body language in “Barbecue.” Watch closely when Jock and Digger walk to the bar to toast Pam’s pregnancy. Davis strides with effortless confidence; Wayne’s gait is slowly deliberate – exactly how we expect a broken man like Digger to make his way through the world.

But as much as I enjoy Jock and Digger’s scenes together, my favorite “Barbecue” moment is the gossipy exchange between the Ewings’ caterers, Tilly and Sam.

“How are things out there?” Tilly asks.

“Crazy,” Sam responds.

“Oh that ain’t no news. Tell me some news.”

“She’s on the nest – Digger’s girl.”

“Now that’s news.”

I’ve always believed Southfork’s servants represented untapped storytelling potential. Throughout “Dallas,” we see Teresa the maid and Raoul the butler hovering in background, but they’re more like props than people.

Turning the servants into real characters could have grounded “Dallas” a bit more, allowing them to become the audience’s eyes and ears in the world of the Ewings.

Tilly and Sam fill this role in “Barbecue,” but the characters are never seen again after this episode. Too bad. Aside from being a hoot, Tilly and Sam are also among the few African American faces to appear on “Dallas.”

The good news: TNT’s forthcoming “Dallas” revival is expected to offer more of a “Downton Abbey”-ish view of life at Southfork. One of the new characters will be Carmen Ramos, the Ewings’ cook, played by Marlene Forte.

Who knows? Maybe Teresa and Raoul or even Tilly and Sam will show up to give Carmen pointers on working for those darned Ewings.

Grade: B

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Please don’t go, girl

‘BARBECUE’

Season 1, Episode 5

Airdate: April 30, 1978

Audience: 15.9 million homes, ranking 11th in the weekly ratings

Writer: David Jacobs

Director: Robert Day

Synopsis: At the Ewing barbecue, Bobby and Pam announce her pregnancy, while Jock and Digger reignite their feud. J.R. insults Pam and when he tries to apologize, she falls and suffers a miscarriage. Bobby wants to leave Southfork, but Jock persuades him and Pam to stay.

Cast: Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), James Canning (Jimmy Monahan), Haskel Craver (Sam), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Irma P. Hall (Tilly), Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Jo McDonnell (Maureen), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing), David Wayne (Digger Barnes)

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

Filed Under: Critiques, Critiques (Classic), Opinion Tagged With: Barbecue, David Wayne, Jim Davis, Marlene Forte, TNT

Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 4 – ‘Winds of Vengeance’

April 5, 2012 by Chris Baker 21 Comments

Brian Dennehy, Dallas, Linda Gray, Luther Frick, Sue Ellen Ewing, Winds of Vengeance

Two of a kind

There’s an unlikely symmetry between Sue Ellen and Luther Frick, her tormentor in “Winds of Vengeance.”

Both characters are married to cheating spouses, both avoid acknowledging these infidelities, and both feel humiliated when the truth finally comes out. Sue Ellen is by far the more sympathetic figure, but Frick is a victim, too. This doesn’t excuse his vile behavior, but it helps explain it.

And make no mistake: Frick and his cohort Payton Allen are despicable characters.

Not only do they objectify the Ewing women – Frick plans to rape Sue Ellen, while Allen will choose between raping Pam and Lucy – they also treat them sadistically. Allen yanks Pam off the sofa and makes her dance with him, while Frick forces Sue Ellen, a onetime Miss Texas, to don a swimsuit and her old beauty pageant sash and sing for him.

The latter sequence is the most disturbing moment in an episode full of them. Frick forces Sue Ellen to act against her will and derives pleasure from it. It’s mental rape.

Brian Dennehy is effectively creepy during the singing scene, but the standout is Linda Gray, who painfully sobs her way through the song – Barbra Streisand’s “People” – while wearing almost nothing. This is one of Gray’s gutsiest performances.

“Winds of Vengeance” climaxes when Pam makes Frick realize J.R. and Wanda’s encounter was probably consensual, and then Jock and Bobby burst into the house, attack Frick and Allen and send them away.

But “Dallas” doesn’t allow us to bask in this moment of triumph.

In the episode’s final moments, Jock and Miss Ellie put Lucy to bed and Pam walks away with her head on Bobby’s shoulder, leaving J.R. alone in the living room with Sue Ellen, who has collapsed in tears.

He bends down to help her cover up with a raincoat, but she turns away, stands and slowly walks out of the room.

The message is clear: The woman who just sang about people who need people will be recovering from her ordeal alone.

Grade: B

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Domestic disturbance

‘WINDS OF VENGEANCE’

Season 1, Episode 4

Airdate: April 23, 1978

Audience: 15.3 million homes, ranking 12th in the weekly ratings

Writer: Camille Marchetta

Director: Irving J. Moore

Synopsis: J.R., Ray and the Ewing women are held captive by Luther Frick and Payton Allen, two working Joes who want revenge after J.R. and Ray slept with their women. Frick claims J.R. raped his wife, then realizes their encounter was probably consensual. Allen is about to rape Lucy when Jock and Bobby arrive and rescue the family.

Cast: Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Brian Dennehy (Luther Frick), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Nicki Flacks (Wanda Frick), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Cooper Huckabee (Payton Allen), Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing)

“Winds of Vengeance” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.

Filed Under: Critiques, Critiques (Classic), Opinion Tagged With: Brian Dennehy, Linda Gray, Winds of Vengeance

Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 3 – ‘Spy in the House’

April 4, 2012 by Chris Baker 13 Comments

Dallas, J.R. Ewing, Julie Grey, Larry Hagman, Spy in the House, Tina Louise

The spy who loves him

Julie Grey isn’t just J.R.’s longtime secretary and mistress, she’s also his protégé. In “Spy in the House,” when Julie tires of J.R. taking her for granted, she seeks retribution the only way she knows how – the way he taught her.

Consider: Julie is angry when J.R. mistreats her, but she never confronts him. Instead, she connives behind his back – just like J.R. plotted behind Bobby and Pam’s backs in “Digger’s Daughter,” “Dallas’s” first episode.

And just as J.R. uses Julie for sex, she uses Cliff for sex and revenge. Notice how she leaves the incriminating document at Cliff’s bedside after they sleep together – just like J.R. leaves the $100 bill on Julie’s pillow after their sexual encounter at the beginning of this episode.

Julie’s final scene in “Spy in the House” is also telling. Wracked with shame and guilt, she finally comes clean to J.R., then cleans off her desk and walks out of his life – just like he walks out on Sue Ellen in the episode’s first act.

The denouement makes it clear: Julie, the woman who once longed to become Mrs. J.R. Ewing, has instead become J.R. himself.

Despite the havoc Julie wreaks in “Spy in the House,” Tina Louise’s sympathetic performance leaves us rooting for the character, even if Julie doesn’t root for herself. It’s too bad “Dallas” didn’t make Louise a regular cast member or at least give her more screen time as a guest star. She’s a terrific actress.

As for Larry Hagman, he makes J.R. seem genuinely wounded by Julie’s betrayal, infusing his character with a degree of humility that isn’t always evident as the series progresses.

Julie won’t be J.R.’s last mistress – or secretary – to use his own tricks against him, but the look on Hagman’s face when J.R. learns the truth about her suggests she may be the one who hurts him most.

Emotionally, that is.

Grade: A

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Threesome

‘SPY IN THE HOUSE’

Season 1, Episode 3

Airdate: April 16, 1978

Audience: 11.5 million homes, ranking 40th in the weekly ratings

Writer: Arthur Bernard Lewis

Director: Robert Day

Synopsis: J.R. angers his secretary and lover Julie Grey, who retaliates by sleeping with Pam’s brother Cliff Barnes, a crusading government lawyer investigating Ewing Oil. Julie leaks to Cliff a document that proves the company bribed a state senator, who is forced to resign when Cliff makes the document public. J.R. accuses Pam of being the “spy” and is stunned to learn the real culprit is Julie, who quits in disgust.

Cast: Norman Alden (Senator “Wild Bill” Orloff), Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Donna Bullock (Connie), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Hugh D. Gorrian (reporter), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), Tina Louise (Julie Grey), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing)

“Spy in the House” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.

Filed Under: Critiques, Critiques (Classic), Opinion Tagged With: Larry Hagman, Spy in the House, Tina Louise

Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 2 – ‘Lessons’

April 3, 2012 by Chris Baker 10 Comments

Charlene Tilton, Dallas, Lessons, Lucy Ewing, Ray Krebbs, Steve Kanaly

Driving Miss Lucy

For a teenager on television in the 1970s, Lucy manages to find herself in an awful lot of sexual situations. “Dallas” is surprisingly cavalier about this.

In “Lessons,” Pam is the only Ewing who knows Lucy is sexually active, but when she takes it upon herself to straighten out her rebellious niece, Pam’s priority is addressing Lucy’s truancy, not interfering in her sex life. We never see Pam ask Lucy why she is having sex or whether she is protecting herself against the risk of pregnancy and disease.

“Lessons” is also pretty indifferent about Lucy and Ray’s age gap. She’s a high school student and he’s a silver-haired cowboy, but the only acknowledgment their relationship is immoral – if not illegal – comes when Ray tells Pam the Ewings would “kill” him if they discovered he is Lucy’s lover.

In retrospect, all this is pretty shocking.

“Dallas” debuted in an era when television shows routinely dropped moral messages into scripts involving sensitive subjects. Two months before “Lessons” was broadcast, the drama “James at 15” aired an episode in which its lead character, a 15-year-old boy, lost his virginity to a Swedish exchange student. Network censors insisted the boy and girl exhibit remorse after having sex, prompting the show’s head writer to quit in protest.

With “Lessons,” “Dallas” bucks the trend toward “responsible” television. The show renders no judgment on Lucy’s sexuality, trusting viewers to make their own decisions about her choices.

Not dwelling on the script’s provocative aspects allows the producers to concentrate on fleshing out their characters. For example, “Lessons” includes a conversation between J.R. and Bobby that establishes J.R.’s envy over his youngest brother, as well as a nice scene where Miss Ellie and Pam bond over coffee in the Southfork dining room.

But “Lessons’” most enlightening moment is the climactic sequence in the Braddock disco, where Bobby and Pam dance to an electronic version of Jerrold Immel’s “Dallas” theme music.

This is where we learn the biggest lesson of all: Not only is Victoria Principal a terrific actress when “Dallas” begins – she can dance, too!

Grade: B

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No class

‘LESSONS’

Season 1, Episode 2

Airdate: April 9, 1978

Audience: 11.1 million homes, ranking 50th in the weekly ratings

Writer: Virginia Aldridge

Director: Irving J. Moore

Synopsis: Pam learns Lucy is skipping class to be with Ray and makes her attend school. Lucy retaliates by making it look like her math teacher attacked her, but a classmate knows Lucy faked the attack and tries to blackmail her into sleeping with him. Bobby tells Ray to stay away from Lucy and persuades his niece to give Pam a chance.

Cast: Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie Ewing), Donna Bullock (Connie), Jeffrey Byron (Roger Hurley), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J.R. Ewing), Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs), Tina Louise (Julie Grey), Jo McDonnell (Maureen), Ryand Merkey (Mr. Daley), Victoria Principal (Pam Ewing), Larry Tanner (Hal), Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing), Paul Tulley (Mr. Miller)

“Lessons” is available on DVD and at Amazon.com and iTunes. Watch the episode and share your comments below.

Filed Under: Critiques, Critiques (Classic), Opinion Tagged With: Jerrold Immel, Lessons, Victoria Principal

‘Dallas’ and Me

April 2, 2012 by Chris Baker 10 Comments

Me, summer 1980

My earliest memory of “Dallas” isn’t watching it – it’s wearing it.

In the summer of 1980, when I was 6, I was one of the millions of people swept up in the hysteria over J.R. Ewing’s shooting. I begged my mom to get me one of the “I Shot J.R.” t-shirts everyone seemed to be sporting – a tough request for her to fulfill since finding the shirts in kids’ sizes wasn’t easy.

Of course, she somehow got the job done – moms always do, don’t they? – and I proudly wore my shirt during our family’s outing that summer to the local amusement park, where I remember getting my share of strange looks.

I now understand why. I mean, what 6-year-old wears a shirt declaring he shot someone? For that matter, what kind of parent allows their kid to watch a show like “Dallas?” Most baffling of all: Why did I want to watch it?

I’m guessing I became a “Dallas” fan out of inertia. In its early years, the show followed two of my other childhood favorites – “The Incredible Hulk” and “The Dukes of Hazzard” – in CBS’s Friday night lineup, so the first time I encountered the Ewings, my eyes were probably so glazed over, I didn’t notice the absence of green monsters and car chases at Southfork.

I must have started paying attention to “Dallas” around the time J.R. was shot. Once I did, the show captured my imagination and never let go.

At that young age, I was too young to understand everything I saw on “Dallas,” and I suppose that’s why my parents didn’t mind me watching it. Besides, “Dallas” was one show everyone in our house could agree on. Appropriate or not, we watched together. (And as I’ve since discovered, lots of people watched the show when they were kids.)

Today, “Dallas” is like an alternate set of home movies from my childhood.

The show debuted a year before I started kindergarten and ended a year before my high school graduation, so whenever I recall moments from that 13-year span, I can’t help but associate them with what was happening to the Ewings at the time.

My older sister got married and left home a month before J.R.’s shooter was revealed. I started middle school three weeks before Bobby’s “funeral.” Bobby married his second wife April on the night my grandmother suffered a heart attack.

As I got older, I drifted away from “Dallas” – until last year, when TNT announced plans to revive the series with all-new episodes. My DVDs came off the shelf and I rekindled my love affair with the Ewings.

Now, I’m starting Dallas Decoder to relive my “Dallas” memories and maybe figure out, once and for all, why I love the show as much as I do.

This project is proving more fun than I could have dreamed. I’m discovering things about “Dallas” I never noticed before, and my husband Andrew recently began watching the show for the first time, so now I get to see it through his eyes.

Andrew recently watched the “Who Shot J.R.?” storyline play out without already knowing the shooter’s identity. Can you imagine?

Come to think of it, Andrew’s birthday is tomorrow. (He was born 365 days before “Dallas” debuted, which I’ve always considered a sign we were destined to be together.)

An “I Shot J.R.” t-shirt would make a nice birthday gift, but where could I get one on such short notice?

Mom, help!

Why do you love “Dallas”? Share your comments below and read more opinions from Dallas Decoder.

Filed Under: Opinion, Opinion Tagged With: Dallas Decoder, TNT, Who Shot J.R.?

Critique: ‘Dallas’ Episode 1 – ‘Digger’s Daughter’

April 2, 2012 by Chris Baker 28 Comments

Bobby Ewing, Dallas, Digger's Daughter, Pam Ewing, Patrick Duffy, Victoria Principal

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.