TV review - the return of Dallas
It had been too long coming – but, at last, Dallas (Channel 5) was back on our screens, writes Louise Jew.
There they all were – the real live JR, his pouting former missus Sue Ellen and saintly brother Bobby, all played by the original actors, Larry Hagman, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy.
But this time it's like all of us just stepped out of the shower – and found we'd only dreamed that there was no Dallas for the last 21 years.
Bobby Ewing, who was killed off at the end of series eight, famously emerged from the shower to convince us his death had all been just a dream.
And the watery vision was very apt, considering that Duffy had played a web-fingered character in a previous 1970s series, The Man from Atlantis.
"Swellen" has now abandoned the shoulder pads of the 1980s for a less structured modern glamour, making her entrance in a chic red dress – and the well-preserved 71-year-old actress's mouth is still as wide and expressive as ever.
What's new is that those little brats, JR and Sue Ellen's son John Ross and Bobby's adoptive son Christopher, have grown into hunky young men, with beautiful but manipulative women by their side.
John Ross (Josh Henderson) is hell bent on tapping into billions of barrels of oil he has discovered beneath Southfork and is challenging the will of his late grandmother Miss Ellie, who forbade drilling on the family's land.
Meanwhile Christopher (Jesse Metcalfe) follows in the footsteps of his adoptive father as a much more worthy chap.
Christopher is trying to develop a form of sustainable energy.
He and John Ross have already come to blows – over both oil and women – and their feuding looks set to entertain us in the coming series.
At first it was very worrying to see JR – looking every bit the 80 years of age of Larry Hagman – as a pitiful old man in a nursing home.
Dutiful brother Bobby visits and there is a touching scene where Bobby says: "All those fights, JR, over Ewing oil and Southfork.
"Those fights changed me in a way I don't like.
"I worry about Christopher and John Ross. I want them to be a family without all the bitterness and bad blood we had.
"I don't want them to be like us."
We are left to think that JR's mind has simply gone and he hasn't got a clue what's going on.
It's only when John Ross pays a visit to his old man and reveals his plot to have the deceased Miss Ellie declared not to have been of sound mind when she made the will so he can drill oil at Southork that the glimmer of the old JR comes back.
And, when his face breaks into that typically malevolent smile and he puts on his white stetson hat, you just know that JR is back. Trouble is, JR, have you met your conniving match in your son, who is shaping up nicely into a young version of you?
While all of the warring is developing between the young Ewings, Bobby has been diagnosed with a form of stomach cancer.
Now we put up with the leap of faith of Bobby's resurrection once for the sake of our long love affair with this most glamorous of soaps – but surely they couldn't do that to us again.
No doubt, in time, we will be treated to similar far-fetched story lines – but, hey, now we're used to EastEnders scripts so maybe it's not so way out.
And we can only hope it all builds up to the suspense of the unforgettable speculation about "who shot JR".
