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Rating: 
Summary: No wonder the "Dallas" stars and creator love this book!
Review: Barbara Curran's "25 Years of Dallas" captures perfectly the life and times of this 1980s cultural icon. Writing within the constraints imposed by Hollywood (viewer guides can no longer include episode synopses and studio photos without inviting litigation by the studio that owns the series), Barbara has managed to interview almost 50 of the biggest "Dallas" stars to tell the behind-the-scenes story of "Who Shot J.R.?" as well as Bobby in the shower, Jim Davis' valiant fight against cancer, and Donna Reed's ill-fated replacement of Barbara "Miss Ellie" Bel Geddes. No wonder Larry Hagman finds this book "fascinating," Steve Kanaly calls it "the most comprehensive and realistic account of the series that has ever been written," and series creator David Jacobs says this "amazing achievement" of a book "knocked me out."
Rating: 
Summary: Diasppointingly INCOMPLETE
Review: Having read genre books covering other television classics ("I Love Lucy", "Hawaii 5-O", "The Outer Limits", "Gunsmoke", "Lost in Space", "Night Gallery", and "The Twilight Zone"), I purchased "25 Years of Dallas", thinking that it would be as concise and picture-filled as other books of this type.
Unfortunately, while Curran's does offer some interesting trivia, it inadequately summarizes each episode, has few photographs of the cast, and provides little on the contributions of the crew that was essential, along with the actors, to the show's longevity.
While the text does detail some of the guests and featured performers, more could have been spent on the principals and their lives after the show's demise.
Rating:
Summary: A must-have for all fans of this classic American soap!
Review: I bought this book because i'm a huge fan of this show. I wasn't sure what to expect to be honest, i was hoping it would be an interesting read and shed some light on certain issues that went on behind the scenes of the show.
What i got was that and tons more. This book is a fascinating read and it covers the entire Dallas saga, from when it started in 1978, right through all 13 seasons, and both reunion movies up until 1997/98. The book goes into great detail about how each year progressed, what went on behind the scenes in terms of the actors and how they were feeling about the show and how the scripts progressed. The book has a section on every single episode. For me the best part about this book is the trivia you get about each and every episode. The author, Barbara Curran, has clearly been busy researching this, because for each and every episode you find out who played who, not just main cast but every guest star and special guest star. I was amazed at how many actors in the show played different characters, and came back in various scenes as different characters, I never picked up on this and i've watched the Dallas "run" about 3 times, Just goes to show how good the author was at researching this. The book encorporates literally hundreds of interviews, its excellent because you get new information and quotes from all the main players and the secondary cast members, as well as people whow ere only on the show for a little while, i.e 8 or9 episodes perhaps. Each and every actor that was interviewed for the book talks honestly and openly about their feelings for the show and thier fellow-cast members.
So if your a big-time Dallas fan like me, or if you are a semi Dallas fan who watched the show back in the 80's and havent seen it since, my advice would be buy this book, you dont have to be a massive Dallas fan to enjoy this, as long as you've seen the show you will find this very very interesting indeed.
Another bonus is there are some nice photos of Southfork and some of the actors that you wont have seen before because they are from Steve Kanaly's personal camera.Dan.
Rating:
Summary: Better episode recaps would have been nice.
Review: I was hoping for more in terms of episode recaps. Each show has a one line synopsis (sometimes as short as two words) such as "J.R. is shot." Otherwise, the book has plenty of behind the scenes info.
Rating:
Summary: Better episode recaps would have been nice.
Review: I was hoping for more in terms of episode recaps. Each show has a one line synopsis (sometimes as short as two words) such as "J.R. is shot." Otherwise, the book has plenty of behind the scenes info.
Rating:
Summary: Good idea, but not enough substance
Review: This book is fun to have as a companion guide while watching the recently released DVD, but the narrative and the trivia offered for most of the episodes is slim at best. I was hoping for lots of fun trivia and behind-the-scene info, but you won't really find that here.
Rating: 
Summary: 25 Years of DALLAS
Review: This is both an indespensible reference guide for the DALLAS devotee, and an absorbing account of the rise and decline of a pop culture phenomenon.
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