God, is this awful! The original DALLAS focused sensibly on characters at or approaching middle age (if not older) with story lines and dialog to match, but this effort to update this to 2012 has, perhaps predictably, been turned strongly toward adolescent fantasy material, complete with no shortage of unsightly peach fuzz and voices still in the process of developing toward something actually adult. The result is a dumbing down to the near-juvenile level, with "new generation" protagonists that look like 2012's answer to Robbie Benson and some other male-mode type who looks like he aspires to replace Johnnie Depp in the next "Pirates" movie (give that weenie a disposable razor -- or just as well, a cat and a bottlecap full of milk). The result is that the show might as well be called, "Watch the Teenie-boppers Take Over Texas". Even the female leads are more trying than appealing, reasonably physically attractive as they might be. The one gal who seemed to be a petroleum geologist was about as believable as Britney Spears would be in that part, and although the gal who is supposed to be the young lawyer I have to admit could pass for something that squeezed through a Texas law school and even passed the bar, that's about all you can say for her gravitas in that kind of role. Were the acting good (and it isn't, the kids reminding one of last year's *The Playboy Club*, canceled after just six episodes) the insipid dialog among the children does nothing to alleviate the effect (at one point the fuzzy-faced boy even manages to mumble that he is going to strive to accomplish his goals "with every fibre of my being"), but actually emphasizes it. At some points it was so bad I nearly laughed out loud. And don't even ask me about the misplaced action-adventure riffs in the attempt to "update" the music.
Well, so much for bringing back DALLAS. Give this twerp-fest a pass. I wouldn't recommend it even to teenagers. Texas Stadium with its unique hole in the roof is long gone and so, apparently, is anything approaching adult drama -- even a soap opera like the old "DALLAS" -- on prime-time TV today.
Well, so much for bringing back DALLAS. Give this twerp-fest a pass. I wouldn't recommend it even to teenagers. Texas Stadium with its unique hole in the roof is long gone and so, apparently, is anything approaching adult drama -- even a soap opera like the old "DALLAS" -- on prime-time TV today.