And just like that, 16 minutes into the first episode of the pilot, the fundamental dynamic of US energy policy— err … I mean, of the Ewing family in Dallas Tx – is laid bare. Christopher even speeds away under the high-pitched electric whine of his sleek black Tesla.
It would be a mistake to think that the show takes itself too seriously. In Dallas, that’s not the point. The plot’s dynamic is superficial, with as much attention paid to hot bodies and hot cars as oil. At times, its more like an Abercrombie commercial, as bare-chested John Ross prances in his boxer-briefs, or Christopher’s fiancé gets frisky in the country club locker room. “May I suggest you save something for the honeymoon?” chides Mrs. Stanfield, a blueblood family friend who interrupts the act.
Still, the show occasionally tries to put on a straight face, like when Christopher pitches his new-energy business ideas to investors, breaking a frosty white block on the table. “Go on, touch it,” he says. “It’s Ice, flammable ice.”
It’s a thinly veiled reference to flammable water associated with methane leaks near fracked gas wells, except this ice is meant to burn. Christopher explains that it is methane hydrates, the stuff we briefly heard about when it clogged BP’s containment box meant to capture the spewing oil from its ruptured Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
Never mind that natural gas – a hydrocarbon – is not exactly what most people mean by “alternative energy.” Christopher sees a revolution in harvesting this methane gas, and here the show gets downright techy. “Remember your thesis on petroleum and waterflooding?” he asks Elena at one point, referring to the underground injection process that fracking is so often compared to. “I think I may be able to use it to extract methane from the hydrates, and prevent seabed slumping.”
“If you can do that,” says Elena, in a line that might sound familiar to anyone following the real-life political debate over natural gas, “it’s a game changer.”
And here Dallas does tiptoe into issues that really matter. At one point Christopher learns that his methane mining can cause faults to slip. “There might be a link between harvesting methane, and earthquakes,” a Chinese scientist tells him. “Its not safe.”
When a moralistic Bobby shuts down a drilling rig on Southfork, his monologue echoes the choice now facing landowners in Pennsylvania and New York. “I know times are rough out there boys, but this ranch has been in my momma’s family for 150 years,” Ewing says. “I promised her no drilling on it. I’m sorry about your jobs.”
Dallas’ one liners – and JR has some great ones – will be amusing to some and haunting to others whose real-life scrapes with the oil industry and fracking in their backyards might make them more likely to shiver than laugh.
When John Ross files a lawsuit to force Bobby into drilling on his property JR tells him: “Son, the courts are for amateurs and the faint of heart.” Later, a smirking JR boasts: “My friends are in the state house. My enemies are going to be harder to find.”
By the end of Wednesday’s two-hour premier, the battle lines (and the bikini lines) were clearly, if not simplistically, drawn. An environmentalist and an oilman have to be diametrically opposed, the show’s writers tell us.
What happens next – and whether the show can find relevance while only flirting with the finer points of the energy debate – is anybody’s guess. Perhaps Bobby will discover that in addition to a billion-barrel reserve beneath his ranch he has something even more valuable in post modern Texas – an aquifer.
That might make Dallas interesting.
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