Oh, those 'Dallas' Friday nights

Man, I LOVED the Dallas reboot Wednesday night. I didn't watch the second hour but it's definitely waiting for me -- and now on Series Record -- on the DVR.

We spent Friday nights watching the show when I was a kid, as a family, which I find so funny now because I wouldn't let my kids watch such a show! But at the time that's what was available, and besides, my mom was born and raised in Big D, and we were Texans, and that was the end of any argument, not that there ever was one.

I loved how they re-filmed the opening sequence, almost exactly like the original but in HD, with that awesome theme song. I got chills. (Should I be embarrassed?) And the aerial shots of Southfork still looked the same -- those yellow and white striped awnings in the back!! the SF logo!! -- and the soap opera-y twists and turns and crazy plot devices were so expected, and yet still fun. It's campy, but I think it's in a good way. I can see getting sick of that as it goes on, but for the first episode, it was the perfect nod to the "olden days."

I thought the younger actors were great, although I think they cast the girlfriends with too much brunette. Have they never been to Texas? Texas has blondes and I imagine John Ross and Christopher would be the type of guys who insist on blond-hair-blue-eyes. Duh. Unless they're having mommy-issues, since both of their moms... well, anyway. I had a hard time keeping up with which brunette was which.

And dear, sweet, good Bobby. He was ...one of my first celebrity crushes. (Aaaannnnd I'll never hear the end of THAT from DH.) ;)

Of course, my mom and her sister were devotees back in the day; they had taken us kids to visit the "Southfork" house during one of our trips to Dallas. Another time, when I was around ten, we heard that they were filming the Cattle Barons' Ball (they mentioned it Weds. night, too!) in a local hotel and we drove right over there to see who we could see. We had a blast. I think we saw Patrick Duffy, I know we saw Victoria Principal and Christopher Atkins (later seasons!) and had pictures taken with them, and we were told that my cousin Tom got a private audience with Larry Hagman himself -- he was the only boy in the group of 6 kids, and someone with the crew took him down the hall to a room where Hagman evidently was waiting for his next appearance on set. All of us kids were just in AWE -- TOMMY MET J.R.!!!! The rest of us never saw him but I smiled last night, when he finally got up out of his chair, that million-dollar J.R. grin still recognizable.

It doesn't feel quite right on a Wednesday, but everything else about it was awesome.

p.s. Thanks to my mom, I found this article, an excellent interview with Patrick Duffy! Reading that just makes me happy. :)