The Show That Started The Most Annoying Trend on TV

Summary:

• A cliffhanger is a television plot device to separate the parts of one story and draw the viewers’ attention to the upcoming one.
• Nowadays this trick is used to separate not only seasons of the show, but also part of the season, or even two-parter episodes.
• Cliffhangers were massively popularized by the CBS show Dallas back in the 80s.

Mystery sells. There's no doubt about it these days, in any field of entertainment or otherwise. People, being the curious creatures that we are, are always interested in finding out what the creators are trying to hide, so any element of mystery and suspense plays well for the promo.

This is why the producers and directors of the biggest shows love to use cliffhangers. While the trend is definitely overdone, and only a few of the cliffhangers have been truly surprising, it still has to do wonders for the ratings as the networks continue to shove them down the throats of viewers.

Who shot J.R.? Even if you're not familiar with the original source of this phrase, you must have heard it at least once and recognize it fairly well. That is because it was the very beginning of the most annoying and overwhelming trend in modern television.

Who Really Shot J.R. In Dallas?

The popularity of CBS's Dallas was already skyrocketing when the show aired its third season finale, but after it aired, the interest grew even more. The reason for this was the mystery of an assassination attempt on arch-villain J.R. Ewing, portrayed by Larry Hagman.

The character, as well as the show, was so popular with viewers that the CBS catchphrase "Who shot J.R.?" quickly made the rounds in the media. It's hard to imagine the success it would have had if the Internet were around, but even without it, Dallas managed to attract 83 million American viewers to the reveal.

The reveal episode was called "Who Done It" and came out 8 months after the cliffhanger. To this day, it remains one of the most-watched shows on television.

The impact of the mystery on viewers was so great, not only domestically but internationally, that a session of the Turkish Parliament was canceled just so the representatives could go home and watch the episode. It has become one of the biggest triggers for the shows to use the same device to gain more attention.

"Who shot J.R.?" was later referenced in many different shows, starting from Saturday Night Live’s sketch to Twin Peaks, The Simpsons, and even the British soap opera EastEnders. Ever since then, it has earned itself the status of one of the greatest TV-related pop culture references.