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<span style="font-size:19.5pt;"><font face="Verdana">The top ten Dallas moments</font></span>

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;"><b><font face="Verdana">Dallas, the queen of all soaps, was first shown on TV 30 years ago today. To celebrate the anniversary, Tim Teeman picks the long-running series' best, bitchiest, big-haired moments</font></b></span>

<span style="font-size:7.5pt;"><b><font face="Tahoma">Tim Teeman</font></b></span>

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;">10 The credits

What a ballsy, big, great tune. Every season to the end, the music got better, the titles longer. The song remains the ultimate theme tune, as does the whole sequence, especially in an age when opening credits are a dying art. The credits were only bettered by Knots Landing, the brilliant (and ultimately longer-lasting) Dallas spin-off.

9 JR getting shot (obviously)

The ultimate soap cliffhanger: a darkened room, a list of suspects as long as a Southfork fence and a gunshot. Dallas used the cliffhanger more than once (once Bobby took a bullet instead of JR) and other soaps followed. Remember the 'who shot Phil Mitchell' storyline on EastEnders?

8 Sue Ellen drinking

Pick a moment. Really, it doesn't matter which because each would start with a tremulous lip-chomping motion on the corner of the glass. A true Sue Ellen signature and fun to impersonate when inebriated yourself. Make yourself cross-eyed for the full effect.

7 Sue Ellen getting carted off to the sanatorium

The ultimate Sue Ellen as victim moment, before the mid-to-late Eighties sobriety/powersuit makeover that saw her leave town (with Lovejoy, surreally) having beaten JR once and for all. Her hair had become truly bizarre by this point.

6 The Oil Barons' Ball/Ewing barbecue

Each season of Dallas had to have one. Essentially it was an excuse for someone to get a drink chucked in their face (Oil Baron's Ball) or pushed into the pool (Ewing barbecue).

5 Pam slaps Katherine

Over an agonisingly long period, evil Katharine Wentworth had schemed and plotted to break up the golden couple of Pam (her sister) and Bobby Ewing. Pam found out and gave her a well-deserved wallop.

4 The different Miss Ellie

It was so very wrong. Donna Reed joined the show, replacing Barbara Bel Geddes. Everyone called her Miss Ellie but she really wasn't, and Bel Geddes soon rejoined the show. Remember when Miss Ellie was kidnapped?

3 Bobby is killed and rises again/The Dream

After Pam slapped Katherine, the latter's psychosis was fuelled and she drove over to Pam's to mow down her rival. But Bobby pushed Pam out of the way, was knocked over and died. Then, a season of Dallas later, Pam woke up, Bobby's in the shower - she dreamt the entire preceding season. Many fans gave up on the show at this point, the fools - its final years got way trashier.

2 Pam dies /comes back

This wasn't a dream. But she was reincarnated. Pam discovers, soap miracle of miracles, she can have children. She calls Bobby on the car phone. Car crashes into lorry. Pam is a goner: oh no, she isn't, but she does spend a lot of time in bandages (face not showing) in a hospital. It goes on FOREVER.

1 The end?

JR is shown what life would have been like without him by a creepoid called Adam, later revealed to be working for the devil. A shot rings out. Bobby walks in and says, "Oh my God". The question is left hanging, did JR kill himself? This is resolved in a Dallas reunion special, but who cares? Some things are better left a mystery (or Google it obviously).

http://entertainment...7510.ece</span>

Edited October 13, 201015 yr by Sylph

Arthur Bernard Lewis, a prolific TV writer and producer who scripted more than 60 episodes of CBS ratings smash hit Dallas, died Oct. 30 in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia following a long illness. He was 84.

Lewis began his career in 1962 as a producer on TV's The Doctors and the Nurses, then moved into high gear by writing episodes of such popular programs as The Streets of San Francisco, Barnaby Jones, Baretta, Hawaii Five-Oand In the Heat of the Night.

In 1978, the native New Yorker joined the Dallasbproducing team and served as executive story editor for 69 episodes of the drama. From 1981-85, Lewis was supervising producer of 113 segments and the sole writer of a prodigious 63 one-hour episodes, most of which he produced as well.

Lewis worked on the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode that aired on Nov. 21, 1980, and revealed J.R. Ewing's shooter. It was the highest-rated TV episode in history at the time, seen by an estimated 83 million viewers.

Lewis also penned the 1990s telefilms Dallas: J.R. Returns (1996) and Dallas: War of the Ewings (1998).

Lewis is survived by his wife, Marjorie Estelle; son Larry and daughter-in-law Pam; brother Robert; granddaughter Desirae; great-granddaughter Ava; and stepson Chet. Private services were held Tuesday.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tv-writer-arthur-bernard-lewis-36277

Sad to hear. I enjoyed the first Dallas TV-movie. I remember people were surprised at how successful it was but I thought it captured some of the fun that Dallas had lost in its last years.

Episodes from the mini-series and first season will air on CMT on New Year's Day. I hope this does well and they consider airing it regularly!

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=276657

Episodes from the mini-series and first season will air on CMT on New Year's Day. I hope this does well and they consider airing it regularly!

http://www.sitcomson...ad.php?t=276657

I'll be sure to watch!

Another marathon on CMT tomorrow, this time focusing on Who Shot JR?

http://www.cmt.com/shows/schedule/?day=02%2F28%2F11

They better be getting close to picking it up for the regular schedule, damn it. The Dukes has to be doing very well for them, they show it alllll the time now. Dallas is the perfect complement.

Edited February 27, 201114 yr by All My Shadows

Another marathon on CMT tomorrow, this time focusing on Who Shot JR?

http://www.cmt.com/s...ay=02%2F28%2F11

They better be getting close to picking it up for the regular schedule, damn it. The Dukes has to be doing very well for them, they show it alllll the time now. Dallas is the perfect complement.

I'll be watching!

That's cool that they've been doing these mini-marathons, kind of a full circle moment since TNN's where Dallas got its first big shot in syndication (TNT first aired it on their Lunchbox TV with Knots, but they dropped it fairly quickly and ran Knots for no less than three or four rotations).

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I love the ending to this episode. One of the last great episodes of Dallas.

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Edited February 28, 201114 yr by Soapsuds

I'm very excited that dallas's movies are comming out. I have several of the dallas seasons on DVD and the movies are like cake for the collection. Of course my collection ends when Sue Ellen left because i really wasn't interested in the final couple of seasons. i liked Cally but the old Dallas was gone. No Sue Ellen, No Donna, No Pam... It just wasn't the same. At least in the movies Sue Ellen came back. I'm also very iterested in that movie about how it all began with Dale Mikiff, i saw it a long time ago (probably on TNT)so i've gotten much more into Dallas since then and will understand it more.

I know many people hated the way the characters looked as the 1980's got rolling, but i loved it. I thought expecially Donna's character was more logical when she started wearing the big permed hair and more stylish clothes because she was more into politics by that time. and it showed why she and Ray started to grow apart. Sue Ellen i always thought had style. Who else would cut her hair short (off camera) in the bathroom while visting Cliff Barns who was in a coma! She really knew how to own those shoulder-pads when she walked into a room, or ran out of one. I admit the ladies clothes did sometimes get a little over the top but that was sign of the times. I'm sure people in "real life" coppied what the ladies of soaps were wearing or doing. That's why Donna mills put out her make-up video. She said that she would hear from people who used to put the VCR on pause to copy her make-up from an episode of the show for when they went out for the evening or whatever.

The one I would like to see again is Dallas: The Early Years with Jock, Ellie and Digger. That never seems to be repeated anywhere.

Edited March 22, 201114 yr by quartermainefan

The one I would like to see again is Dallas: The Early Years with Jock, Ellie and Digger. That never seems to be repeated anywhere.

It's out on dvd in April. I am picking it up.

I love this initial promo, which makes it all sound so serious and such a far cry from the fluff nighttime soaps would become.

"Oh, and look, there's Lucy...kissing her uncle?"

;-P

Those unfortunate disco dancing Pam scenes even made it in the promo? I think they were in the credits at one point, although I also remember the episode having some gratuitous closeups.