"DALLAS" TRIUMPHANTLY RETURNS AS A NEW SERIES ON CABLE TELEVISION............

For thirteen television seasons, 1978 - 1991, the fictional saga of the Ewing Family in Texas was a highly popular CBS Television network that was a worldwide ratings grabber, and garnered as much as 80 million viewers per broadcast, as it did in the United States on the night of November 21, 1980; when the, "Who Shot J.R. ?" episode aired.  For five of it's thirteen seasons the original "Dallas", series was 1st or 2nd in the television ratings.  Last year, twenty years after "Dallas" concluded - the TNT cable network announced  it would revive "Dallas", as a weekly series this summer, focused on the next generation of the Ewing clan, but including some of the key characters and the stars, who protrayed them previously.  Larry Hagman, as J.R. Ewing; Patrick Duffy, as Bobby Ewing; and Linda Gray, as Sue Ellen Ewing; are all back co-starring with the new and younger cast members, Josh Henderson, Jesse Metcalfe, Jordana Brewster, Julie Gonzalo, Brenda Strong, who protray John Ross Ewing; Christopher Ewing; Elena Ramos,  Rebecca Sutter Ewing; Ann Ryland Ewing;.  Wednesday night's two hour premiere attained an audience of 6.9 million American viewers, the highest rating in their timeslot of all the network and cable programs airing opposite them; and the highest rated premiere of any cable dramatic show this season.  So after more than two decades there is a significant audience ready to revisit and or have a first time experience of the "Dallas", phenomenon.  Having been a loyal viewer of the original series, and argued as a seminarian it is a modern day morality play; I found the opening episodes of the new series craftily and enticingly written, with story lines and plot twists.that were all but vintage to the original run.  TNT's "Dallas", will certainly make primetime tv viewing this summer entertaining and refreshing, beyond the plethora of reality shows that otherwise fill the void............Fr.  Troy