The old TV-inspired image of Dallas as a center of the rich, opulent and conspicuous consumption of things fine and flighty gets new life on cable.

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Since the 1980s heyday of the prime-time soap named after the city, that's the image that resonated with the rest of the world, largely because Dallas never really tried to change it, the Dallas Morning News says.

The aura of tacky excess gets a new polishing Friday night with the debut of "Sheer Dallas," a reality series on the TLC cable channel. Ads feature a leggy, bejeweled woman stepping from a fancy car in spur-festooned high heels. The tagline: "Drama. Decadence. Dollars."

Narrated by J.R. Ewing himself, Larry Hagman, "Sheer Dallas" focuses on the Uptown-Turtle Creek-Highland Park social set.