Dallas: The Complete Fourth Season

Following a tumultuous third season that culminated in the shooting of likeable villain J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) by an unknown assailant, Dallas: The Complete Fourth Season is relatively tame by comparison. Still, it begins with no fewer than four episodes stretching out the mystery of who (from a wide field of candidates) actually shot J.R., with the victim's alcoholic wife, Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), looking like the chief suspect. Meanwhile, with J.R. out of commission and possibly paralyzed by a bullet pressing against his spine, brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) reluctantly takes the reins of Ewing Oil at the insistence of his father, Jock (Jim Davis). Prepared to buy a refinery at a bargain price—something Jock always wanted but J.R. could never deliver—Bobby is set to take Ewing Oil to a new level of success, but finds his authority undercut by J.R., who is pulling strings from his hospital bed.

Another suspect in the shooting, Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval), brother of Bobby's wife, Pam (Victoria Principal), tries to jumpstart his return to Texas politics by making trouble for the Ewings in the Texas legislature. Bobby himself, burned out on the family business, tries his own hand at the state senate, a useful place to be once Jock and Ewing matriarch Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes), mired in a personal conflict that heads toward divorce, find themselves on opposite sides in a land dispute. Other story threads include a rocky marriage between granddaughter Lucy (Charlene Tilton) and a medical student (Leigh McCloskey), and extramarital distraction for lonely Pam and Sue Ellen. Perhaps the biggest scandal of the season is J.R.'s manipulation of a counterrevolution in the Southeast Asian country where Ewing Oil fields were disastrously nationalized--a crime that could come back to haunt him. --Tom Keogh