Yeah, I'd say Corey Allen's episodes are probably the highlight of the Dream Season. I wrote a bit about the direction of some of his eps the last time I watched the series straight through.
Close Encounters
This week's DALLAS is quite fascinating. The camera work is unusually dynamic for such a traditional-looking series, so full of energy and inventiveness that it almost feels like a different show. A breakfast scene staged on the Southfork balcony is a particular highlight. Even the perennially prepubescent Charlie Wade gets the bug. "Mom, you look outrageous! Jack is gonna die!” she excitedly tells Jenna as she prepares for the Oil Baron’s Ball, sounding authentically teenage for the very first time.
In the scenes dealing with the news that the Krebbses' unborn child has Down’s Syndrome, DALLAS cross-cuts back and forth between two discussions — one between Jack and Jenna who reflect on the matter quite calmly, the other between Ray and Donna whose response is far rawer and more emotional.
By the time we get to the Oil Baron’s Ball, this episode of DALLAS is shooting off in all directions — from slapstick (Jamie pushing a cream cake in Cliff’s face) to social issues (Jenna and Jack discussing alternative terms for Down’s Syndrome: “mongolism” is out, apparently, but “retarded” is just fine).
Since its first appearance three seasons earlier, the Oil Baron’s Ball has grown increasingly grand with each passing year. At the point in this year’s Ball where a freshly sober Sue Ellen appears, causing heads to turn and camera bulbs to flash as if she were Elizabeth Taylor or Liza Minnelli making her Hollywood comeback after a spell in the Betty Ford Centre, it reaches an apogee. The Academy Awards feel continues with the presentation of the Oil Baron of the Year trophy. With emotional speeches, standing ovations and Bobby’s posthumous win doubling as the In Memoriam section, all that’s really missing is #OilBaronsSoWhite trending on Twitter.
Quandary
Real-life kids with Down’s Syndrome bussed in for one scene just so that Ray Krebbs can have a personal insight; Susan Howard’s almost overpoweringly intense performance; violins playing sentimentally on the soundtrack — it’s easy to be cynical about the Krebbs’ current storyline on DALLAS. This time around, I've really tried to watch these scenes with an open mind, but they still leave me kind of cold. Perhaps it has less to do with the scenes themselves than the wider context in which they appear. This is also the episode that formally introduces the series' most gloriously absurd character thus far, Angelica Nero. The contrast between the earnest sincerity of the Krebbses' story and the inherent superficiality of Angelica slinking around in her Travilla gowns (“A lot of people are surprised at me being Chief Executive Officer of Marinos Shipping” — ya don’t say) is just too jarring. Watching both concurrently is a bit like eating alternate mouthfuls of roast chicken and apple pie.
Close Encounters
DALLAS has easily the best-looking episode of the Soap Land week. Corey Allen, who also directed the Oil Baron’s Ball instalment a couple of weeks ago, has a style as distinctive as Larry Elikann's — lots of energetic, fluid camera moves, with an emphasis on the actors' faces, and a knack for making familiar sets and locations look excitingly new.
The Prize
John Ross isn’t the first Soap Land kid to run off midway through an episode only to be found safe and sound in time for the end credits, but the scenes where the family and ranch hands search for him on Southfork, mostly on horseback, are shot through with drama and urgency. Once again, credit goes to director Corey Allen who recalls in these sequences his exciting work at the beginning of “Bypass” (Season 1) when a herd of cattle charged past the camera, sending mud and dirt flying into the lens.
This second battle between JR and Sue Ellen for custody of their son is very much the no-frills version. Unlike in the equivalent storyline four years earlier, there is no double-dealing from JR and no last-minute plot twists. The press, instead of swarming outside the courtroom, are conspicuous by their absence. There aren’t even any attorneys visible on-screen. Instead, the emphasis is on the three principle characters — JR, Sue Ellen and especially John Ross — who are questioned individually by an off-camera judge. John Ross gives a consistently cute, funny, touching, and believable performance, despite the camera being trained on him for long periods. There’s a fascinating moment where the judge asks him if he’s a good swimmer. Instead of replying immediately, John Ross hesitates, which develops into an unusually long pause. The camera seems to wobble slightly, as if the take is about to be abandoned, but then John Ross suddenly says something about his mother, which may or may not have been his next scripted line, and the scene continues. It’s so interesting that an episode as full of camera trickery as this one — Corey Allen employs cross-cutting, dissolves and even time-lapses with the kind of abandon that would have been unthinkable in DALLAS’s more traditional era — should also have room to accommodate a little boy gathering his thoughts mid-scene.
Actor who co-starred with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, he went on to become a TV director
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