Our collective memory has gotten shorter, which is easy to understand when pop culture comes and goes at the speed of a meme.
Still, sometimes it’s hard to believe how quickly we forget our TV history. As Yellowstone begins filming its fifth and final season, fans are lamenting the end of this series, which has been lauded as groundbreaking and unique for its portrayal of feuding families living on a contemporary American ranch.
Contemporary? Unique? We think Dallas might have something to say about that.
Dallas!
Dallas was Yellowstone before Yellowstone – a soapy ranch opera centring around two rival dynasties. Both shows feature wealthy, dysfunctional families who live that ranch life while also being extremely well off. Both showcase a massive swath of land passed down over generations. And both feature squabbling siblings, intergenerational beef, horseback riding, and demented family politics.
Oh, and giant hats of course.
Dallas Had An Entire Season That Was A Dream, Though
Dallas debuted in 1978. The first season focused mostly on the marriage between Bobby Ewing and Pamela Barnes, whose families are bitter frontier rivals. The Ewing family owns both an oil company and a huge tract of cattle-ranching land in Southford Texas, while the Barnes family believe their rights to half of that land were stolen fifty years previously.
Dallas became famous for its cliffhangers, with the show frequently ending its seasons with massive twists like house fires, dead bodies, and the apparent deaths of major characters. Season 3 ended with Bobby Ewing’s brother JR being shot, which led to the followup episode Who Shot JR? becoming one of the most-watched episodes in the history of television.
Yellowstone and Dallas both veered farther into soap opera territory the longer they ran… though Yellowstone with its five seasons has never had to pull out the stops the way Dallas did over the course of its increasingly bonkers 14 years.
For instance, when a popular actor Patrick Duffy wanted to return to Dallas after leaving, the writers had a conundrum: his character Bobby Ewing had already been killed off, and had been dead for all of the 8th season. The solution? Have his wife wake up in bed and realize that ALL THE EVENTS OF SEASON 8 WERE A DREAM. Amazing. Can’t wait for Yellowstone to top that plot twist.
Inspiration?
Some similarities between the two shows are strong enough that you have to wonder if Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan was a fan of Dallas growing up. For instance, the character of Jamie Dutton on Yellowstone bears an uncanny number of resemblances to his Dallas counterpart Cliff Barnes.
Both characters are good guys – or they start out that way, before being pushed over the edge. Both grew up motherless, had short-term relationships that led to them becoming fathers, and are politicians (Cliff running for Senate, Jamie running for Governor). Both are loyal to their fathers, to the point where they betray their own principals. And both arrange for illegal abortions – which in Cliff’s case results in the death of his fiancee Penny, and in Jamie’s case results in devastating consequences for his sister.
Years of Entertainment
Dallas ran for 14 seasons and spawned the spinoff series Knott’s Landing. There was also a short-lived followup series about the next generation of Ewings, which ran for three short seasons between 2010 to 2014.
On the surface, Yellowstone is much less prolific – the show is wrapping up after only five seasons. However, it has also spawned an incredible five (!!!) spinoff series. When the sun finally sets on the Dutton Empire, it’s likely that they will have given us as many years of entertainment as the saga of the Ewing family.