DALLAS SEASON 1-4 NEW in Guttenberg, New Jersey For Sale

SEASON 1 & 2
Dallas: The Complete First and Second Seasons is an American equivalent to those British miniseries about historical chapters in that country's royal monarchy. Full of family in-fighting, political intrigue crossed with personal triumph or disappointment, and plenty of sensational infidelities and betrayals, Dallas is a captivating story of a wealthy oil family's power and travails. It is also uniquely fun and daringly absurd, albeit with a straight face; this hugely successful, primetime soap opera began in the late xxxxs and ran 14 seasons in all, built on a handful of primary relationships that stretch credulity but never descend into self-parody.
Not unexpectedly, Dallas begins with a Romeo and Juliet tale that instantly exposes an old feud between two families and strips the civilized veneer from several major characters. Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy), youngest of three sons of independent oilman Jock Ewing (Jim Davis), arrives at the Ewing clan's Southfork ranch just outside Dallas, Texas, with a new wife, Pam Barnes Ewing (Victoria Principal). Pam is the daughter of Digger Barnes (David Wayne), an old business rival of Jock's and one-time suitor of the Ewing matriarch, Eleanor (or "Miss Ellie," played by Barbara Bel Geddes). Pam's also the sister of a state senator, Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval), whose vendetta against the Ewings is played out in the legislature, imposing costly regulations on their business and holding committee investigations into questionable practices of company president J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman). Pam's status as the newest Ewing causes an uproar in the family (besides being a Barnes, she also dated the Ewings' genial but lonely foreman, Ray Krebbs, played by Steve Kanaly) and prompts Dallas' charming villain, J.R., to make many Iago-like attempts, over the first two seasons, to drive her from Bobby's arms. Pam has a different set of problems with the other, jealous Ewing women, including J.R.'s possibly barren and alcoholic wife, Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), and teenage Lucy (Charlene Tilton), daughter of exiled Ewing son Gary (Ted Shackleford). With new and old resentments flying and everyone deeply suspicious of everyone else's motives (even the ailing Jock doesn't trust J.R.), there's plenty of drama to chew on. Still, storylines are often larger than the sum of these parts, with lots of kidnappings, marital affairs, plane crashes, and shootings ratcheting up suspense. Dallas is pure pleasure, a little guilty, perhaps, but not a sin. --Tom Keogh
SEASON 3
Dallas: The Complete Third Season, originally broadcast in the fall of xxxx through early xxxx, surely represents one of the most raucous and tantalizing years in the life of any television series in history. Murder, banking fraud, kidnapping, adultery, alcoholism, cancer, vengeance, a miscarriage, extortion, bribery, and astounding levels of betrayal both in business and private lives are just part of the catalogue of sins that make season 3 particularly juicy. Actually, what makes the 25 episodes in this box set so much fun to watch is a viewer's gradual awareness that every crime committed, every ethical breach or personal tragedy is part of an overall design, reverberating in dozens of directions and affecting multiple relationships and numerous schemes. As enjoyable as each program is on its own terms, it's quite clear that by the 25th episode, "A House Divided," in which a major character receives a surprise-ending comeuppance, that all chickens were intended to come home to roost in the last show's very clever script.
A remarkable number of story threads found their way into season 3. Starting with a two-parter concerning the kidnapping of a newborn baby belonging to J.R. (Larry Hagman) and Sue Ellen Ewing (Linda Gray), problems just keep on sprouting like weeds. First, there's Sue Ellen's emotional deep-freeze and refusal to nurture her child as a healthy mom should, which in turn prompts the childless Pamela Ewing (Victoria Principal) to free her maternal instincts toward J.R.'s son, much to the chagrin of J.R.'s brother, Bobby (Patrick Duffy). Meanwhile, teenager Lucy (Charlene Tilton), abandoned daughter of missing Ewing son Gary (David Ackroyd), threatens to teach J.R.'s son, one day, to turn against the Ewing clan, inspiring J.R. to escalate plans to get rid of Lucy any way possible. (Gary, by the way, kicks into gear a famous Dallas spin-off by moving to Knots Landing, California.) Matriarch Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes) faces a mastectomy, making her worry that husband Jock (Jim Davis) will stop loving her, though he faces problems of his own when a skeleton found buried on Ewing property turns up near Jock's missing handgun. (Whoops.) Finally, J.R.'s almost Shakespearean manipulation of the sale of Asian oil fields to old family friends, just before those fields are nationalized, is brilliantly wicked stuff. His actions have enormous, grievous ramifications--not least of all for J.R. --Tom Keogh
SEASON 4
Following a tumultuous third season that culminated in the shooting of likeable villain J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) by an unknown assailant, Dallas: The Complete Fourth Season is relatively tame by comparison. Still, it begins with no fewer than four episodes stretching out the mystery of who (from a wide field of candidates) actually shot J.R., with the victim's alcoholic wife, Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), looking like the chief suspect. Meanwhile, with J.R. out of commission and possibly paralyzed by a bullet pressing against his spine, brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) reluctantly takes the reins of Ewing Oil at the insistence of his father, Jock (Jim Davis). Prepared to buy a refinery at a bargain price--something Jock always wanted but J.R. could never deliver--Bobby is set to take Ewing Oil to a new level of success, but finds his authority undercut by J.R., who is pulling strings from his hospital bed.
Another suspect in the shooting, Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval), brother of Bobby's wife, Pam (Victoria Principal), tries to jumpstart his return to Texas politics by making trouble for the Ewings in the Texas legislature. Bobby himself, burned out on the family business, tries his own hand at the state senate, a useful place to be once Jock and Ewing matriarch Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes), mired in a personal conflict that heads toward divorce, find themselves on opposite sides in a land dispute. Other story threads include a rocky marriage between granddaughter Lucy (Charlene Tilton) and a medical student (Leigh McCloskey), and extramarital distraction for lonely Pam and Sue Ellen. Perhaps the biggest scandal of the season is J.R.'s manipulation of a counterrevolution in the Southeast Asian country where Ewing Oil fields were disastrously nationalized--a crime that could come back to haunt him. --Tom Keogh