Arts & Entertainment
‘Dallas’ reboot in fine form
Continuation of classic series deftly balances old and new
I finally caught the “Dallas” reboot (Wednesdays at 9 on TNT) last night on DVR — busy week — and though thoroughly prepped for disappointment, was delighted to find a tightly paced, deftly edited take on one of my all-time favorite shows that struck a perfect balance between edgy/hip/new and familiar/nostalgic/endearing.
Which is saying a hell of a lot — classic franchise reboots are notoriously hard to pull off. They always sound good on paper but when a show takes on a life of its own and becomes a cultural touchstone, as the ’78-’91 classic installment did, it’s practically impossible to catch lightening in a bottle twice. Who knows if it will last, but this week’s two-hour pilot did everything it needed to do to relaunch the series in a gripping, promising way. It’s light years better than “J.R. Returns” (1996) and “War of the Ewings” (1998), the two TV movies that continued the storyline and thankfully removed the bitter aftertaste left by the show’s bizarre 1991 finale (“Conundrum”) in which Joel Gray appeared in an “It’s a Wonderful Life” takeoff that ended with a shoddily ill-conceived cliffhanger with supernatural overtones.
The cast of 'Dallas.' (Photo courtesy TNT)
So it’s thrilling to see the old warhorse, which struggled mightily in both quality and ratings its last few seasons, doing well — 6.9 million viewers tuned in to this week’s launch making it the most-watched scripted cable series so far this year and outranking anything the regular networks had in its time slot.
Twin heartthrobs Josh Henderson and Jesse Metcalfe play Ewing offspring John Ross (J.R. and Sue Ellen’s son) and Christopher (Bobby and Pam’s son) all grown up. One can’t help but wonder, of course, what became of Ormi Katz and Joshua Harris, the two actors who played the characters for years as kids on the original show, but their absence is quickly forgotten as Henderson and Metcalfe are so easy on the eyes and good actors too.
John Ross wants to drill for oil on Southfork Ranch against the wishes of Miss Ellie’s will. Christopher is pursuing an alternative energy venture that has had devastating consequences in Asia. He’s about to get married at the ranch to Rebecca (Julie Gonzalo). His old flame Elena (Jordana Brewster) is now dating John Ross. It’s a clever premise reviving a theme from the original series — early in the show, one of JR.’s deals left the family in a precarious spot financially and Miss Ellie had reluctantly agreed to let them drill on the ranch, something she’d never wanted to do. At the 11th hour, they didn’t have to.
The older generation is still kicking, though barely in some cases. Bobby (Patrick Duffy) is battling a cancer diagnosis (he’s married now to a third wife, Ann, played by Brenda Strong) and J.R. is in a nursing home suffering from depression. Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) is also in the cast. Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval) will be in future episodes. Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly) and Lucy Ewing (Charlene Tilton) are sadly reduced to cameos. Let’s hope if the show is a hit, they’re invited back and fleshed out. Tilton, especially, is a fan favorite from years ago. I never had Lucy’s hair but I did appreciate her taste in men — from gay Kit Mainwaring to her hunky doctor husband Mitch (Leigh McCloskey).
“Dallas” 2012 works for several key reasons — one, it’s been long enough now since the original show ended, that it feels fun, not tired, to revisit these characters. Nobody can say how long has to pass for such things to make sense, but pop culture very much unofficially dictates there has to be significant time — decades — before such ideas can float. “J.R. Returns” and “War of the Ewings,” while fun to watch, felt like everyone was beating a dead horse, and few horses were more dead than “Dallas” in its last couple regular seasons when most of the original cast had either long defected or were reduced to glorified cameos or mentions. The reboot, however, manages to revive the long-dormant excitement the show lacked in its final years by casting charismatic young actors in the key roles — Henderson and Brewster especially stand out — but having enough of the original cast around to keep it all grounded in authenticity. Using the original Texas-based exteriors, where several reunions have taken place over the years, is as key as the presence of Hagman, Duffy and Gray.
Principal, sixth from left, joined the cast for a 2004 non-dramatized reunion.
Sadly, but unsurprisingly, Victoria Principal (whose Pam was the original series’ central character in its early years) is a no show. She hasn’t fully shunned the show that made her famous — she showed up for a classic Vanity Fair photo shoot in the mid-’90s and for the 2004 “Return to Southfork” reunion (which featured cast members in a non-scripted format appearing as themselves), but has eschewed any thoughts of reviving her role. She told Ultimate Dallas (ultimatedallas.com, the amazingly thorough fan site) a few years ago the notion seemed rather absurd this many years later. Even so, she was never as chummy with the rest of the cast (Hagman, Duffy and Gray are close friends in real life and gathered regularly even before the show relaunched).
If Principal seems only vaguely interested — Duffy told TV Guide last week they talked by phone recently and she wished him the best on the new show — she’s still more involved than the late Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie) was in her final years. Not only did she sit out the last season (having left once before but come back), she was a no-show for both the TV movies, the Vanity Fair photo shoot and the 2004 reunion (she may have been ill for the latter — she died of cancer in 2005). She wasn’t, however, entirely reclusive in her later years — she did memorable commentary for a “Vertigo” restoration (she played Midge in the ’58 Hitchcock classic) in ’96. It’s a shame. She and Howard Keel (whose Clayton Farlow was a staple for 10 seasons), now both dead, would have been great additions to the Vanity Fair gathering. People always remember Jock (the late Jim Davis), but Clayton was on the show far longer.
The key to the new show’s success will be the degree to which it manages to maintain this delicate balancing act of old and new. Focus too much on J.R., Sue Ellen and Bobby and it looks like a Motown revival tour. But conversely, if the younger cast gets all the air time, there’s no anchor to the past. The scenes in which the two generations interacted were the best on Wednesday’s premiere — Hagman, who at age 80 has lost none of the lip-smaking relish he brought to what should have been an Emmy-winning role, plays especially well with Henderson, whose John Ross is presented as a manipulative chip off the old block.
A short scene by the Southfork pool with Henderson and Gray was the debut’s best. As Sue Ellen offered her son her support in the never-ending battle over the land (a recurring theme in the original series), Gray’s delivery crackled with tension. She looks amazing. Her icy glares shoot the same daggers they did all those years on the original series.
There were a few shoddy elements — the soundstages that are supposed to be the Southfork interiors lack both the floorplan and dimensions of those of the old show (which themselves did not match the interiors or layout of the real Southfork ranch where the exteriors have always been filmed) — but where it really counts, the new “Dallas” works. Even the opening credits, featuring a savvy twist on the original montage and a deliciously effective re-orchestration of the show’s majestic theme music, work.
It’s off to as solid a start as could possibly be expected.
a&e features
Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights
Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’
In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.
Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).
Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.
Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.
Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.
Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.
“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.
While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”
Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”
Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”
“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”
Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”
Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”
Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”
Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”
Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”
Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.
Movies
Trans-driven ‘Serpent’s Skin’ delivers campy sapphic horror
Embracing classic tropes with a candid exploration of queer experience
It’s probably no surprise that the last decade or so has seen a “renaissance” in horror cinema. Long underestimated and dismissed by critics and ignored by all the awards bodies as genre films, horror movies were deemed for generations as unworthy of serious consideration; relegated into the realm of “fandom,” where generations of young movie fanatics were left to find deeper significance on their own, they have inspired countless future film artists whose creative vision would be shaped by their influence. Add to that the increasing state of existential anxiety that has us living like frogs in a slow-boiling pot, and it seems as if the evolution of horror into what might be our culture’s most resonant form of pop art expression was more or less inevitable all along.
Queer audiences, of course, have always understood that horror provides an ideal vehicle to express the “coded” themes that spring from existence as a stigmatized outsider, and while the rise of the genre as an art form has been fueled by filmmakers from every community, the transgressive influence of queerness – particularly when armed with “camp,” its most surefire means of subversion – has played an undeniable role in building a world where movies like “Sinners” and “Weapons” can finally be lauded at the Oscars for their artistic qualities as well as celebrated for their success at providing paying audiences with a healthy jolt of adrenaline.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the boldest and most biting entries are coming from trans filmmakers like Jane Schoenbrun (“I Saw the TV Glow”) – and like Australian director Alice Maio Mackay, whose new film “The Serpent’s Skin” opened in New York last weekend and expands to Los Angeles this week.
Described in a review from RogerEbert.com as “a kind of ‘Scanners’ for the dolls,” it’s a movie that embraces classic horror tropes within a sensibility that blends candid exploration of trans experience with an obvious love for camp. It centers on twenty-something trans girl Anna (Alexandra McVicker), who escapes the toxic environment of both her dysfunctional household and her conservative hometown by running away to the “Big City” and moving in with her big sister (Charlotte Chimes). On her first night in town, she connects with Danny (Jordan Dulieu), a neighbor (the only “hottie” in the building, according to her sister) who plays guitar in a band and ticks off all her “edgy” boxes, and has a one-night stand.
The very next day, she starts a new job at a record store, where she connects – through an intense and unexpected incident – with local tattoo artist Gen (Avalon Faust), a young woman she has seen in psychic visions, and who has been likewise drawn to her. The reason? They are both “witches,” born with abilities that give them a potentially deadly power over ordinary humans, and bound together in an ancient supernatural legacy.
It goes without saying that they fall in love; together, they teach and learn from each other as they try to master the mysterious magical gifts they both possess; but when Danny coincidentally books Gen for a tattoo inspired by his earlier “fling” with Anna, an ancient evil is unleashed, leading to a string of horrific incidents and forcing them to confront the dark influences within their own traumatic histories which may have conjured this malevolent spirit in the first place, before it wreaks its soul-stealing havoc upon the entire community.
Confronting the theme of imposed trans “guilt” head on, “Serpent’s Skin” emanates from a softer, gentler place than most horror films, focusing less on scares than on the sense of responsibility which seems naturally to arise just from being “different.”. Both McVicker and Faust bring a palpable feeling of weight to their roles, as if their characters are carrying not only their own fate upon their shoulders, but that of the world at large; blessed (or cursed) with a layer of awareness that both elevates and isolates them, their characters evoke a haunting sense of responsibility, which permeates their relationship and supersedes their personal desires. At the same time, they bring a mix of respect and eroticism to the sapphic romance at the center of the film, evoking a connection to the transgressive and iconic “lesbian noir” genre but replacing its sense of amoral cynicism with an imperative toward empathy and social responsibility.
All of this helps to make the film’s heroines relatable, and raises the stakes by investing us not just in the defeat of supernatural evil, but the triumph of love. Yet we can’t help but feel that there’s something lost – a certain edge, perhaps – that might have turned up the heat and given the horror a more palpable bite. Though there are moments of genuine fright, most of the “scary” stuff is campy enough to keep us from taking things too seriously – despite the best efforts of the charismatic Dulieu, who literally sinks his teeth into his portrayal of the possessed version of Danny.
More genuinely disturbing are the movie’s scenes of self-harm, which both underscore and indict the trope of trans “victimhood” while reminding us of the very real fear at the center of many trans lives, especially when lived under the oppression of a mindset that deplores their very existence.
Still, though Mackay’s film may touch on themes of queer and trans existence and build its premise on a kind of magical bond that makes us all “sisters under the skin,” it is mostly constructed as a stylish tribute to the classic thrillers of an earlier age, evoking the psychological edge of directors like Hitchcock and DePalma while embracing the lurid “shock value” of the B-movie horror that shaped the vision of a modern generation of filmmakers who grew up watching it – and even if it never quite delivers the kind of scares that linger in our minds as we try to go to sleep at night, it makes up for the shortfall with a smart, sensitive, and savvy script and a rare depiction of trans/lesbian love that wins us over with chemistry, emotional intelligence, and enviable solidarity.
What makes “The Serpent’s Skin” feel particularly remarkable is that it comes from a 21-year-old filmmaker. Mackey, who built the foundation of her career behind the camera with a series of low-budget horror shorts in her teens, has already made an impact with movies ranging from the vampire horror comedy “So Vam” (released when she was 16) to the horror musical “Satanic Panic” and the queer holiday shockfest “Carnage for Christmas”. With her latest effort, she deploys a confidence and a style that encompasses both the deep psychological nuance of the horror genre and its guilty-pleasure thrills, rendered in an aesthetic that is grounded in intimate queer and trans authenticity and yet remains daring enough to take detours into the surreal and psychedelic without apology.
It’s the kind of movie that feels like a breakthrough, especially in an era when it feels especially urgent for trans stories to be told.
A “No Kings” demonstration was held in Anacostia on Saturday to protest the Trump administration. Speakers at the rally included LGBTQ activist, Rayceen Pendarvis. Following the rally, demonstrators marched across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge.
(Washington Blade photos and videos by Michael Key)
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