On April 2, 1978, the television series Dallas aired it's first episode on network television. The show is about a Texas family named the Ewings and their life as millionaires from the oil industry. They live on Southfork Ranch. The series begins as Bobby Ewing is coming back to Texas after his secret marriage with Pamela Barnes.

She is worried that the Ewing family will not accept her because she is the daughter of Digger Barnes, an enemy of Jock Ewing. And when they arrive at Southfork Ranch, she is correct. Nobody in the Ewing family accepts her. The older brother of Bobby, J.R., promises to break up the marriage.

When Pamela goes to her apartment in Dallas to get her things, her brother Cliff is there waiting for her. They have a conversation about the marriage and together they go to find their father, Digger. They find him in a bar, drinking with friends, telling an old story about how Jock Ewing cheated him from oil money. Pamela tells her father she is now married to the son of his enemy and leaves the bar crying because her father is angry.

J.R. speaks with Ray Krebbs about breaking up the marriage, and together they create a plan to show Bobby that Pamela will not be loyal to him. In the plan, Ray takes Pamela for a ride in the ranch helicopter, showing her the property. He also tries to remind her that she should have married him. J.R. is taking Bobby to Austin, but stops at a shed on the ranch, where Pamela and Ray are together after swimming.

Pamela is able to understand that J.R. created the plan, and demands that Ray help her against J.R., if he doesn't help, Pamela will tell Jock Ewing what she knows about Ray and Lucy Ewing. The show ends when Bobby and Pamela leave together in a car and J.R. saying he will never underestimate Pamela Ewing again.