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10 The credits

What a ballsy, big, great tune. Every season to the end, the music got better, the titles longer. The song remains the ultimate theme tune, as does the whole sequence, especially in an age when opening credits are a dying art. The credits were only bettered by Knots Landing, the brilliant (and ultimately longer-lasting) Dallas spin-off.

9 JR getting shot (obviously)

The ultimate soap cliffhanger: a darkened room, a list of suspects as long as a Southfork fence and a gunshot. Dallas used the cliffhanger more than once (once Bobby took a bullet instead of JR) and other soaps followed. Remember the ‘who shot Phil Mitchell’ storyline on EastEnders?

8 Sue Ellen drinking

Pick a moment. Really, it doesn’t matter which because each would start with a tremulous lip-chomping motion on the corner of the glass. A true Sue Ellen signature and fun to impersonate when inebriated yourself. Make yourself cross-eyed for the full effect.

7 Sue Ellen getting carted off to the sanatorium

The ultimate Sue Ellen as victim moment, before the mid-to-late Eighties sobriety/powersuit makeover that saw her leave town (with Lovejoy, surreally) having beaten JR once and for all. Her hair had become truly bizarre by this point.

6 The Oil Barons' Ball/Ewing barbecue

Each season of Dallas had to have one. Essentially it was an excuse for someone to get a drink chucked in their face (Oil Baron’s Ball) or pushed into the pool (Ewing barbecue).

5 Pam slaps Katherine

Over an agonisingly long period, evil Katharine Wentworth had schemed and plotted to break up the golden couple of Pam (her sister) and Bobby Ewing. Pam found out and gave her a well-deserved wallop.

4 The different Miss Ellie

It was so very wrong. Donna Reed joined the show, replacing Barbara Bel Geddes. Everyone called her Miss Ellie but she really wasn't, and Bel Geddes soon rejoined the show. Remember when Miss Ellie was kidnapped?

3 Bobby is killed and rises again/The Dream

After Pam slapped Katherine, the latter’s psychosis was fuelled and she drove over to Pam's to mow down her rival. But Bobby pushed Pam out of the way, was knocked over and died. Then, a season of Dallas later, Pam woke up, Bobby's in the shower - she dreamt the entire preceding season. Many fans gave up on the show at this point, the fools - its final years got way trashier.

2 Pam dies /comes back

This wasn't a dream. But she was reincarnated. Pam discovers, soap miracle of miracles, she can have children. She calls Bobby on the car phone. Car crashes into lorry. Pam is a goner: oh no, she isn't, but she does spend a lot of time in bandages (face not showing) in a hospital. It goes on FOREVER.

1 The end?

JR is shown what life would have been like without him by a creepoid called Adam, later revealed to be working for the devil. A shot rings out. Bobby walks in and says, "Oh my God". The question is left hanging, did JR kill himself? This is resolved in a Dallas reunion special, but who cares? Some things are better left a mystery (or Google it obviously).

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