Television: The Big House on the Prairie

The seven deadly sins make Dallas No. 6 in the ratings

Not long ago, Big Jock Ewing looked down his long dining room table and said to his wife, "This family's falling apart. I tell you, it's falling apart." What Jock was complaining about was that there were some empty seats at the table.

But actually, as millions of viewers knew, things were perfectly normal at the Southfork Ranch: J.R., the eldest son, was in Washington with his newest mistress, and J.R.'s wife, Sue Ellen, was bedding down with her sister-in-law's brother. In short, just an ordinary night in Big D.

Most nights, in fact, it would take a motelkeeper to know who was in what bed in the Ewing family, and why. Dallas is proof that on television, as everywhere else, sex sells, and more sex sells better.

Shortly after the program began last year, it was No. 58 on the charts. It has climbed steadily since then, and last week achieved its highest ranking yet. It came in No. 6, helping push CBS to the top of the Nielsens for the first time this season.

Sex is the motive power behind this prime-time soap opera, but there is no slighting of the six other deadly sins either —particularly avarice. The ranch house could pass for the Southfork Hilton, and it must take a tanker and a half to fuel all those Mercedes in the driveway. The lovely Ewing ladies flop around the house in designer dresses, and when the good ole boys go hunting, they don't pile into a pickup. They whir away in a helicopter.

The only really decent person in the whole household is Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes), and there must be something wrong with her too. Why else would she be wife to such a man as Jock and mother to such an unwholesome brood? By his own admission, Jock (Jim Davis) made his fortune in oil by dirty dealings, and J.R. (Larry Hagman) is carrying on the tradition by cheating everyone within howdyin' distance. After much conniving, he finally ran Brother Gary (David Ackroyd) off the spread, but then Gary is a no-account drunk and gambler who probably got what he deserved anyway. Young Bobby (Patrick Duffy) is the good brother, comparatively speaking, but even he has a few black marks against him.

What makes this trash so flashy and, in its own nasty way, so irresistible, is its unashamed appeal to the lower emotions and the exuberant ingenuity of its rococo plot. Like one of those electric lint brushes, Dallas' industrious writers have picked up a little fuzz from most of their betters, all of their equals, and one or two of their inferiors. Whir, buzz. Here's a thread from Shakespeare's voluminous mantle: that old blood feud betwen the Montagues and the Capulets, or, in this case, the Ewings and the Barneses. Hum, grind. There's half of Tennessee Williams' back pocket. Can't you hear that cat scratching on the hot tin roof over Big Daddy's bedroom?