... including a spin-off "Knot's Landing" that began in 1979. I'm originally from Dallas, I lived there the first 35 years of my life. I was 20 when this premiered back in 1978, and I hardly recognized the place that was portrayed, to the point that it was funny. The show tried and changed a few things up front, things that unless you go back and watch season one, you will quickly forget or maybe you never knew at all. Basically the entire series is about the conflict between two families - the Ewings and the Barnes', with other characters thrown in as needed. Jock Ewing heads the Ewing clan, which runs a successful oil company. "Digger" Barnes is a wildcat oil man who basically has been beaten down by life and by the Ewings in particular. Jock and Digger started out on the same rung of the same ladder, Jock has succeeded by foul means or fair, Digger has failed.Throw into this a rivalry between Jock's two sons - the older, meaner, and famous J.R. (Larry Hagman), and the younger and more honest Bobby (Patrick Duffy). J.R. is the son that basically runs the family company and he will have no sibling even sharing that position. Now throw another complication of Bobby having just married Digger's daughter, Pam, and Pam's brother Cliff being the long time lover of J.R.'s long ignored and cheated on wife, Sue Ellen (Linda Grey), and you have all kinds of interesting scenarios. There is another Ewing son, Gary, and he has long since wisely decided to get away and stay away from this toxic situation and these toxic people. Jock and his wife are finishing raising Gary's daughter, Lucy (Charlene Tilton), who is a spoiled brat.In the beginning, the focus was more on the Romeo and Juliet situation of Bobby and Pam, but people soon showed far more interest in the horribly evil greedy and lusty J.R., so the focus went to him and pretty much stayed there.It's hard to keep a show focused for fourteen seasons, especially when you have real life situations pop up and story lines play out. For example, one cast member died early in the series (Jim Davis as Jock) and his absence was explained away for a full year before Jock's death was written into the script. As the years wore on other cast members left never to return, others left and were then urged to come back. This resulted in all kinds of strange devices and even hurtful situations. The strangest plot device - the absence of Bobby turning into a season long dream when the season after Duffy's exit became a complete disaster AND Patrick Duffy agreed to return. The hurtful situation - Donna Reed was asked to step in to replace Barbara Bel Geddes as Jock's widow, Miss Ellie, only to be summarily shown the door when Bel Geddes agreed to return.And the one situation nobody ever talked about. In season one under aged Lucy is shown sleeping with Ewing hired hand Ray Krebs. Several seasons later it is revealed that Ray is the result of a past affair Jock had, making him a new rival of J.R.'s but also (OH THE HORROR!) Lucy's uncle! Great shades of incest, I think the writers just hoped everyone would forget this. (Somebody get me a bucket! BLECH!) Although everybody displayed good acting here, Dallas would have probably petered out after just a few seasons if not for the supreme job Larry Hagman did at portraying J.R. He stole every scene, every oil well, and every woman, and he was the man in the ten gallon hat with a menacing smile that everybody loved to hate. The second highest rated show in TV history - back when watching TV was a three network communal experience - had to do with who had shot him at the end of the third season in 1980. With all of his antics there was no shortage of suspects. Contrast this with the hapless affable accidental astronaut he played in "I Dream of Jeannie" and you have to admit Hagman showed great range. The fact that the reincarnation of Dallas could not go on after Hagman's death is somewhat a testament to his role as the glue that held everything together.The unrealistic part? Coming from Dallas, the Ewings would have probably lived in Highland Park or Preston Hollow, not some ranch in the middle of nowhere. But in retrospect, maybe living on the ranch was a good idea, or else today's Ewings would have Dubya as a neighbor with the constant secret service intrusion, lobbyists parking on their front yard, stray bullets from the hunting rifle of visiting ex-Veep Cheney, and everything else that would come from having this particular ex president as a neighbor.Sorry my review was so long, but Dallas was a long series and Texas is a very big state.

First soap opera for me. Bridge between communism era and transition to democracy. A book with strong color images. Crumb from far America. Spider web. And a character - JR. The years of high school are parts of evening when Dallas magic is present. Love stories, a dream as explanation for slices of movie, oil, Texas, fights, cruelty, wives and powerful husbands, Miss Ellie and the ranch, pieces of exotic world and tension of each meeting. It is not an impressive show today. Only an old picture in attic or a childhood game. The episodes are smoke of lost time. Proofs of a youth or pieces of a way to discover world. So, only remarks may be gentle and fragile. Dallas is beginning . One from many others. A porch. Or chewing gum. So, just ash carpet.

The first four to five seasons represented television at its finest---the show had genuinely compelling characters, story lines, production values, you name it. But after about five years, as is typical of long-running TV shows, the producers and the writers started to run out of ideas. Plot lines grew increasingly absurd, too many ideas were recycled, and when the regular cast members started quitting the show (looking for greener pastures they never found), they were replaced by new characters who were nowhere near as interesting or charismatic---in fact, Morgan Brittany's Katherine Wentworth character remains my own personal nominee for most repellent character in the history of television. Linda Gray reportedly tired of playing Sue Ellen as a drunken harridan, and demanded that producers turn her into a positive role model for women, which took the edge completely off her character. Ditto for Charlene Tilton who reportedly demanded that producers start portraying Lucy as a wholesome young woman instead of the nymphomaniac she started the show as.The producers started to chicken out as the years went by. Stung by criticism that the show glorified evil, the writers started to have J.R.'s schemes consistently fail, corresponding with increasing scenes of J.R. getting punched out. A potentially lively story had Sue Ellen getting involved with a much younger man (Christopher Atkins), but the producers pulled so many punches with it there were no sparks. At one point, the show implied that a romance between Sue Ellen and the older Clayton Farlow (Howard Keel) was forthcoming---I never spoke to a Dallas fan that didn't want to see them get together, but it never happened; Clayton married Miss Ellie instead.Bottom line is, buy the first five seasons on DVD and enjoy them, and try to forget the rest of the series ever happened.

J.R. Ewing is, to me & many others, the top television character ever.Larry Hagman did a great job with this character.One of my all time favorite television shows.For as much as I like it I did not like everything.NEVER did like the Lucy character. Ray was not a favorite, especially when they made him to be Jock's son. Just the soap opera side of the show working here.Really liked the Pam & Bobby characters. Liked Donna, Miss Ellie & Clayton.But, hands down, it was J.R. that was the show.If I ever was to visit the Dallas area I would like to drive by the ranch that was used for South Fork.The year being a dream........Too many bar fights though. Did it not seem every time a cast member went to a bar or night club a fist fight had to start?