A new "Dallas" but still the same oil story The timing for the revival of Dallas, the glossy 1970s soap opera brought back for the 21st century by the TNT network, could not be better. When it was first launched in 1978, Texas was in the midst of an oil boom. The Opec embargo had sent crude prices soaring, and oil-rich Texans seemed opulent and glamorous to a cash-strapped country still slowly crawling out of recession. The Last Word Today, the good times are back in the oil patch. The shale revolution has revived the industry through the deployment of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing: pumping water, sand and chemicals underground at high pressure to unlock oil and gas. With job creation outstripping any other state in the union, Texans are again the envy of many other Americans. Unfortunately, the new Dallas, which picks up the story of the Ewing family again after a two-decade absence since the show went off the air in 1991, does not do much justice to those realities of the modern oil business. In the first episode, Bobby, played again by Patrick Duffy, apologises to a group of oil workers, saying he knows times are rough. Either the writers are showing how he is out of touch or the script has been sitting in a drawer for quite a long time. The depiction of oil-drilling is even more antiquated. John Ross - who now shares the status of the show's anti-hero with his father J.R. - hits a gusher and dances around in the brown rain like a wildcatter from the 1920s. An accurate recreation of the fracking process, with the pumps and generator trucks gathered around the well, and the crew following the pressure underground using sensors, would have been both more realistic and more dramatic. The portrayal of the alternative energy business led by Chris Ewing, Bobby's adopted son, is more plausible. It seems the writers took a little more care with his story, and the opposition of nice-guy Chris to the roguish oil man John Ross (left) makes it clear where their sympathies lie. Chris's plan is to harvest methane hydrates, the strange blends of natural gas and ice found under the seabed. The potential and the pitfalls of hydrate extraction are presented fairly, although the series is unlikely to run long enough for him to realise his ambition of turning his company into the ExxonMobil of alternative energy. The plot is ludicrous, of course, involving a web of double-crosses, fake identities and long-buried secrets, but you would expect that. If you are old enough, there is enjoyment to be had in seeing how the stars of the original series, including Larry Hagman as J.R. and Linda Gray as Sue Ellen, are faring 30 years later. Pretty well, is the answer. The truth, though, is that in the energy business fiction cannot possibly match up to reality. Over recent months, readers of the business press have been gripped by the saga of Aubrey McClendon, the Oklahoma City-based tycoon who built Chesapeake Energy from nothing into the second-largest natural gas business in the US. There have been revelations about Mr McClendon's complex personal finances, boardroom machinations, and a roller-coaster ride in the share price. Meanwhile, Oklahoma City Thunder, the basketball team part-owned by Mr McClendon, has made an unexpected run to the finals of the national championships to face the pampered superstars of Miami Heat. When the Thunder won the first game of the series on Tuesday night, cheered on from the sidelines by Mr McClendon, most neutrals were cheering too. For a smart television company wanting to show what life in the modern US energy industry is really like, Oklahoma City is a series that is crying out to be made.