“Dallas” 2.0 ended its first season on TNT last night with a bunch of revelations. My favorite one is that Cliff Barnes, played so well by Ken Kercheval since 1931, is now a super villain with a private plane. It turns out he sent his daughter in to marry his sister’s adopted son, Christopher, get pregnant and destroy the Ewing family. Hah!(I guess they’re first cousins, technically. A “Dallas” tradition of incest, since Lucy used to sleep with Uncle Ray Krebs.)

The old Cliff Barnes would never have been so smart. He was a wise guy jerk with a slight brain malfunction from a suicide attempt. But his sister Pam loved him. JR made inexcusable fun of Cliff, which made the show a hoot. The new “Dallas” is not a hoot. It’s told like a speeding train through a Dallas suped up to look like “Blade Runner.”

In this edition, former drunk Sue Ellen Ewing is now running for governor of Texas. I suppose it’s plausible since that’s not a job with high qualifications. Anyway, Larry Hagman–suffering from cancer–looked unwell in this final episode, very gaunt and much older than 80. I hope he’s all right. Patrick Duffy soldiers on. The younger cast members have improved slightly from the first episode.

But really, it’s all about Cliff. Now his daughter (presumably with old flame Afton, played by the incredibly bad actress Audrey Landers– can’t wait to see her next season) is pregnant with Christopher Ewing’s twins. Cliff, who used to live in a tacky condo and treated his girlfriends like garbage, is now some kind of evil genius. He’s like Lex Luthor. I almost fell off the couch. And no one in the Ewings ever guessed that Rebecca was Cliff’s daughter. Rebecca was his mother’s name. She’s named for her grandmother. And, essentially, Christopher’s.

Anyway, they all come back in January for more mishegos. It’s not the real “Dallas” and Cynthia Cidre would do well to develop a sense of humor. Where’s the new cartel? We need Marilee Stone. (There was a mention of the McKay brothers last night- who are they? Maybe next season. McKay senior- George Kennedy– was JR’s enemy.) But it is what it is.

The Monkees will tour this fall– with Mike Nesmith coming back to the band. I guess with the sad, sad passing of Davy Jones, Mike realized he had to join Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork one last time. The Monkees have a huge fan base, and deservedly so. Initially a made up band a kind of joke from the mid 60s, it turns out they have a great catalog of hits which has endured. If they sing “People Gotta Be Free,” which used to close the show’s credit, I will be very happy. Here’s the release and the tour dates. This could be bigger than The Who tour. In addition, Mickey is doing like 15 projects lately. I love Mickey Dolenz. Who doesn’t?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUzs5dlLrm0

The release:

The Monkees are set to return to the stage this November for a 12-date U.S. tour, marking the first time Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork have played together since 1997. The tour kicks off at Escondido’s California Center for the Arts on November 8th and finishes at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on December 2nd.

The trek is also Nesmith’s first with the Monkees since a brief U.K. run in 1997; and of course, it’s the group’s first outing since singer Davy Jones passed away in February. “This seems like a good time to do this – the right time,” says Nesmith. “Who knows when we will get another chance?”

The Monkees will perform a selection of their biggest hits and deeper cuts from their first five albums, as well as music from their film Head and their TV series. Accompanying the tunes will be a multimedia show filled with rare films and photographs.

Jones will be saluted “in the show’s multimedia content,” according to a statement.

Dolenz’ PR-rep David Salidor also revealed that a new album from him, called REMEMBER, will be released on 9/25.

Full tour dates below:

11/8 Escondido, CA – California Center for the Arts
11/9 Santa Barbara, CA – The Arlington Theatre
11/10 Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre
11/11 Cupertino, CA – Flint Center for the Performing Arts
11/15 Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre
11/16 Chicago, IL – The Chicago Theatre
11/17 Cleveland, OH – Lakewood Civic Auditorium
11/18 Buffalo, NY – The Center For The Arts
11/29 Philadelphia, PA – Keswick Theatre
11/30 New Brunswick, NJ – State Theatre Regional Arts Center
12/1 Huntington, NY – The Paramount
12/2 New York, NY – The Beacon Theatre

Woody Harrelson has conquered plenty of fields in entertainment, from TV to movies. So last night’s premiere of the play he wrote with pal Frankie Hyman was another high water mark– and I do mean high. With Woody, it’s not Chanel No. 5 you sniff when he gives you a hug. (Harrelson is one of the nicest, most mellow fellows in showbiz.) Woody directed “Bullet for Adolf” and it opened last night at New World Stages, a cool theater complex just west of the theater district on 50th St. and Eighth Avenue. A lot of his friends showed up including Tony Danza, singer Peter Cincotti, producer Bonnie Timmermann, music producer Russ Titelman, famed magician and performer David Blaine. and director Oren Moverman.

“Bullet” is well directed; the diverse cast of newcomers mostly are very talented, and with Woody they’ve achieved a great rapport on stage. There’s a nice ease to the production. The play is part sitcom, and part Sam Shepherd with a little “House of Blues Leaves” thrown in. Hyman, who is black, was born in Harlem, moved to Texas, where he met Harrelson, and now lives in Los Angeles. They’ve been friends for most of their lives, he told me. The result of their collaboration is a play with black and white actors–nice to see for a change–where everyone is equally goofy. Conventional critics won’t like “Bullet,” but summer audiences will.

A special shout out to Nick Wyman, president of Actors Equity and a Broadway veteran with 15 shows on his resume including “Phantom” and “Les Miz.” He’s one of those guys who you see and say, “I know him, what’s his name?” In “Bullet” he plays a funny German with a strange backstory. His gun was going to kill Hitler; it has one bullet left in its chamber that was supposed to assassinate the world’s most hated dictator. They needed Nick Wyman to put that story over.

Off topic: David Blaine entertained everyone at the after party at Hurley’s with electrifying card tricks. He told me loves to travel through the country performing at small clubs, but won’t do Las Vegas. Too big and impersonal.

Lena Dunham’s “Girls” is a hit on HBO, a wonderfully written droll show about slacker kids living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But since it started, “Girls” has been criticized for furthering the same issue that plagued “Sex and the City”–no black characters. How could these kids live in New York and have a lily white existence? Sources now tell me that issue will be addressed in the season 2 opener, which was just completed. My direct question was, Will there be a black character? And the answer I got was Yes.

This is so smart of “Girls” to do this quickly, and without fuss. Last spring they’d announced a character named Tako was who supposed to be African American. But when she turned up  in the person of winning actress Roberta Colindrez, it didn’t seem like the show had followed through on its promise.

The following may be further confirmation. A casting call went out in July for this character. The name and description of the character suggests that Elladonna could be the young lady in question. Here’s the description. Note the very important part–“submit all ethnicities”:

[ELADONNA] Female, PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES. ELADONNA is a 17-18 year old (PLEASE
INDICATE AGE ON SUBMISSION) Staten-Islander raised by her on again, off again parents. Her mother is
currently living with another man in Levittown, Pennsylvania so she lives with only her father (who thinks his
wife is staying with her mother. Eladonna knows and will tell him the next time she fights with her dad. It will
lead to his stabbing the man and ending up in jail). She most often sleeps at her boyfriend’s condo – a 38
year old commercial realtor who’s also a small time coke dealer. She has 2 tattoos: a Yankees sign on her
inner thigh that she got when she was sober and the Chinese symbol for “wisdom” on her hip that she got
when she was drunk. She found some guns at her boyfriend’s place and likes to carry one around in her
purse. (Guest Star)
Likes: Lady Gaga, bubble gum, Hypnotiq, good calzones, her brother Matteo who’s in a rock band in
Denver.
Dislikes: Her mother, her father, phonies.

I just put down the phone with legendary Carole Bayer Sager who wrote “Nobody Does it Better” with Marvin Hamlisch, the James Bond theme song from “The Spy Who Loved Me” and a big, big hit for Carly Simon. Hamlisch had already won the Pulitzer and Tony for “A Chorus Line” and a hit with “The Entertainer” from “The Sting.” When the pair met for another writing assignment, Hamlisch was getting ready to leave for London to write the music for “Spy.” Sager says she told him: “You know, ‘Nobody Does It Better’ always struck me as a great title for a Bond movie. He said, I love it and we wrote the chorus that afternoon.”

Hamlisch, she recalls, had to persuade Cubby Broccoli to let her write the song since he usually used movie composers like John Barry. “He convinced Cubby to give me a chance.” Hamlisch and Sager called Carly Simon, and “Marvin went up to see her. She loved it an dI loved her rendition of it. At the end she sings James I love you and we never knew if she was singing about James Bond or James Taylor.” The song was a huge hit, and was nominated for an Oscar. Hamlisch and Sager then wrote another staple, Melissa Manchester’s hit, “Looking Through the Eyes of Love.”

But that wasn’t all for the duo. They were dating and living together when Neil Simon decided to turn their romance into a Broadway musical. The result was the hit, “They’re Playing Our Song,” which starred Lucie Arnaz and Robert Klein. “Our real romance was somewhere between that and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. But there was this weirdness about us both being songwriters. Marvin kept telling Neil that ‘she’s a pop lyricist and I’m an old stodgy Broadway composer’. I said, Are you insane? You have Oscars and a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize! [In 1974, Hamlisch won 3 Oscars in one night– two for “The Way We Were” and one for “The Sting.”] We’d have these crazy disagreements. He told Neil, I get jealous when she has a number 1 song either I feel jealous because I wish I had it, or I get angry because I could have written a better song!”

They were supposed to be working on a musical of Simon’s “The Goodbye Girl.” “But Marvin would walk in and tell him these funny neurotic stories aboiut us, and finally Neil said Would you mind if I have lunch with Carole?” The show became about Hamlisch and Sager’s relationship. “It was a painless, joyful experience.” So much so that just a few weeks ago, Klein and Arnaz joined Hamlisch for one of his concert dates to reprise their songs.

Sager and Hamlisch eventually broke up but remained good friends. When Sager was invited to put on a show to Feinstein’s at the Regency, Hamlisch helped design it, then rehearsed with the band and sat in on piano the first couple of nights. Sager, like everyone who knew Hamlisch, was shocked when she got the news of his death this morning. “I don’t know if he was sick, or what happened,” she told me. “But everyone loved him. That’s what you’re hearing. And it’s true.”

Liza Minnelli on the passing of Marvin Hamlisch: “Marvin Hamlisch and I have been best friends since I was 13 years old. He arranged my first album, my second album, the songs for Judy Garland & Liza Minnelli at the London Palladium and just about everything else.

He was one of the funniest people I knew. I will miss his talent, our laughter & friendship, but mostly I will miss Marvin. My heart is with his wife Terre always.

I have lost my first lifelong best friend, and sadly we have lost a splendid, splendid talent.”