TNT's Dallas - TV Review

I watched a few seasons of the original as a kid, particularly those years I lived in Texas.  I started just after the "Who Shot J.R.?" finale and bailed on it somewhere around the Dream Bobby season.

I love that this continuation uses the same theme song and credit style (although I do wish they'd kept the three-faces shot during the cast listing).  By the time they display "and Larry Hagman as J.R. Ewing" I know I'm back in familiar territory.

Now those who never watched it must remember first and foremost it's a soap. The acting's not going to be uniformly great, and the twists will be melodramatic.  But I loved getting reacquainted with the Ewing clan, and the perfect blend of the old (Hi, Linda Gray's Sue Ellen!) and the new (Josh Henderson's John Ross has his daddy's ruthless ambition).

It's not art TV.  It's guilty-pleasure TV.

There's a scene when John Ross visits J.R. in a nursing home, and we gather J.R. doesn't speak anymore and is suffering severe depression.  When John Ross presents his dilemma to his estranged father, and J.R. finally speaks and then opens his eyes, I got a chill.  Evil has returned.  How marvelous.