Dallas reboot premieres Wednesday on TNT

J.R. and crew are back in action. Photo: TNT

The cast of Dallas is back! At least Larry Hagman, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy are. They are joined by newcomers Brenda Strong (Desperate Housewives), Josh Henderson (Desperate Housewives), Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious) and Jesse Metcalfe (Desperate Housewives). One of these things is not like the other.

The cast has been everywhere over the past month promoting the premiere Wednesday at 8 p.m. on TNT. The youngsters even rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday.

“Hey y’all help me and the cast get #dallasTNT TRENDING for the premiere of @Dallas_TNT tomorrow on TNT 9/8 central! Let’s do it! #DallasTNT,” Josh tweeted.

But controversy is already swirling around the production. Dallas’ original creator, David Jacobs, was cut out of the new show. Jacobs read the new scripts and thought that they were not up to snuff. The new Dallas producers didn’t want Jacobs involved and tried to list themselves as the creators of the show. Jacobs got a lawyer and the Writers Guild to step in and iron out the problems. According to ShowBiz411.com:

David Jacobs, creator of “Dallas” and “ Knots Landing,” tells me he’s been excluded entirely from the coming reboot of the famous series on TNT. He will get to keep his “created by” credit, but nothing else, no money, and no participation. “I’ll get the $714 Writers Guild fee for a sequel,” Jacobs says.  Jacobs tells me found out that “Dallas” was being restarted second hand. When he inquired about it, he says he told everyone — including new head writer Cynthia Cidre–that he was essentially retired and didn’t want to write the show. “I didn’t want any authority,” he told her at their one lunch. But he did think a consultancy wouldn’t be out of the question since basically, “Dallas” relies on all the characters he created in the 1970s–JR Ewing, Bobby Ewing, Sue Ellen, and their family, even the same Southfork Ranch set.

Larry Hagman was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame back in 2009 and yours truly was there for his red carpet trip into town.

It’s gonna take a lot of makeup to make that man look like he’s aging well. I’m just bein’ honest.

Everything might be bigger in Texas, I highly doubt ratings will be this time around.

Hagman was born and bred in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Here he is talking about representing Texas on the original series: