Dallas premiered 40 years ago today, paving the way for our Peak TV era

Rolling Stone

The CBS primetime soap, which premiered on April 2, 1978 and lasted 14 seasons through May 3, 1991, changed TV forever, says Rob Sheffield. "At a time when network television was staid and dull, this Lone Star Peyton Place came on as a totally shameless melodrama full of sex, money, bad blood, family feuds, cowboy hats and shoulder pads – the first, best and most splendidly ridiculous of the prime-time soaps," he says. "It spun the saga of the corrupt Ewing family and their Texas oil empire, as they wheeled and dealed through bedrooms and boardrooms, running from 1978 to 1991. And what a cast – a dream team of veteran character actors plucked from Westerns and noirs and every style of pulp flick, chewing all this scarlet dialogue like so much Skoal. No learning, no moralizing, not a moment of subtlety. Dallas was not only the most Seventies show of the Seventies. It was, more importantly, the most Eighties show of the Eighties."