Dallas: The Complete Seventh Season

It's difficult to sustain any dramatic series for seven or more years, much less one so rife with opportunities for unwitting self-caricature. Nonetheless, the producers of Dallas were not about to lay down their oil rigs while a single drop of black gold remained to be sucked from the increasingly arid narrative Texan ground. The 30 episodes of the 1983-84 seventh season offered more of the same-old, same-old, with only a handful of interesting developments. This was the year that Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) broke up with wife Pam (Victoria Principal), while sister-in-law Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) began stepping out behind the back of her conniving husband, the irrepressible J.R. (Larry Hagman). Even the Ewing family matriarch, Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes), got to do a little canoodlin' with rugged Clayton Farlow (Howard Keel). Yes, there were more bruising backroom deals and courtroom shenanigans—with J.R. doing his level best to undermine Bobby while pretending to support him—but the bloom was definitely off this Texas rose. We knew it back in ‘84, and it's just as apparent today. DVD extras include a featurette on the music of Dallas. Optional. (E. Hulse)