While we usually don’t disclose it, all of us have our guilty pleasures when it comes to the world of entertainment.
Whether you’re a heavy metal fan who has a soft spot for 1980’s pop music, or a movie buff that loves watching bad kung-fu movies from Japan, we all have those things that we love to death but don’t want to brag about.
For me, my ultimate guilty pleasure comes from the world of television and the classic primetime soap opera Dallas.
And no, I’m not referring to the remake that is currently airing on TNT in the United States, as I refuse to acknowledge its existence.
I’m talking about the original series that aired on CBS from 1978 to 1991, which in my opinion, is better than most of the shows that are currently on major networks.
So how did a 26-year-old sports reporter get into a show that aired only for a couple of years of my life before it wrapped up its run?
Well, that’s a bit of a weird and long-winded tale, so I’ll try and compress it down a little bit.
Back when I was 10 years old or so, The Nashville Network (TNN) used to have a double-header of shows after school where they would have The Dukes Of Hazzard on followed by Dallas.
Now obviously as a youngster, I was more into the show that featured Dodge Chargers flying through the air with the greatest of ease, the Dallas episodes that were being shown at that time were the classic ‘Who Shot J.R.’ storyline.
For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, back in the final episode of the third season, the main antagonist of the show, J.R. Ewing, was shot, which led to a wild summer of speculation over who pulled the trigger before it was revealed.
So as a kid, I fell for the storyline, but eventually forgot about the show until a couple of years ago.
For my birthday, my parents got me a gag gift of the first two seasons of Dallas, as I would frequently bring up that show and other primetime soap operas of the 1980’s like Knots Landing and Dynasty during Skype chats.
So after getting it as a gift, I decided to watch the first couple of episodes on a lark, and I ended up running through the entire season in about a week.
I’m not sure why I enjoyed it so much. Perhaps it was the campy feel of the show at times, the ridiculous acting by Larry Hagman as the villainous J.R. Ewing, or that J.R.’s wife Sue Ellen was seemingly three sheets to the wind in every episode.
However, as I thought about it, the reason I enjoyed watching the show so much is that it actually seemed a lot better than most of the television shows that are out now.
OK granted, it’s not even close to the amount of depth that has been present in the great shows of the last couple years such as Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, or my all time favourite television drama The Wire.
But if you’re going to give me the choice between another ‘reality’ show or an over-the-top primetime soap from the back in the day, give me Dallas every time.
Besides, how could you not enjoy watching J.R. Ewing mess with everyone in his path?
Now if you excuse me, I have to watch more episodes of Season 3 of Dallas as Mr. Ewing is about to get his comeuppance.
