ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 15, 1996 TAG: 9611150010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: TELVISION REVIEW
SOURCE: ED BARK KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Ewing some, you lose some.
But in the case of ``Dallas: J.R. Returns,'' CBS probably can't help but win for losing.
No one expects tonight's two-hour movie to get anywhere near the sky-high ratings ``Dallas'' had when it ruled prime time during the early- to mid-'80s. Here's the deal, though. Lose half the viewers the series drew in its heyday and you'll still land in the top 10 these days. And when ``Dallas'' was hot, it torched the competition like few series before or since. Since the mid-1950s, its towering 34.5 rating in the ``Who Shot J.R.?'' season of 1980-81 has been beaten by only three other one-hour drama series, all of them precable vintage Westerns. ``Gunsmoke,'' ``Bonanza,'' ``Wagon Train.'' That's it.
Its central character, earnestly amoral J.R. Ewing, is one of television's top 10 indelible figures. Larry Hagman, equipped with a fresh liver, silver hair and several new wrinkles, can still play him to the hilt and beyond. It's a little queasy, though, watching this decidedly aging J.R. in the company of yet another bosomy floozy who looks to be young enough to sit on his knee rather than arch her back in bed with him. Reliably sultry Tracy Scoggins is the consort this time out. And darned if she doesn't tell her boss that she'll be delayed a few minutes because ``I've got a coupla things I wanna show Ewing.''
``Dallas'' was last seen on CBS in May 1991. The erstwhile final episode - the 356th - ended with a drunken J.R. putting a pistol to his head and firing it after the camera pulled away. It turns out he shot at a mirror before running off to Paris. The first scene in Sunday's movie has J.R. returning to Dallas and telling an airport limo driver, ``Let's not waste any time. I've got a town to take back.''
The town still houses terminal nemesis Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval), who owns Ewing Oil and is planning to merge with Weststar, run by the redoubtable Carter McKay (George Kennedy). Back at Southfork Ranch, Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) is pondering selling it rather than living on the high-priced spread with his 17-year-old son, Christopher (Christopher Demetral).
``Southfork needs a lot of people,'' he tells the boy. ``A big family like the old days.''
Another ``Dallas'' mainstay, J.R.'s ex-wife Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), is residing in London with their son, John Ross (Omri Katz). She had married an Englander, but is estranged from him upon learning that J.R. has died in a fiery car wreck. It is necessary for him to fake his death in order to claim John Ross' $200 million inheritance and use it to buy a controlling interest in Weststar. When it comes to oil fields and ``Dallas,'' you know the drill.
Filmed last spring in the Dallas area during sometimes cold, windy weather, the movie manages to be both entertaining and, of course, ludicrous. When J.R. ``dies,'' for instance, Bobby seems not to mind a bit that their mother, Miss Ellie, simply can't be found. Brother Gary and half-brother Ray Krebbs can't make it for various reasons. Longtime Southfork resident Lucy Ewing isn't even informed, although CBS certainly could have afforded the return of the actress who played her. Poor Charlene Tilton no doubt would have accepted the role in return for plane fare and decent lodging.
Midway through filming, Kercheval developed a sore throat. You'll hear him noticeably rasp his way through the second half of the movie. Dialogue is usually relooped in such cases, but hey, time is money and ``Dallas'' apparently isn't worth any extra expense anymore.
Everyone otherwise seems to be trying hard. Bobby gets to have a new relationship with a true-hearted woman named Julia Cunningham (Rosalind Allen). They ultimately undress each other vigorously before the camera pans - symbolically? - to statues of Laurel and Hardy on a fireplace mantle.
Cliff searches for his long-lost daughter while fending off the ever-rapacious J.R. and laryngitis. Sue Ellen shows she's J.R.'s match while trying to resist his attempts to relight her fire. And J.R., in a lifestyle change owing to Hagman's highly publicized liver transplant, has forsaken his bourbon and branch water and settled for iced tea.
All of this adds up to good, unclean fun. And the end of ``Dallas: J.R. Returns'' signals the start of more intrigue if the movie does well enough to merit occasional sequels. That wouldn't be so bad. Next time, though, let's give our hero a woman more befitting his advancing years. Angela Lansbury is available, and it surely would be high drama to have her, rather than Tracy Scoggins, tell J.R., ``You know what turns me on about you? You make Machiavelli look like Mother Theresa.''
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB