Dallas – The Complete Thirteenth Season (1989 - 1990/Warner DVD)

 

Picture: C-     Sound: C     Extras: D     Episodes: C-

 

 

When a show is not cancelled after its peak, things get ugly, as was the case with Dallas, a show CBS held onto as they declined in the 1980s even after the nighttime soap operas were on the wane.  For more on the previous seasons of the show, try this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9449/Dallas+%E2%80%93+The+Complete

 

 

Obviously most people are familiar with Larry Hagman as J.R. and all the other regular characters but new character that did not stick as well were introduced to stretch the show out thin and wow, does that show here.  The only thing that saves these 27 hour-long shows from being a total disaster are some unintentionally funny touches at times and an interesting storyline (however improbable) of Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) making a movie about her living hell life with J.R. that he wants to stop, but even that is not made into the storyline it could have been made into.

 

The show was finished and even the success of Falcon Crest (reviewed elsewhere on this site) could not prop up this show, so it is otherwise very bad and many newer characters were gone by now, including the interesting actors who played them.

 

 

The 1.33 X 1 image looks bad, was finished on videotape and to be hip, new credits with an MTV editing style and analog videotape (instead of film print) optical titles were used, making the show look cheaper than ever.  There is digititis, noise and aliasing errors all over the place because it was finished on analog videotape, despite being shot in 35mm film.  The Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono is almost as bad, sounding a little warped and distorted throughout.  There are once again no extras.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo