TV's Dallas: Whodunit?

Sinning and winning, J.R. 's clan is now the first family of soap

As he lay crumpled on the floor of his office, with two bullets in his stomach, his thoughts pinwheeled off into fantasies of his real and idealized past. His first word had been "Mammon. " As a child he had torn the wings off flies and sold the insects' bodies to science. In high school he had peddled exam answers to his fellow students, then told his teacher that they were cheating. In college he had impregnated an entire sorority and used the offspring to stock a black-market adoption agency.

No wonder he proved such a success when his daddy brought him into the family business: skewering the town's most powerful men out of millions while he was seducing their wives. All in all, a cause for celebration. Then why, he wondered as he started to slide from consciousness, was his last image that of his sainted daddy shaking his head in grim disappointment?

Fade to black.

... Until Friday, Sept. 19, that is. On that night—God and the striking Screen Actors Guild willing—the critically wounded body of John Ross Ewing Jr. will be sped to Dallas Memorial Hospital, and viewers will be given their first clues to a solution of the mystery: Who shot J.R.? Never in the history of cliffhanging narrative have so many people waited and speculated on the resolution of a plot twist. At last count, 300 million souls in 57 countries shared this benign obsession. When the Ewing family saga begins its new season, the number is sure to be swollen by millions more who will have succumbed to the summerlong blitz of news features, promotions and gossip. Competing networks are advised to broadcast test patterns.

Since its debut in April 1978, Dallas' Nielsen rating has almost doubled, until it is now the top-rated dramatic show on U.S. television. The March 21 Dallas, which ended with the shooting of J.R., was the year's most watched series episode. The show's huge, steady audience (40 million a week in the U.S.) helped CBS vault back into its familiar position as the top prime-time network after ABC'S three-year interregnum.

Most hit shows live off habit; Dallas arouses demonstrative loyalty. Millions of Dallas T shirts, bumper stickers and buttons are festooning torsos, fenders and lapels. Haifa dozen "J.R." novelty records are heading for the charts. Society matrons are planning Dallas costume parties for the night the program returns. Politicians have climbed on the bandwagon too. Jimmy Carter, at a Dallas fund raiser, confessed with a grin: "I came to Dallas to find out confidentially who shot J.R. If any of you could let me know that, I could finance the whole campaign this fall." Perhaps not: at the Republican Convention, Reaganites distributed buttons that read A DEMOCRAT SHOT J.R.