It will be interesting to see whether Dallas can still pull in the viewers more than two decades after it was first screened. Dallas is returning courtesy of e.tv on Monday, 8 May. Call it retro nirvana, but after all these years, Dallas is returning. It will be screened on e.tv, Mondays to Thursdays at 10.30am, starting 8 May.
This soap which held the SA population in its grip (restuarants closed the nights Dallas was screened because business was so poor) in the early days of TV in the country centres on the scheming, greedy, oil baron JR Ewing and the rest of his rather awful family. The series was originally based around Bobby and Pam but JR became the focus for viewers – the person they just loved to hate.
It was one of the world’s longest-running prime-time television soap operas. According to the website Wikipedia, it aired for 14 seasons on the CBS network from 1978 to 1991. Broadcast around the world, it is probably one of the most famous and successful American soap operas outside of the US.
The series also invented the season-ending cliffhanger. As each season ended, viewers were left on the edge of their seats with a finale that usually left one or several characters’ lives in the balance.
We wonder if the younger generation of viewers will be as enthralled as their parents were by the thug JR, his tipsy wife Sue Ellen, the sexy Bobby and the rest of the notorious family. If that happens, it will show a smart move on the part of e.tv.
