Back to Southfork?

Updating old prime time soaps with next generation casts seems to be all the rage at the moment, what with 90210 and Melrose Place, and it looks like the trend is going to be continuing. You can't possibly know how excited I was to read on the New York Times website yesterday that the latest update will be of Dallas, the Grande Dame of all such shows.

I happen to be a huge fan of the prime time soaps from the 1980's. Dallas and Knots Landing in particular were fantastic shows, and I've been buying the DVD box sets as they've been released over the past few years. I love how in the 80's they weren't afraid to make the shows straight up soap operas. Now, they'll make teen dramas, but anything with older characters that isn't a medical, legal, or police drama has to be a satire, not a soap.

A few years back there was talk of a feature film version of Dallas, which I thought was an interesting idea until I heard some of the casting ideas: John Travolta as J.R.?! J Lo as Sue Ellen?! Completely wrong.

The idea of a film seems to have fallen through, which is probably for the best. But now TNT has ordered a pilot for an updated version of the show revolving around the next generation: J.R. & Sue Ellen's son, John Ross, and Bobby and Pam's son, Christopher. Larry Hagman, Linda Gray, and Patrick Duffy are said to have been contacted for their participation in the project, though to what extent they'd be involved is still not known.

Of course, TNT may decide not to order a full series, so I'm not going to get my hopes up too high just yet. I think it's a great idea, though. When they made J.R. Returns, the first of the two Dallas reunion movies, they included both Christopher and John Ross and laid the groundwork for a potential rivalry between them that could have developed into something more. They also included Cliff Barnes and Afton Cooper's daughter, Pamela, which bolstered the idea of a whole new generation.

Sadly, the second reunion movie, War of the Ewings, was pretty terrible and dropped the younger characters completely. Now, finally, they seem to be picking up on the idea they were developing back in 1996.

Dallas remains hugely popular all over the world even though it has been off the air as a weekly series for a full 18 years. I think the popularity of a potential new show depends on how involved the original characters and their portrayers are and on how well they cast the roles of the new generations of the Ewing and Barnes families.

If you thought I was excited about a Melrose Place update, just wait until the Ewings are gathered around the dinner table at Southfork again!