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You will be happy to learn that J.D. and I have found a new hobby that is superior in every way to our old hobby of updating our website. We are watching Dallas on DVD.
If you are not already familiar with the wildly popular prime-time television program Dallas that ran from 1978 to 1991, then I am not going to waste my precious Dallas-watching time educating you. But I will say that Dallas is the greatest TV show I have ever seen, unless you count all of the TV shows I used to watch before I decided that a funny thing to do would be to cancel cable and only watch Dallas.
Now, before you stop reading this mid-sentence and immediately start watching Dallas yourself, I should warn you that there are some downsides to watching a television show several decades after its peak of popularity. For one thing, you are forced to witness otherwise attractive characters make poor decisions about their hairstyles. For another thing, no one is interested in talking about the show with you, no matter how often you manage to bring it up in casual conversation or at job interviews or in fan mail to former cast members of Dallas.
Like anyone who has ever seen an episode of Dallas, I have fallen deeply in love with J.R. Ewing, the sympathetic and long-suffering protagonist of the series. Usually, nothing but heartache comes from falling in love with a fictional character (damn you, Snoopy!), but I have managed to find a real-life J.R. Ewing in Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
Just like J.R. Ewing, Dmitry Medvedev inherited control of the family business (in this case, the country of Russia) from his father Vladimir Putin. Later Medvedev was shot by a mystery assailant and the Russian people had to wait in suspense all summer before they found out who the culprit was. While Medvedev was recovering from the attack, his younger brother Bobby Ewing got to run Russia, but he was totally bungling it and Medvedev had no choice but to sabotage him and regain control of the country.
Because of these obvious similarities between J.R. Ewing and Dmitry Medvedev, I have long thought that Medvedev should be cast in a prime-time television soap opera. To that end, I have written a script for the pilot episode of a television show, tentatively titled Bearcannon, featuring a part written especially for Dmitry Medvedev. Here is a sample scene:
Actor Playing a Russian Orthodox Priest: Do you, Dmitry Medvedev, take this…inappropriately dressed woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?
Medvedev: I do.
Actor Playing a Russian Orthodox Priest: And do you, Kate, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?
Kate: I do!
Actor Playing a Russian Orthodox Priest: Then by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife.
Kate: Yay! Now we’re married, for real!
Medvedev: Wait, what do you mean “for real”?
Kate: I mean we’re actually married! This is a real Russian Orthodox Priest! I just called him “Actor Playing a Russian Orthodox Priest” in the script to fool you!
Medvedev: Hmm…that did fool me.
Fin