Editor's Note: This review is a
part of a larger article written by rhett on prime-time television
soaps. To read further, you can find that feature by clicking
the image.
 When J.R. Ewing was shot on May 21st, 1980, it was a shot
that reverberated all over the world. With those two shots
at the end of the cliffhanger finale, A House Divided became
the highest rated single episode in the history of television.
More than just a medium to casually watch or add ambiance
to supper-time leisure, Dallas made primetime
and television in general something that mattered. People
placed bets, speculated and did their own detective work trying
to figure out just who shot the scheming oil tycoon throughout
the summer of 1980. The wait was long, and the wait was bigger
than anything television had ever experienced.
Like
Elton John’s Princess Diana tribute, Candle in the Wind,
or Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Dallas – and particularly season three
– was something that went beyond the popularity of its
medium. People who didn’t buy CDs bought the Diana single;
people who didn’t go to the theater lined up for The
Passion every Sunday; and people who didn’t
watch TV certainly tuned in every Friday to bear witness to
the extended Ewing family’s various exploits. In a medium
usually dominated by sitcom or detective stories, TV was transformed
in the eighties into a decade where the soap opera reigned
supreme, and Dallas was the show to do it.
It made the soap opera a viable advertising tool to audiences
beyond stay-at-home moms, and one that permeated the mainstream.
After its 13 year run, Dallas ended up leaving
a legacy as one of television’s most popular and longest
running primetime shows in the world, and season three was
the series’ apex.
What started off as a Cinderella story of the little poor
girl marrying into a big family in the first two seasons quickly
changed into a show about scandal and exploit as Larry Hagman’s
J.R. took center stage to the marriage of Victoria Principal’s
Pam and Patrick Duffy’s Bobby. He was, as it is said,
the man everyone loved to hate, and J.R.’s backstabbing
and exploiting of every single person he came across made
him the undeniable star of the show. The fact that he would
do little more than smile his eye-to-eye grin after tearing
the heart out of a friend, or an enemy, made the cliffhanger
finale so potent.
Everyone hated J.R., and every single cast member on the
show (a good thirty or so principal and supporting actors
at the time) could make a viable case for wanting him dead.
So with season three, as he runs his wife back into alcoholism,
drives his brother out of the house, cheats his adulteresses
out of money, and drives his closest associates into bankruptcy
after selling off some bogus oil rigs overseas, he constructed
for himself an unavoidable fate. With every backstabbing another
spade was placed on his house of cards, only to have it all
come crashing down in the last minute of the 25 episode season.
He was despicable, but J.R. nevertheless became a pop culture
icon and the smiling face behind the yuppie eighties. Greed
was good, and J.R. was the best at it.
J.R. was no doubt the star of the show, but what made Dallas the primetime mainstay throughout the eighties was the smart
and elaborate intricacy of the stories and characters. Although
housing Texas’s richest family all under one large roof
was a  definite
logical stretch, doing so allowed the writers to create a
complex dramatic machine, where if one character’s gears
were turned, all the others would be affected in one way or
the other. If J.R. made a money-managing mistake at the office,
it would impact on Pamela’s insecurity regarding her
inability to have children, Jock’s ability to keep Southfork,
Miss Ellie’s ties to her father’s legacy, Sue
Ellen’s fear of becoming penniless and little Lucy’s
desire to rekindle her relationship with her parents. The
tapestry of the Ewing family was so tightly knit, that each
little tug on the storyline would have each one scrambling
in one form or another.
There was completeness to the show, where actions taken at
the start of the season would have bearing on the consequences
of the finale. This wasn’t like your typical soap, where
characters would guest star for an episode and then be forgotten
the next. If you were on Dallas, your character made a mark,
and the fact that everything had a meaning on the whole made
people want to watch it every week to observe how every relationship
and action affected the other. The show had a heart above
the guilty pleasure exploits of J.R., and the Ewing family
was one so deep that the show struck emotional oil for so
many seasons.
 Dallas was the soap opera for the people who didn’t like soap
operas, the show about big business for people who hated big
business, the TV show for people who hated TV. It never wallowed
in the melodrama that all the daytime soaps had been guilty
of for so many years. It didn’t distend its storylines
with too many guest characters that took away the focus, like The Guiding Light or As The World
Turns. Dallas stayed committed to
the Ewing family and their pursuit to become oil superpowers
amidst the personal meltdown of family members. It stayed
with its core, in their home of Southfork, and storylines
were too tight and too diverse to ever get bogged down in
the drama of a particular subplot. If Miss Ellie was suffering
the heavy-handed drama of a mastectomy, then J.R. was busy
stirring things up in the office. Season three perfected the
balance between big stories and tight interpersonal drama.
It was a season that encapsulated everything that eighties
America wanted out of their TV at the time, right down to
the gunshots that created one of the biggest pop culture stirs
in television history.
Certainly today, the show has fallen out of pop culture favor
as primetime soaps continue to focus on younger demographics
that tune into The O.C. or One Tree
Hill every week, but Dallas’
legacy, particularly that of the third season, still prevails.
The cliffhanger has become one of television’s most
viable gimmicks since J.R. got his in season three, with entire
shows like Twin Peaks being centered around
the simple resolution of who killed Laura Palmer. The
Simpons would parody Dallas’
season three cliffhanger most memorably with the Who Shot
Monty Burns intrigue of 1995. As huge as Dallas was in 1980, it is interesting to see that its legacy has
gone on to impact shows with audiences who would never dream
of watching a soap opera. Of all the influential shows of
the last thirty years, The Simpsons, Saturday
Night Live, Survivor, Beverly
Hills 90210, Seinfeld, few have
shaped the tapestry of American television like Dallas did all those years ago. Even if it has been kind of brushed
under the rug along with A Flock of Seagulls, boom boxes,
and pet rocks, Dallas’ influence will
continue as long as there are still audiences for soap operas
on primetime. The O.C. ain’t got nothin’
on the brotha’s down in the T.X.
Presentation
Warner houses the set in a nicely packaged five-disc set,
all contained in a nice foldout sleeve with plenty of artwork.
The twenty-five episodes are split up with six-per-disc, with
the Who Shot J.R. finale on a disc to itself. Each disc is
a DVD-18, with each dual-layer side containing three 49 minute
episodes. Considering how most companies like to cram together
all their TV over a few discs, it is a nice surprise to see Dallas – Season Three getting the Texas
sized treatment.
 That
said, the added bit of disc space does not rectify the mediocre
shape of the footage of the series itself. All episodes are
presented in their original full frame, but have nonetheless
amassed some damage over the years. There are a few scenes
where noticeable print damage runs right down the center of
the frame, and others where flicker and inconsistent coloring
become more than a distraction. There are plenty of specs
and scuffs throughout all the episodes, and the end result
is only really fair. It should be said though, considering
the age of the show and how fast and cheap these episodes
were hammered out in their initial run, they could look a
lot worse.
The sound is comparable to the video, with some noticeably
bad additive dubbing in a few segments here and there, and
some bad echoes in some of the courtroom scenes. These are
flaws in the production though, and the mono track here does
not make any attempts to mask them. The sound is pretty flat,
but adds to the retro charm of the show. It’s 1980,
all the way. Oh, and the theme song comes from the same camp
as Rocky II and Friday the 13th,
Part 3D, where a disco beat somehow intrudes oddly
on the typical big band score. It is the sound that dreams
are made of…in mono.
Extras
As for extras, a 20-minute Who Shot J.R.: The Dallas
Phenomenon is housed on the final disc along with its
companion episode, and it provides considerable insight on
the episode and its legacy. Show creator David Jacobs talks
about how the episode never was, how it was tacked on only
after an extra three episodes were commissioned following
the huge success of the rest of season three. Cast members
Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray, Charlene Tilton and Larry Hagman
fill up the rest of the time with anecdotal musings on how
the episode impacted their careers. The featurette also attempts
to provide some historical context for the factors that contributed
to the episode’s success, and overall is perfect in
answering any questions one might have towards the most famous
episode in television history. It answers a little too much
though, as it does reveal who actually shot J.R., so those
wanting to wait in suspense until season four, bow out at
around the 14 minute mark.
Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray are also featured on the set’s
only other extra, a pair of commentaries on two selected episodes.
The two cast members still play well off each other today,
and are  actually
quite flirtatious. Linda Gray exudes an, um, not so smartness
about her, while the Duffster is surprisingly knowledgeable
and honest. A shout out to all those background actors getting
their start is particularly heartfelt, as he explains his
happiness at seeing his son achieve such roles today. As for
his son, you might have seen him in Step by Step 2:
Still Steppin’ (he was pool guy living in Cody’s
van). Linda Gray really doesn’t remember anything, and
just kind of asks Duffy questions the whole time, but they
keep the track bubbly enough to be enjoyable.
The Bottom Line
So for all those too cool to descend into the exaggerated
and extravagant world of the soap opera, give Dallas
– Season Three a shot. Do it for historical
purposes, do it to say you’ve seen the most popular
regular television episode in the history of the medium, do
it to relive the greed of the Me Decade, do it to be taken
in by all the backstabbing done with a smile, do it to question
just how long Patrick Duffy had to use the blow-dryer to get
his hair in such perfect coif. Just do it. Season three was
a landmark, and the perfect place to start for those interested
in trying to permeate the convoluted world of soap operas
– or at least to see what all the fuss was about. The
audio and video quality are just average, but at least the
bitrates are high. A few worthwhile extras and a cheap list
price should make drilling this set less a risk and more a
pleasure. When done right the soap opera is a wonderful place,
and there is no city better than Dallas.
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