With the season two premiere
of TNT’s Dallas quickly approaching, I decided to write a review of the show’s
first season as a whole, so I went back and watched season one two times. In
this post I’m going to talk about the season one episodes, as well as each of
the characters and the character development they went through throughout the
season. Let me begin by saying that this is a biased prospective that’s based
solely on the TNT series since I’ve only seen the first episode of the original
series. I’m not looking to get into any kind of pissing match with other fans
of the show, especially fans of the original series since I’m sure a few of my
opinions regarding the character Bobby won’t be very popular with some of them.
That being said here are my thoughts on season one.
I have to say that I think
the show got off to a very good start right from the very beginning. I loved
the first two episodes of the series that made up the two-hour series premiere
event. Dallas definitely started off in a very shocking manner with Bobby
finding out that he had stomach cancer. I always think that it’s important for
TV shows to get off to a grand start, and the scene at the beginning of the
episode where Bobby finds out that he has cancer definitely helped the show do that.
That being said, I did find
the whole thing with Bobby having stomach cancer to be relatively pointless as
the season continued. Aside from Bobby being diagnosed with stomach cancer
being the motivation for him wanting to sell the Southfork ranch, Bobby having
cancer didn’t really add much to the show. For example, aside from the doctor
telling Bobby about oral chemo therapy pills that he could take to treat the
cancer, having him double over in pain numerous times throughout the first
episode and telling Ann how his cancer diagnosis was one of the reasons why he
wanted to sell Southfork, they didn’t really do anything too significant with
Bobby’s cancer storyline until episode 1x09 “Family Business”. The writers
definitely could have done a lot more with that storyline than they did, and in
the end that storyline just came across as being wasted potential in my
opinion.
What I have to say next is
one of the things that I’m guessing some fans will have a problem with, but as
the season continued I found myself hating Bobby more and more to the point
where I was hoping that he would die of complications from the cancer. Only
this time, the writers wouldn’t miraculously bring Bobby back from the dead by
having the whole storyline be a dream like the writers of the original series
did with season nine, A.K.A. “The Dream Season”. The main reason why I hate the
character Bobby so much is because I feel like he’s just so self-righteous and
arrogant, which led me to be happy whenever J.R. and John Ross managed to
one-up him, even if it was only momentarily before Bobby once again got the
upper hand. Bobby also almost always seemed to be angry about something, and
both the character and the way that Patrick Duffy played the part simply came
across as being two intense for my taste most of the time. If Patrick Duffy
were to decide to leave the series at some point, I honestly wouldn’t miss him
one bit, because Bobby is definitely my least favorite character on the show.
Although, considering the fact that he’s one of the characters that serves as a
link to the original series, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time
soon, especially considering the fact that Larry Hagman just recently passed
away.
Christopher is a very close
second least favorite character on the show for me. When I think about Christopher,
I just can’t help but think that like Bobby, he’s also very arrogant and
self-righteous. He also comes across as being very weak in my opinion, and not
just because he along with Bobby are supposed to be the “good guys” while John
Ross and J.R. are supposed to be the “bad guys”, the schemers. A part of why I
like John Ross and J.R. more than Christopher and Bobby is because when it
comes to soap operas, I’m very prone to liking the characters that are
considered the bad guys and are constantly concocting some kind of scheme more
than I usually like the characters that are supposed to be viewed as the good
guys. I think that’s true for a lot of people, which is most likely how the
character J.R. became so popular with people all around the world when the
original series was airing.
What I love about John Ross
is that he proved throughout season that he’s not afraid to go behind J.R.’s
back and plot against him, which takes a lot of guts from where I’m standing. He’s
also capable of handling a scheme with a lot less help from J.R. or other
people for that matter, and he’s also pretty good at blackmailing and
manipulating people, unlike Christopher who always seems to need Bobby around
for backup. Sure, John Ross’ schemes often backfired on him throughout the
season, but at least he wasn’t afraid to act independently. With Christopher,
he seems incapable of going up against John Ross or anyone else for that matter
without having Bobby there for backup, which made makes it very challenging for
me to have respect for the character. Christopher and Bobby followed each other
around as they schemed against John Ross and J.R. throughout the season to the
point where I felt like they were each other’s shadows, which is one of the
many things that made me hate the character Christopher so much. It just made
him seem rather weak and cowardly in my mind, and because of that I wasn’t
really surprised that people like John Ross, J.R. and Rebecca were able to
“walk all over him” like Christopher told Bobby in episode 1x05 “Truth and
Consequences”.
In addition to not liking
the character Christopher, I’m also not really a fan of the writing for the
scenes between Christopher and Bobby. The dialogue in their scenes together
often felt rather cheesy to me, and left me wondering if some pages from scripts
for the TV show 7th Heaven had ended up in the scripts for Dallas’
first season by mistake. One example of this would be episode 1x04 “The Last
Hurrah” when Christopher told Bobby about how he feels torn between his
feelings for Elena and his marriage to Rebecca after finding out about the
email that Elena got. It felt really cheesy to me when Christopher told Bobby
that he hadn’t told him because he was afraid that he (Bobby) would judge him
and be disappointed in him, and Bobby responded by saying that wasn’t possible.
Personally, I think it’s only natural for parents to be disappointed in their
children at some point, so that whole bit of dialogue seemed rather ridiculous
and really did remind me a lot of 7th Heaven.
It’s not just the way the
character is written that makes me not like Christopher though; a big part of
it has to do with Jesse Metcalfe’s acting on the show. After watching Jesse on
the canceled soap opera Passions, Desperate Housewives and the movie John
Tucker Must Die, I feel like I’ve earned the right to say that I think that
Jesse Metcalfe is a terrible, terrible, terrible actor. Whenever I’ve watched
Jesse in something, I can’t help think of the TV show Friends and wonder if
he’s using Joey Tribbiani’s “smell the fart” acting technique. I feel like he
only uses one or two different facial expressions in his scenes on the show.
It’s like he thinks if he kind of squints his eyes and frowns a little bit that
he’s giving a moving performance on the show, but he isn’t.
Personally, I think that the
only reason Jesse Metcalfe has gotten where he is today with his acting career
is because of his looks. Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong, but once Jesse Metcalfe
gets older and his looks start to fade, I think he’s going to be royally
screwed in terms of his acting career. Whenever I think about how Cynthia Cidre
claims that as soon as she watched Jesse Metcalfe’s audition for Dallas on tape,
she instantly knew that he was the perfect actor to play Christopher Ewing, I
can’t help but wonder if Cynthia was high on crack when she was watching his
audition. There aren’t enough words in the English language to adequately
describe how terrible Jesse Metcalfe’s acting is.
If you ask me, Jesse
Metcalfe being cast as Christopher Ewing is the only true misfire when it comes
to casting for the show. I really liked Josh Henderson on Desperate Housewives,
and I thought that he did a pretty good job in the episodes of 90210 that he
guest-starred in during the show’s first season. The fact that Josh’s character
on 90210 turned out to be a con artist makes me think that playing that
character must have been good practice for playing a character like John Ross.
I also really liked Josh on Desperate Housewives where his character was
basically a charming and rebellious guy who in my mind ultimately had a good
heart deep down, and looking back on season one of Dallas, his role on
Desperate Housewives during its’ third season also seems like it must have been
good practice for playing a character like John Ross, much like his role on
90210 was. Josh Henderson really is one of the biggest standout actors on the
show in terms of the new cast members, in my humble opinion. There were several
episodes where I felt like Josh Henderson stood out to me the most in terms of
the acting on the show. Even when there were other cast members that really
stood out to me at times, Josh was consistently one of the main standout stars
throughout the show’s first season for me, especially in episode 1x05 “Truth
and Consequences”, episode 1x08 “No Good Deed”, episode 1x09 “Family Business”
and episode 1x10 “Revelations”.
With the unfortunate recent
passing of Larry Hagman, a major void has been left on the show in terms of the
show needing a character who is the main schemer and somewhat of a villain that
you’re still able to root for. It’s my belief that Josh Henderson and the
character John Ross both have the potential to fill that role in time. I’m not
entirely sure that both Josh Henderson and the character John Ross will be able
to completely fill that void on his own once they get to the point in season
two when J.R. will be murdered, or if he’ll ever be able to fill that void all
on his own, but I do think that both Josh Henderson and Mitch Pileggi have the
potential to fill that void together, at least to a certain degree, if not
entirely.
Rebecca is also a really
great character, and I think that Julie Gonzalo plays the role very well.
Considering the fact that she’s revealed in episode 1x03 “The Price You” as
being the one who was behind the infamous email that Elena got, breaking Elena
and Christopher up, I always that thought that both of the writers and Julie
did a good job of making Rebecca a somewhat sympathetic character. I’m sure
that some people might disagree with my assessment of Rebecca being a
sympathetic character, but the fact that she expressed a great deal of
reluctance to go along with John Ross’ plan to get pictures of Mitch Lobell’s
son doing drugs, so he and J.R. could blackmail Mitch with them in episode 1x04
“The Last Hurrah” and the fact that she ultimately couldn’t go through with the
plan makes it clear that she does seem to feel a certain level of remorse for
what she and Tommy were doing to the Christopher and the rest of the Ewing
family.
There were quite a few other
moments throughout the season where Rebecca does show that she has some sense
of a conscious. Although, given the fact that it’s revealed at the very end of
the season one finale that she’s actually Cliff Barnes’ daughter, Pamela
Rebecca Barnes, and that he’s actually the one who has been behind Rebecca’s
schemes all season long, it sounds like Rebecca is going to become a full-on
villain and a real force to be reckoned with, so I don’t know how sympathetic
she’ll be now based on the spoilers that I’ve read for season two. It also
sounds that she’ll now be going by the name Pamela, which will be really weird
for me to adjust to since I’m so used to referring to the character as Rebecca
Sutter at this point. One of the things that I’m looking forward to the most
about season two is definitely to see where things go next with Rebecca/Pamela.
I have rather mixed feelings
regarding the character Elena Ramos. On the one hand, I think that Jordana
Brewster is a very good actress and that she plays the part very well. I
especially like the scenes between Josh Henderson and Jordana in season one,
because I really like the relationship between John Ross and Elena. I also
think that Josh and Jordana have a lot of chemistry together compared to amount
of chemistry that Jordana and Jesse have. Unfortunately, there were a fair
amount of times throughout the season where Elena annoyed the hell out of me,
especially when it comes to her relationship with Christopher. I hate how she
gave Christopher the cold shoulder after he told her that she basically doesn’t
have any integrity and yet she seemed to have completely forgotten about what
Christopher said to her an episode or two later. The season finale also didn’t
end with me thinking very highly of Elena or Christopher.
The fact that she accepted
John Ross marriage proposal at the beginning of season finale and then dumps
him about twenty minutes into the episode after she finds out about the secrets
that he was still keeping from her, and then gets back together with
Christopher at the end of the season finale just makes her seem so flaky and
slutty in my eyes. It bugs me even more that it appears Elena and Christopher
have gotten engaged again at the end of the finale since Christopher gave her
the engagement ring that he apparently gave her the first time he proposed to
her. The fact that Elena went from getting engaged to John Ross to dumping John
Ross and getting back together with Christopher all in the span of just one
episode is something that I would expect to happen in 90210. Given the fact
that the writing for the show’s first nine episodes had been really great for
the most part, it was really disappointing to see the quality of the writing
for the season finale be on par with the quality of the writing for 90210 since
I know the writers of Dallas are more than capable of doing so much better than
that.
I’ll admit that there were
times throughout the season where I found Elena a tad boring compared to all of
the other characters, so there’s a part of me that hopes the writers will do
something add a little bit of “zest” to the character Elena in season two.
Perhaps they could do something to make Elena just a tad bitchy at times since
I would classify her as being one of the good characters at the moment, and like
I said earlier, I usually prefer the “bad guys” over the “good guys” when it
comes to soap operas. I think it would be unfair of me to only criticize
Elena’s behavior in the season finale since Christopher’s behavior in the
season finale as well as the majority of the season wasn’t much better, if not
a lot worse at times. Christopher was constantly acting like a jerk to almost
every character on the show throughout the season, and yet he constantly seemed
to think that he was better than people like John Ross and J.R.
There’s also the fact that
Christopher constantly bounced back forth between not wanting to have anything
to do with Rebecca and wanting to make his marriage to Rebecca work. Sure, he was
definitely in a very difficult situation when it came to Rebecca, but it really
bugged me that he dumped Rebecca so quickly in the season finale after he finds
out about the “real” Rebecca Sutter, calling her a “lying piece of garbage”. I
know that Rebecca had been lying to him all season long and that she had done a
lot of bad, or at best questionable, things throughout the season, but
Christopher calling Rebecca a “lying piece of garbage” seemed beyond cruel in
my opinion. That scene didn’t leave me hating Rebecca and feeling sorry for
Christopher, it actually did the opposite. Once it was revealed that Rebecca Sutter
is actually Pamela “Rebecca” Barnes, it left me hoping that she makes
Christopher’s life a living hell in season two.
One thing that I found
myself thinking about a lot as I was watching the show’s first season back when
it was airing on TV is that I really wish that the writers had featured Linda
Grey/Sue Ellen on the show more than they did. There were several episodes that
she wasn’t even in. One of the hopes that I have for the show’s second season
is that I would like to see Linda get more screen time, especially since Larry
Hagman has passed away.
I say this because I always
really enjoyed Sue Ellen’s storylines throughout the season, especially when
she was dealing with Harris and how he was trying to launder money through her
campaign for the race for governor of Texas. I’ll admit that a big part me was
wondering if the scene where Harris gives her a bottle of burgundy and pours
her a glass of it in episode 1x09 “Family Business” is meant to serve as
foreshadowing to the idea of Sue Ellen falling off the wagon and that she’ll
start drinking again in season two. There’s a part of me that would like to see
that happen, because I definitely think it would create some interesting drama
on the show.
The character Ann is a major
question mark in my opinion. On one hand, I really like the character Ann, and
I think that she’s a character that’s very well written for the most part and that
she’s also very complex. She has a very maternal and compassionate side, which
comes out the most after the truth about Rebecca sending the email is revealed
and later on in the season when Harris was trying to get Sue Ellen to launder
money through her campaign. I thought that it was very interesting to see how Ann
continued to be kind to Rebecca even after everybody found that she was the one
who sent the infamous email to Elena and that she and Tommy had been conspiring
against the Ewing family. Ann even called Christopher out on how spiteful and
cruel he was acting towards Rebecca in episode 1x07 “Collateral Damage”, which
brings me to the main problem that I have regarding the character Ann.
The problem I have isn’t
really about the character alone, it has more to do with the mystery
surrounding the character Ann and what she’s hiding about her past. Apparently,
the writers had been planning to reveal Ann’s secret at the end of the season,
but changed their mind at some point, because they didn’t think that it was the
right time to do that. I can kind of understand that since the first season
only consisted of ten episodes. Even if that’s why they chose to wait until
season two to reveal Ann’s secret, I feel like the writers should have given
the viewers a few more crumbs of information regarding Ann’s secret throughout
the season. With exception of showing Ann at the park watching kids as they
were playing on the several occasions throughout the season, having her break
down in tears over a locket that Harris gives her and showing a picture of her
holding a little girl from the file that Harris gave Bobby on her as it burned
in the fire place in episode 1x07 “Collateral Damage”, the writers haven’t
really given the viewers very much insight into what Ann’s secret involves,
which only Harris seems to know about.
The fact that Harris appears
to know about the secret Ann is keeping makes me wonder why he hasn’t come
right out and just told Bobby what Ann is hiding from him. While Harris could
very easily do that, doing that wouldn’t really make very much sense from a
storytelling standpoint since the writers wouldn’t be able to have any buildup
to the reveal of Ann’s secret, so the reveal wouldn’t have much of a payoff.
However, unless I’m mistaken, Emma Bell is joining the cast in season two as
Ann and Harris’ daughter, Emma Brown. If that’s indeed true, I’ll be kind of upset
that the producers revealed that detail about the character before the season
even began airing, because I feel like it could potentially be giving away
Ann’s secret a little bit before she’s even introduced on screen, rather than
have the producers wait until she’s actually introduced on the show to reveal
that information about Emma Bell’s character.
From where I’m standing, I
think it might have been a little helpful for the writers to give the viewers a
few more small details regarding Ann’s past, because it would have helped
viewers to make a little more sense of why Ann reacted to situations a certain
way at times, namely the fact that she continued to show Rebecca kindness and
compassion even after Christopher found out that she had sent the email. It
could also have potentially helped explain why she lashed out at Christopher
the way that she did in episode 1x07 “Collateral Damage”. I’m sure a part of it
was because she was on edge after Harris gave her the locket, but that still
doesn’t entirely explain her behavior in that episode.
One thing that I really like
about the character Ann is the fact that she’s a very warm and maternal person,
and yet she has shown that she is more than capable of going up against someone
like J.R. She even managed to scare J.R. a little bit in episode 1x09 “Family
Business”, which really says a lot about what a strong and formidable woman she
is. Brenda Strong has played the part beautifully so far, and I’ve been a fan
of hers’ for years. I always loved her on Seinfeld, she was great on Everwood,
and I also really enjoyed seeing her on 7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls
back when they were on the air. I remember being beyond thrilled to see her be
cast as Mary Alice on Desperate Housewives and finally get a long-term role on
a TV show, even if she was only narrating the show most of the time, because
I’ve always thought that she was very talented and deserved to have a long-term
role on a successful TV show. I personally think that it’s great that she got
cast on Dallas in another series regular role so soon after Desperate
Housewives ended, especially since her role on Dallas is featured on screen.
Brenda also guest-starred in an episode of Scandal recently, and I thought she
did a great job on that show too. I strongly recommend to anyone reading this post
who might not already be watching Scandal that they start watching the show
immediately. Scandal is a truly brilliant show, if you ask me, but I digress.
I have say that I think it’s
kind of funny that both Desperate Housewives and TNT’s Dallas began with Brenda
Strong’s character having a secret. Given the fact that the writers of Dallas
made it pretty clear that Ann is very handy with a shotgun, I hope that Ann
doesn’t end up blowing her brains out at some point like Mary Alice did at the
beginning of Desperate Housewives.
Speaking of Desperate
Housewives, I have to wonder if casting three actors from the show (Brenda
Strong, Jesse Metcalfe and Josh Henderson) was somewhat intentional and was a
ploy on the producers’ part to try and lure Desperate Housewives fans into
watching the new Dallas, or if it’s just a weird coincidence. Personally, if I
had to guess, I would say that casting them might have been a ploy to try and get
Desperate Housewives fans to watch the show to a certain extent, but for the
most part I’m going to assume that it’s just a weird little coincidence and a
nice bit of trivia for people watching the show.
If I haven’t already made my
thoughts regarding the character Bobby extremely clear, I absolutely hate him.
The main problem that I have with the character is that he acts rather arrogant
and self-righteous, which are two traits that always annoy the hell out of me
whenever I come across fictional characters or people in real life with those
traits. Plus, Patrick Duffy constantly just across as being way too intense for
my taste on Dallas in terms of the way he has played the part of Bobby Ewing so
far, which I find very off-putting as a viewer. I really liked him on Step By
Step, and I thought he was great on The Bold and The Beautiful; I just don’t
like him on Dallas. Since the writers most likely won’t write Bobby or
Christopher off the show unless Patrick Duffy and Jesse Metcalfe decide to
leave the show at some point, especially since Larry Hagman just recently
passed away, I’m probably just going to have to learn to tolerate the characters
Bobby and Christopher the same way I had to tolerate the character Serena on
Gossip Girl.
As for my thoughts on the
episodes of the show, I thought that the first two episodes of the series that
made up the two-hour series premiere were great. It did a great job of
introducing each of the characters, as well setting up a lot of the storylines
that played out throughout the season, especially the rivalry between John Ross
and J.R. versus Christopher and Bobby regarding the future of the Southfork
ranch.
Episode 1x03 “The Price You
Pay” was rather boring for the most part, and I felt like it was mostly filler
and rather redundant. It was basically more back and forth scheming and feuding
over the sale of the Southfork ranch. Considering the fact that it was only the
third episode of the series and the second week that the show had been on the
air, that definitely wasn’t a good time to have a filler episode. The only
truly interesting thing about that episode was John Ross finding out that
Rebecca was the one who sent Elena the email at the end of the episode. I’ll
admit that I wasn’t a big fan of episode 1x04 “The Last Hurrah” either at
first, but when I was watching the season again in preparation for writing this
post, I realized that the episode had really grown on me. I feel like the show
really hit its stride and kicked into high gear starting with episode 1x05
“Truth and Consequences” where Christopher and the rest of the Ewing family
found out that Rebecca had sent the email. With the exception of certain parts
of the season finale that felt too rushed for my taste, the season only got
better beginning with “Truth and Consequences”.
Not only does the show have
great writing and great acting, save for Jesse Metcalfe of course, I also feel
like that the production value and camera work for the show is excellent. If I
had to pick a favorite episode in terms of the camera work for the show, I
would say that would be episode 1x07 “Collateral Damages”. I thought that the
part of the episode John Ross leaves Marta’s place and goes outside, only to
discover Marta’s dead body laying on top of a car that had been smashed by the
impact of her body landing on it was very well shot, and the camera work in
that scene really heightened the level of shock that John Ross was in and made
Josh’s performance in that scene even better than it might have been had they
shot that part of the episode differently. Another scene that I really liked in
terms of the way it was shot was first scene with John Ross and Elena in
episode 1x08 “No Good Deed”. I really liked Josh Henderson and Jordana
Brewster’s acting in that scene, but I especially liked the way the lighting was
done, because I felt like it really fit the tone of the scene.
All things considered, TNT’s
Dallas had a truly fantastic first season. With the exception of episode 1x03
“The Price You Pay”, which I think is the weakest episode of the season, and
certain parts of the season finale feeling too rushed, the writing for the
show’s first season was fantastic. As the casting on the show, with the
exception of the producers making the terrible mistake of casting Jesse
Metcalfe as Christopher Ewing, all of the roles were perfectly cast, especially
when it comes to John Ross and Rebecca/Pamela. Josh Henderson and Julie Gonzalo
both play their roles perfectly, and they frequently stood out to me the most throughout
the season when it came to the new cast members’ acting. After having such a
great first season, I can’t wait to see what the writers have planned for season
two. Although, watching season two will definitely be bitter sweet due to Larry
Hagman passing away during production for the season.
That being said, I give
season one a rating of an A-.
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