Dallas Decoder

O, pioneer!

If re-watching “Dallas’s” first season taught me anything, it’s this: Pam Ewing is one of prime-time television’s pioneering women.

No, really.

When “Dallas” begins, Pam isn’t the Miss Goody Two-Boots many of us remember from the show’s heyday. She’s spunkier, scrappier – and more sexual.

The show makes no secret of the fact Pam isn’t a virgin when she marries Bobby.

In “Digger’s Daughter,” the first episode, J.R. tells his younger brother that Ray, Pam’s ex-boyfriend, has bragged for years about her prowess in the bedroom. Later, in “Barbecue,” the season finale, J.R. ticks off a list of Pam’s past lovers (“Just offhand, she’s known Jack what’s-his-name and Ray Krebbs….”), before dismissing her as “trash, just plain trash.”

In this instance, Bobby belts J.R., but Pam’s reputation doesn’t seem to faze him otherwise. As Bobby tells Ray at the end of the first episode, “Pamela’s past is none of my business. She was not my wife in the past – but she is now.”

Bobby’s attitude is refreshing, but so is Pam’s. She’s never afraid to let her husband know she enjoys sex. In “Spy in the House,” for example, Pam suggestively invites Bobby to help her “try out” their new living quarters.

This makes Pam much different from her sister-in-law Sue Ellen, who feels sexually neglected by J.R. but is almost too afraid to tell him.

Breaking Barriers

Bobby and Pam’s healthy sex life makes them unlike most other couples on television during the 1970s – something Victoria Principal points out during the 2004 “Dallas” reunion special.

Standing next to Patrick Duffy, the actress recalls how unusual it was for them “to portray two happily married people who celebrated their physicality – and who were good vertically and horizontally.”

Yet Pam never seems to get a fair shake from television historians.  (Maybe because “Dallas” is a soap opera?)

When the barrier-breaking women of ’70s television are recalled, the focus is almost always on the characters who pursued careers (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show”), expressed opinions (“Maude”) and raised children alone (“Alice,” “One Day at a Time”).

On “All in the Family,” Gloria Stivic was pretty frisky and “The Bob Newhart Show’s” Emily Hartley seemed to enjoy having sex with her husband, but their experiences were played for laughs.

Pam Ewing is probably the first woman on a prime-time drama who was sexually fulfilled – and not ashamed of it.  She helped make possible “The Good Wife” and other contemporary shows that aren’t afraid to depict women enjoying their sex lives.

Praising Principal

In interviews over the years, Principal has suggested she likes Pam best during “Dallas’s” first season – and when you watch these episodes, it shows. The actress is wonderful – confident, relaxed, charming. She supplies “Dallas” with heart.

Pam’s independent streak continues during the second season, when the character resumes her retail career – a decision that leaves Jock aghast. (“What does she need a job for? Ewing women don’t work!”)

But Pam changes during the third season, when she embarks on an all-consuming quest to give birth – reinforcing the old-fashioned notion that a woman’s fulfillment lies in motherhood.

The evolution in Pam’s character can probably be traced to the departure of “Dallas” creator David Jacobs, who essentially handed over the show’s creative reigns to producer Leonard Katzman after its first season.

Jacobs is a genius at writing for strong women characters, as he demonstrated with his next series, the “Dallas” spinoff “Knots Landing.” Under Katzman, “Dallas’s” depiction of women’s sexuality is different. When women are seen enjoying sex, it’s often under illicit circumstances (J.R.’s mistresses, Sue Ellen’s affairs).

J.R.’s increased popularity with audiences also alters Pam’s character. As he grows nastier, the producers try to counterbalance him by making Pam nobler (read: boring).

But no matter who Pam becomes, we shouldn’t lose sight of who she is when “Dallas” begins – and the trail she blazes during those fascinating first five episodes.

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