New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 234309" data-attributes="member: 22">A Change of Heart (KNOTS, 17 Apr 86) v Changing of the Guard (DALLAS, 01 Oct 82)Changing of the Guard is the opening episode of DALLAS’s fifth season and Sue Ellen begins the year the same way she’ll end it: feeling guilty about someone she’s helped put in a coma. Whereas she puts her wedding plans on hold (“If Cliff dies … I don’t think I’ll ever be able to marry JR”), Greg surprises Laura in A Change of Heart, the fourth-to-last episode of KNOTS’ seventh season with a quickie wedding in Vegas. And while Karen faces losing her beloved Lotus Point because of What Lies Beneath (not Peter Hollister’s body this time, but toxic waste dumped by Paul Galveston), JR loses his beloved Ewing Oil as the family vote to remove him as President following Cliff’s suicide attempt.Changing of the Guard is the first instalment of DALLAS I ever recorded on video, after which I started collecting every ep religiously and re-watching them all nonstop so it’s probably the one hour of anything I’ve seen the most times. But it’s been a few years — maybe five or six — since I last watched it and the scene that leapt out at me this time around is the one between JR and Miss Ellie where they argue over her decision to oust him from Ewing Oil and replace him with Bobby. He accuses her of capitulating to Rebecca Wentworth: “You’re beginning to sound like Rebecca’s running Ewing Oil.” “The Ewings run Ewing Oil and no-one else,” she insists, “but you refuse to understand that there are ethics involved. Even in the oil business, there’s right and wrong.” “Bobby tried to run the company that way once before. Damn near ruined it. He’s an amateur, Mama. He cannot face the realities of the business world.” This conflict between morality — or amateurish idealism as JR would see it — on one hand, and “the realities of the business world” on the other is one of the eternal conflicts running through the Ewingverse. Karen makes a persuasive case for the former in A Change of Heart: “I never had a dream. I had opinions, causes, beliefs … but never one focused vision, never anything as corny as a dream until Lotus Point, until I started dreaming about a place where families could come and get close again away from the 11 O’clock News, till I realised how important a place like that could be.”In the final scene of their respective episodes, Karen and JR are each unexpectedly offered in a lifeline. Greg tells Karen he’ll foot the bill for the cleanup on one condition: “Get me Empire Valley or you can kiss Lotus Point goodbye.” Meanwhile, new girl on the block Holly Harwood offers JR a job running her company. This time, he’s the one with the conditions: he wants 25% ownership of Harwood Oil and for their association to remain secret. She agrees with a toast: “To JR Ewing, back in power again.”And the winner is ... Changing of the GuardBONUS BEATS:[MEDIA=youtube]qZhMvLuoMaM[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?