THE LAST episode of Dallas in 1991 ended with Bobby Ewing’s horrified face as brother JR apparently shoots himself following a series of hallucinations in which a demon shows him, It’s a Wonderful Life-style, exactly how much better life would have been for everyone if he had never been born.

For a soap opera chiefly notable for its glamorous family feuds and conscience-free back-stabbing, it didn’t, in other words, end on a high.

Happily for TV3, Monday night’s premiere of the CBS network’s Dallas revival has pulled in a substantial number of curious viewers, with an average of 466,000 people watching the fracking-themed first episode.

This represents an audience share of 36.7 per cent of adults aged 15-44 – including 33.1 per cent of ABC1s – and gives Dallas the highest rated debut of any drama series on TV3.

The audience peaked at 518,200, while a total of 842,500 people tuned in at some point.

“After 20 years, you don’t really know how it’s going to go,” says TV3 spokeswoman Maureen Catterson. “Obviously there was a lot of hype in the run up to it, but it’s blown expectations even from our end.”

A broad age appeal helps, Catterson adds. For younger viewers, there’s the attractive new cast led by Jesse Metcalfe, while for those of us who remember Dallas, “it’s all about what JR, Bobby and Sue Ellen look like now”.

Then, of course, there’s the long-suffering fans-of-Cliff-Barnes community, keen to know if he’s still knocking about Southfork in another fiendishly clever power struggle with JR ...

Oily soap fans rejoice – there are nine episodes to go in this run, while CBS has ordered up a further 15 for next year.