John Ross Ewing: Television's best character snuffed out too soon

Finally, back refreshed from my honeymoon with my second installment of this new blog. And I knew all along exactly what this second entry was going to be. This second entry was (and in ways, still is) about what I feel to be the best character on television today.

And then something happened while I was gone. TNT happened. And surprisingly, the re-boot of Dallas was cancelled just after its third season ended with a couple of intense cliff hangers. And as a fan, it was heart breaking. But I digress some. The cancellation is only relevant to this column because my plan all along was to talk about Josh Henderson’s portrayal of John Ross Ewing on Dallas and how I believe it to be the best character on television.

I guess this means I now this that it was the best character that WAS on television in the last year.

Dallas, as a show, has a lot of history. Because of that, there was a lot of skepticism when it was re-booted all these years later with fresh faces co-mingling with the old faces. There were a lot of fans of the original Dallas that these new faces had to impress. There were familiar actors in new characters (Jordana Brewster has had a solid movie career, Jesse Metcalfe has done some movie and soap opera work), and then there was Josh Henderson. Not to say that Henderson was not well versed before he was cast for the Dallas re-boot, but those roles weren’t very big. Dallas was the first big stage for Josh Henderson and he was dealt the toughest hand.

Loved, hated — the character of JR Ewing (portrayed by Larry Hagman) is absolutely the most iconic character from the show’s long and varied history. JR Ewing is one of the most iconic characters in the history of television. And while Hagman was going to be returning to that role, the depth of it was unknown. He was older, in bad health and TNT clearly wanted to put a focus on the younger, sexier characters. Enter Henderson. All of the sudden, the former pop star had to be the new JR. John Ross Ewing was already going to be a tough role for anyone to fill. But now, he couldn’t just be John Ross as John Ross, Henderson had to be John Ross as JR.

How do you replace an iconic character like JR? Especially when that character still existed? That was the task for Josh Henderson and he passed with more than flying characters during Dallas’ three-season run.

John Ross Ewing was every bit as compassionate, conniving and unruly as his father. But more importantly, with today’s audience that can be so fickle, John Ross was every bit as compelling as a character as JR ever was.

I picked up on the Dallas reboot initially because I liked Jesse Metcalfe (Christopher Ewing) as an actor, so I wanted to give the show a chance. But as a television fan, I fell in love with Dallas mostly because of Josh Henderson’s portrayal of John Ross. Let’s face facts, with the exception of a choice few shows and characters, television today is bland and boring more often than not. Shows get cancelled before they ever get a chance to gain footing and a lot of characters are cookie cutter. The Christopher Ewing character, as must as I enjoy Jesse Metcalfe and his acting, the character was cookie cutter. It was a role meant to be stable and safe. Most roles anymore are made to be safe.

John Ross Ewing was not a safe role and Henderson never played it safe. Nobody else could play John Ross, especially in such a captivating way. By the end of Dallas’ third season, there was a lot of intrigue into different storylines, sadness at the death of Ewing, but for me I was hanging on John Ross’ every move.

The character was written to perfection, especially after Hagman’s death (and with it, the death of the JR character) because John Ross absolutely had to be JR now. His Jekyll and Hyde personality went from excellent to out of this world. He was good, he was evil, and he didn’t want to be his father but absolutely was.

What I find interesting is that even on blockbuster shows that I have been a fan of; it’s the ensemble that often makes it work more than not. And even if individuals were strong, they didn’t touch Henderson. I was a big fan of Lost, as were millions of others, but no character on that show was as good of an individual character as John Ross. Josh Holloway’s portrayal of Sawyer was a personal favorite of mine but I would not have watched Lost solely for Sawyer. I’d watch Dallas exclusively for John Ross’ character. Today, Sons of Anarchy is another personal favorite of mine with a lot of fun characters and one — Jax Teller — is deeply compelling, but absolutely not in the same vein as John Ross.

I started watching Dallas for Metcalfe and out of intrigue. But at the end of the day, Dallas, to me, was about John Ross Ewing. The writing was perfect, as was Henderson. No character on television today is as captivating as John Ross was for three seasons. He took the toughest role, watched it get tougher and rose above every challenge better and better than before because you just never knew what John Ross had up his sleeve or what he was going to do. Nobody could get that across like Henderson. Television will be less in the coming seasons without that character.