Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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J. Richard Hackman, an Expert in Team Dynamics, Dies at 72

J. Richard Hackman, a Harvard psychology professor whose fieldwork sometimes took him to the cockpit of an airliner to observe the crew in a nearly five-decade quest to determine the dynamics of teamwork and effective leadership, died on Jan. 8 in Boston. He was 72.

The cause was lung cancer, his wife, Judith Dozier Hackman, said.

Dr. Hackman, the author or co-author of 10 books on group dynamics, was the Edgar Pierce professor of social and organizational psychology at Harvard.

In one of his best-known books, “Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances” (2002), he replaced the popular image of the powerful “I can do it all” team leader with that of someone who, as he wrote, had the subtle skills “to get a team established on a good trajectory, and then to make small adjustments along the way to help members succeed.”

The conditions for a successful team effort — among them “a compelling direction, an enabling team structure, a supportive organizational context and expert team coaching” — “are easy to remember,” Dr. Hackman wrote.

“The challenge,” he continued, “comes in developing an understanding of those conditions that is deep and nuanced enough to be useful in guiding action, and in devising strategies for creating them even in demanding or team-unfriendly organizational circumstances.”

Besides tracking the interplay of pilots, co-pilots and navigators aboard civilian and military planes, Dr. Hackman observed corporate boards, sports teams, orchestra players, telephone-line repair crews, hospital workers and restaurant kitchen staff members.

And in recent years, for his 2011 book, “Collaborative Intelligence,” he was allowed to observe interactions within the American intelligence, defense, law-enforcement and crisis-management communities.

“Although my main aspiration has been to provide guidance that will be useful to team leaders and members,” he wrote, “there are no ‘one-minute’ prescriptions here — creating, leading and serving on teams is not that simple.”

Anita Woolley, a professor of organizational behavior and theory at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said, “The key thing about Dr. Hackman’s work is that it stands in contrast to some of the more popular models of leadership that focused very much on style or how leaders behave, versus what they do.”

Rather than viewing pay as a prime motivator for good performance, she continued, “he focused on features of people’s jobs that made them more intrinsically satisfied: the freedom to determine how they conduct their work, having a variety of tasks, having knowledge of the ultimate outcomes of their work, knowing how their work affects or is received by other people.”

He also liked to overturn some of the received wisdom about teamwork. In a 2011 article for The Harvard Business Review, Dr. Hackman listed “Six Common Misperceptions About Teamwork.” Among them was this:

“Misperception No. 2: It’s good to mix it up. New members bring energy and fresh ideas to a team. Without them, members risk becoming complacent, inattentive to changes in the environment, and too forgiving of fellow members’ misbehavior.

“Actually: The longer members stay together as an intact group, the better they do. As unreasonable as this may seem, the research evidence is unambiguous. Whether it is a basketball team or a string quartet, teams that stay together longer play together better.”

John Richard Hackman was born in Joliet, Ill., on June 14, 1940, the only child of J. Edward and Helen Hackman. His father was an oil pipeline engineer, his mother a schoolteacher.

Dr. Hackman received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., in 1962, and a doctorate in psychology from the University of Illinois in 1966. He soon joined the psychology and administrative sciences department faculties at Yale, where he taught until 1986, when he moved to the psychology and business departments at Harvard.

Besides his wife, who is an associate dean at Yale, he is survived by two daughters, Julia Beth Proffitt and Laura Dianne Codeanne, and four grandchildren.

After Dr. Hackman died, The Harvard Crimson wrote that for years he had “devoted countless hours to improving one team in particular — the Harvard women’s basketball squad, for which he volunteered as an honorary coach.”

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China's smog taints economy, health

BEIJING — When a thick quilt of smog enveloped swaths of China earlier this month, it set in motion a costly chain reaction for the world's No. 2 economy.

Authorities canceled flights across northern China and ordered some factories shut. Hospitals were flooded with hacking patients.

A fire in an empty furniture factory in eastern Zhejiang province went undetected for hours because the smoke was indistinguishable from the haze. In coastal Shandong province, most highways were closed for fear that low visibility would cause motorists to crash. And in Beijing, the local government urged residents to remain indoors and told construction sites to scale back activity.

Photos: Smog in China

"These are emergency measures that have the same economic impact as a strike or severe weather," said Louis Kuijs, a Hong Kong-based economist with the Royal Bank of Scotland and formerly of the World Bank. "They're very painful."

Residents in the capital have taken to mocking their famously filthy air and its attendant health hazards with the expression "Beijing cough." Meanwhile, Shanghai's Environmental Protection Bureau has introduced a cartoon mascot to communicate daily air quality on its website: a pig-tailed girl who bursts into tears when smog reaches hazardous levels.

But economists say China's smog is no joke. As air pollution continues to obscure China's cities, the cost to the nation in lost productivity and health problems is soaring. The World Bank estimates sickness and early death sapped China of $100 billion in 2009, or just under 3% of gross domestic product. China is now home to seven of the 10 most-polluted cities in the world, according to a report by the Asian Development Bank and Beijing's Tsinghua University.

A study by Greenpeace and Peking University's School of Public Health put the cost of healthcare to treat pollution-related ailments in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xian at more than $1 billion last year.

Beijing resident Zhang Jian takes his 2-year-old son to a doctor regularly to treat the toddler's chronic sinus infection.

"It's definitely related to the pollution," said Zhang, 35, who wore a disposable mask at an overcrowded children's hospital recently. "My son snores and his nose is blocked constantly. It's a problem because he's too young to clear his nose like adults."

The doctor's visit and treatment cost Zhang about $320 — nearly a week's pay for the IT professional.

The Beijing government says it's considering a host of emergency measures to clear the air. Among them: limiting vehicle usage, spraying building sites to reduce dust and restricting outdoor barbecue grills.

Even China's next premier, Li Keqiang, weighed in recently on the issue. "This is a problem accumulated over a long period of time, and solving the problem will also require a long time. But we need to take action."

China's smog crisis is not unlike those experienced in London and Los Angeles in the 1950s. Public outcry ultimately led to cleaner air and tougher environmental regulations.

Environmental activists hope the same happens in China. The official response in recent weeks has raised optimism that authorities will begin addressing pollution more openly.

Until recently, state media was loathe to use the word "pollution," opting instead for the euphemism "fog."

But popular pressure is building, making it harder for policymakers to ignore the foul air in many of China's largest cities.

After the staggeringly bad bout of air pollution in the middle of this month, micro-bloggers took to posting pictures of themselves online wearing masks.

Some held handwritten signs that read, "I don't want to be a human vacuum cleaner."

The phrase became the top-trending topic on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo, attracting several million hits.

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Crazy Alien Weather: Lightning-Filled Rocket Dust Storms of Mars

Scientists have modeled the internal workings of lightning-filled “rocket dust storms” on Mars that rise at speeds 100 times faster than ordinary storms and inject dust high into the Martian atmosphere.

The Red Planet is a very dry and dusty place, with global storms that sometimes obscure the entire surface. Satellites orbiting Mars have seen persistent dust layers reaching very high altitudes, as much as 30 to 50 km above the ground, though scientists are at a loss to explain exactly how the dust got there.

Using a high-resolution model, researchers have shown that a thick blob-like dust pocket inside a storm may become heated by the sun, causing the surrounding atmosphere to warm quickly. Because hot air rises, these areas will shoot skyward super fast, much like a rocket launching into space, hence “rocket dust storms.”

“The vertical transport was so strong we want to come up with a kind of spectacular name, to give an idea of the very powerful rise,” said planetary scientist Aymeric Spiga from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in Paris, France, who is lead author on a paper describing the phenomena in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets on Jan. 14.

These speedily rising dust blobs can soar from near the surface to 30 or 40 km into the atmosphere in a matter of hours at speeds in excess of 10 meters per second (22 mph). This is far faster than the typical convection speeds in a dust storm of 0.1 meters per second (0.2 mph). Since the dust particles rub up against one another and create friction, the rocket dust storms may become charged with electrostatic forces, which could which could trigger fantastic lightning bolts.

Spiga and his team used detailed models of winds and dust on Mars to determine exactly how these rocket dust storms behave. Most previous models of Mars’ climate simulate large-scale global dust storms with fairly coarse resolution and so have not noticed the rocket storms. The team seeded their model with data from a dust storm observed by the OMEGA instrument aboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiting satellite and watched the rise of rocket storms.

Similar dust storms can’t happen on Earth. This is mainly because Mars’ atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than our own, meaning that it gets quickly and efficiently heated when dust particles absorb sunlight and then emit thermal radiation.

But a comparable phenomenon occurs in grey cumulonimbus thunderstorm clouds on Earth. The large accumulations of water particles in such clouds release latent heat, causing strong vertical motions and an extensive tall structure. Spiga’s team has used this Earthly analogy in the rocket dust storm’s more technical name, conio-cumulonimbus, from the Greek conious, which means dust.

“But I prefer to call them rocket dust storms,” Spiga said. “Then everyone knows what I’m talking about.”

Other researchers are impressed with the physical modeling done in the work. “I was a little surprised that such a small dust disturbance could remain intact over such long distances,” said planetary atmospheres scientist Scot Rafkin from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The mechanism could help explain how long-lasting layers of dust climb so high in the Martian atmosphere, he says. 

Because they appear to be relatively rare, it may take a while to track down more rocket dust storms. But Spiga is hopeful they will be found by orbiting satellites, which may even image the lightning flashes inside them.

Video: Spiga, Aymeric, et al. “Rocket dust storms and detached dust layers in the Martian atmosphere,” JGR:Planets, DOI: 10.1002/jgre.20046

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Fox orders futuristic cop drama pilot from J.J. Abrams, J.H. Wyman

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Fox has given the green light to a police drama pilot from “Fringe” executive producers J.H. Wyman and J.J. Abrams, the network said Friday.

Described as an “action-packed buddy cop show,” the untitled project takes place “in the near future, when all LAPD officers are partnered with highly evolved human-like androids.”

Wyman is writing and executive-producing the one-hour drama project, along with Abrams.

Abrams’s Bad Robot Productions is producing in association with Warner Bros. Television. Bad Robot’s Bryan Burk is also executive-producing, with the company’s Kathy Lingg serving as co-executive producer.

Abrams, who’s been tapped to direct the maiden installment of the revived “Star Wars” movie franchise, sold a comedy pilot, “Adulting,” to Fox late last year. That project, a single-camera, half-hour comedy, is based on the Kelly Williams Brown book “Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 387 Easy(ish) Steps.”

“Fringe,” which was also on Fox, wrapped up its series run with a two-hour finale earlier this month.

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Diner’s Journal Blog: PepsiCo Will Halt Use of Additive in Gatorade

PepsiCo announced on Friday that it would no longer use an ingredient in Gatorade after consumers complained.

The ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, which was used in citrus versions of the sports drink to prevent the flavorings from separating, was the object of a petition started on Change.org by Sarah Kavanagh, a 15-year-old from Hattiesburg, Miss., who became concerned about the ingredient after reading about it online. Studies have suggested there are possible side effects, including neurological disorders and altered thyroid hormones.

The petition attracted more than 200,000 signatures, and this week, Ms. Kavanagh was in New York City to tape a segment for “The Dr. Oz Show.” She visited The New York Times on Wednesday and while there said, “I just don’t understand why they can’t use something else instead of B.V.O.”

“I was in algebra class and one of my friends kicked me and said, ‘Have you seen this on Twitter?’ ” Ms. Kavanagh said in a phone interview on Friday evening. “I asked the teacher if I could slip out to the bathroom, and I called my mom and said, ‘Mom, we won.’ ”

Molly Carter, a spokeswoman for Gatorade, said the company had been testing alternatives to the chemical for roughly a year “due to customer feedback.” She said Gatorade initially was not going to make an announcement, “since we don’t find a health and safety risk with B.V.O.”

Because of the petition, though, Ms. Carter said the company had changed its mind, and an unidentified executive there gave Beverage Digest, a trade publication, the news for its Jan. 25 issue.

Previously, a spokesman for PepsiCo had said in an e-mail, “We appreciate Sarah as a fan of Gatorade, and her concern has been heard.”

Brominated vegetable oil will be replaced by sucrose acetate isobutyrate, an emulsifier that is “generally recognized as safe” as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration. The new ingredient will be added to orange, citrus cooler and lemonade Gatorade, as well Gatorade X-Factor orange, Gatorade Xtremo citrus cooler and a powdered form of the drink called “glacier freeze.”

Ms. Carter said consumers would start seeing the new ingredient over the next few months as existing supplies of Gatorade sell out and are replaced.

Health advocates applauded the company’s move. “Kudos to PepsiCo for doing the responsible thing on its own and not waiting for the F.D.A. to force it to,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Mr. Jacobson has championed the removal of brominated vegetable oil from foods and beverages for the last several decades, but the F.D.A. has left it in a sort of limbo, citing budgetary constraints that it says keep it from going through the process needed to formally ban the chemical or declare it safe once and for all.

Brominated vegetable oil is banned as a food ingredient in Japan and the European Union. About 10 percent of drinks sold in the United States contain it, including Mountain Dew, which is also made by PepsiCo; some flavors of Powerade and Fresca from Coca-Cola; and Squirt and Sunkist Peach Soda, made by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

PepsiCo said it had no plans to remove the ingredient from Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew, both of which generate more than $1 billion in annual sales.

Heather White, executive director at the Environmental Working Group, said of PepsiCo’s decision, “We can only hope that other companies will follow suit.” She added, “We need to overhaul how F.D.A. keeps up with the latest science on food additives to better protect public health.”

Ms. Kavanagh agreed. “I’ve been thinking about ways to take this to the next level, and I’m thinking about taking it to the F.D.A. and asking them why they aren’t doing something about it,” she said. “I’m not sure yet, but I think that’s where I’d like to go with this.”

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 26, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the 15-year-old who started a petition on Change.org to end the use of brominated vegetable oil in Gatorade. She is Sarah Kavanagh, not Kavanaugh.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/26/2013, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: PepsiCo Will Halt Additive Use In Gatorade.

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Labor Relations Board Rulings Could Be Undone

By ruling that Mr. Obama’s three recess appointments last January were illegal, the federal appeals court ruling, if upheld, would leave the board with just one member, short of the quorum needed to issue any rulings. The Obama administration could appeal the court ruling, but no announcement was made on Friday.

If the Supreme Court were to uphold Friday’s ruling, issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, it would mean that the labor board did not have a quorum since last January and that all its rulings since then should be nullified.

Many Republicans and business groups applauded Friday’s ruling. They often assert that the appointments Mr. Obama made to the board have transformed it into a tool of organized labor. But many Democrats and labor unions say Mr. Obama’s appointments restored ideological balance to the board after it was tipped in favor of business interests under President George W. Bush

Mark G. Pearce, the board’s chairman, issued a statement saying the board disagreed with the ruling and suggested that other appeals courts hearing cases about the constitutionality of Mr. Obama’s appointments could reach a different conclusion.

“In the meantime, the board has important work to do,” said Mr. Pearce, whose agency oversees enforcement of the laws governing strikes and unionization drives. “We will continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions.”

Unless the Senate confirms future nominees to the board — Senate Republicans have blocked several of Mr. Obama’s board nominees — Mr. Pearce will be the only member left if Friday’s ruling is upheld. The board has five seats.

Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a statement that urged the recess appointees to “do the right thing and step down.” He added, “To avoid further damage to the economy, the N.L.R.B. must take the responsible course and cease issuing any further opinions until a constitutionally sound quorum can be established.”

The three disputed recess appointees included two Democrats, Sharon Block, deputy labor secretary, and Richard Griffin, general counsel to the operating engineers’ union; and one Republican, Terence Flynn, a counsel to a board member. Mr. Flynn resigned last May after being accused of leaking materials about the group’s deliberations. Another Republican member, Brian Hayes, stepped down when his term expired last month.

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Obama to name new White House chief of staff

WASHINGTON -- President Obama will name Denis McDonough as the new White House chief of staff and announce other changes to his staff Friday afternoon, a White House official said.

McDonough is deputy national security advisor and a trusted advisor to the president, particularly on matters of foreign policy. He joined the Obama team during the 2008 presidential campaign after years as a Capitol Hill aide.

The new job will broaden McDonough’s role in the White House beyond diplomacy and foreign affairs. He coordinated the president’s policy to scale back the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan and was involved in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. He also dealt with political fallout after the U.S. diplomatic mission was attacked in Libya.

McDonough will replace Jacob Lew, Obama’s nominee to lead the Treasury Department.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s second inauguration

McDonough, a Minnesota native, graduated from St. John's University and earned a master's degree in foreign service from Georgetown University. He worked as foreign policy advisor for Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, before serving as a foreign policy advisor on Obama's first presidential campaign.

Obama will announce the new appointments at shortly after noon in the East Room of the White House.

Rob Nabors, the White House legislative liaison, will be named deputy White House chief of staff for policy. Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer will be named senior advisor, while Jennifer Palmieri will take Pfeiffer's title, the official said.

Staff writer Christi Parsons contributed to this report.

PHOTOS: A look ahead at 2013’s political battles

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

Kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Twitter: @khennessey

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The Truth About Weight-Loss Pills and Energy Drinks, for Knowledge and Profit

Between medications and food, there’s a huge swath of edible products that don’t need approval from the Food and Drug Administration, including energy drinks, vitamins, weight-loss pills, and other supplements. And while the companies that make those goods test their products for safety, they don’t usually offer test results that vouch for efficacy or mention the less savory ingredients that often lurk inside their pills and potions. Which leaves most of us wandering the aisles of GNC wondering if everything on the shelves is safe, or has a fraction of the miraculous powers claimed.

To determine whether that jug of protein power is really worth the cash, Neil Thanedar just launched LabDoor. LabDoor tests a wide variety of energy-granting, and muscle-building concoctions and grades them on safety, clinical efficacy, and the presence of potentially unhealthy ingredients including heavy metals, pesticides, and other unsavory trace elements. Thanedar dreamed up the idea for the startup when, while running a product-testing lab, his friends would regularly ask his professional chemist’s opinion on the latest energy drink, muscle-building concoction or weight loss pill.

LabDoor opened up its service to the public this week, starting with testing the most popular energy drinks and vitamins on the market, including Red Bull, Five Hour Energy , One-A-Day and Centrum vitamins among others. “Next we’ll test creatine powders, sleep aides, and herbal supplements,” Thanedar says. “Eventually we want to add cosmetics and over-the-counter medications, so you can find out if there’s really a (quality) difference between a generic painkiller and Tylenol.” For example, what exactly is that carnuba wax doing in your generic ibuprofen? “If you look at painkillers and muscle gain supplements and powders, most manufacturers tell you what’s in them,” says Thanedar. “But even if you read the label, you still wouldn’t understand what those ingredients do.”

To keep results rooted in the real-world, LabDoor goes out and buys off-the-shelf samples of products and takes them back to their Indianapolis, Indiana lab for testing. Each product gets a grade (from A to F) based on the lab results, and clinical studies on the main ingredients from the National Institute of Health and other medical research groups.

Some of the results are already in. LabDoor gives the energy shot Redline Power Rush 7hr Energy a D+ grade because it has an enormously high level of caffeine per ounce. “A shot is 11 times more potent per ounce than a Red Bull,” Thanedar says. “If you don’t know that, you could end up taking two or three shots per day without realizing how much caffeine you’re consuming.” The popular cold fighter Airborne grabbed a C+ because studies have shown it’s not clinically effective, though the ingredients are safe according to lab tests. Regular Redbull gets an overall B for safety and efficacy.

LabDoor has a website and iOS app, with plans to launch an Android app as the database of products grows. Thanedar is keeping the overall grade, clinical efficacy, and ingredient safety information free for anyone to view, but is working on a paid subscription service that will show an image of the product’s label and provide a more detailed breakdown of the ingredients in it and their effects.

The goal, Thanedar says, is to shine a light on all those questionable ingredients and eventually encourage manufacturers to be more transparent. Maybe the next time you and your biceps are shopping for protein powder, you’ll know exactly what you’re getting.

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‘Dallas’ returns with J.R. Ewing’s final schemes

NEW YORK (AP) — J.R. Ewing wouldn’t hesitate to cheat his fellow man. He also famously cheated death.

In the second-season finale of “Dallas” back in 1980, he was shot by an unknown assailant in his office and left for dead. But he recovered nicely, and the cliffhanger question that gripped the nation (Who shot J.R.?) was answered that November in an episode seen by 80 million viewers.

This time, J.R. won’t get off so easy. During the second season of TNT’s rebooted “Dallas,” J.R. cashes in his chips and goes to his reward … wherever that may be.

Meanwhile, viewers, however braced they are for J.R.’s demise, will have to reckon with the loss of arguably TV’s greatest villain, and bid farewell to the actor who portrayed him so indelibly and also cheated death for years. Larry Hagman, who died of cancer at 81 the day after Thanksgiving, was diagnosed in 1992 with cirrhosis of the liver from a life of heavy drinking and, three years later, when a malignant tumor was discovered on his liver, successfully underwent a transplant.

This double loss would be a burden for any show to bear. “Dallas,” returning at 9 p.m. EST Monday, comes fully loaded.

“I think viewers want closure,” said Linda Gray, who plays J.R.’s long-suffering ex-wife, Sue Ellen. “They want to mourn Larry Hagman and J.R. Ewing. They want to know they can grieve the fact he won’t be around.”

But all that comes later. With its two-hour season premiere, “Dallas” carries on in familiar fashion, with the expected two-timing, squabbles, a kidnapping revealed, a stolen identity and assorted other mischief.

And never fear: J.R., though visibly frail, continues his reign as a scheming oilman and rascally Ewing patriarch.

“I came over to deliver some muffins to the pretty little secretaries,” he announces on making an unannounced visit to Ewing Energies headquarters before he laments, “Who could have guessed so many would turn out to be MEN? Where’s the sport in THAT?”

In another scene, J.R. shares sly counsel with his son, John Ross, on double-crossing other members of the family: “Love, hate, jealousy: Mix ‘em up and they make a mean martini. And when we take over Ewing Energies, you’ll slake your thirst — with a twist!”

The new “Dallas,” which debuted last June, is stocked with a troupe of young regulars (including Josh Henderson, who plays John Ross), as well as veterans of the original CBS series, notably Gray and Patrick Duffy as J.R.’s ever-upright brother, Bobby. J.R. will appear in a minimum of five or as many as seven of the season’s episodes before he meets his fate.

After that, can “Dallas” survive the dual deaths of its central character and legendary star?

“Larry being gone doesn’t eliminate the influence of the character of J.R.,” Duffy pointed out. Who knows what land mines J.R. will have left behind? “We can find business deals he did or schemes he started that now are coming home to roost, and they can turn up for years to come.”

“Whatever will happen on the show, we will be talking about J.R. Ewing and he will have done things that have a ripple effect,” Gray agreed. “He will always be there.”

“There’s a lot of driving forces on the show — not just J.R.,” added “Dallas” executive producer Cynthia Cidre, who, interviewed by phone a couple of weeks ago, was parked outside a posh Dallas social club where the wake for J.R. was about to be filmed.

She said this season she tried to use Hagman sparingly.

“He was the most delightful man and a total professional,” she said, “but he wasn’t well and we didn’t want to overtax him.”

Now, with his passing, “we want to give J.R., and Larry, the proper send-off.”

But she insisted there had been no contingency plan for how to plot J.R.’s demise in the event Hagman died in mid-season.

“We didn’t have a Plan B, on purpose,” said Cidre. “We just knew that we had Larry, so let’s use him, let’s enjoy him, and if something happens, we’ll scramble and fix it. I had great faith in the writers’ room. We knew the day might come and what we would do then: Figure it out.”

That day came in late November when she got a call from Duffy. “He told me, ‘Larry’s in the hospital and it isn’t good. He’s saying goodbye.’ In 24 hours we had fixed one of the scripts. We had two more scripts that had to be adjusted, and then this episode we’re shooting now, the Goodbye Episode.”

Roughly 85 percent of the season’s story line remains intact, she said, supplemented by the death of J.R. and the mystery surrounding it: Who Killed J.R.?

“The mystery has all the machinations of a great J.R. business deal, as opposed to a whodunit,” said Duffy. “Cynthia constructed a really interesting plot, of which I know Bobby’s portion” — including whodunit — “but I don’t know other stuff.”

“We all know, up to a point,” Gray said. “But they’ve got secret pages that we’ve not seen.”

“I hope that we have come up with something really wonderful and enticing,” said Cidre, “and by the time you’re done watching episode 208, which I call the Funeral Episode, I hope you’re saying, ‘Omigod, I didn’t see that coming, and I can’t wait to watch the rest of the season.’”

The mystery, she said, will continue through episode 15, “with a giant, delightful, delicious climax in the season finale.”

To get there, shooting continues until April on the Dallas set, where, even two months after Hagman’s passing, “I’m lonely because my best friend isn’t there to play with,” Duffy said. “I was with him from 1978 until his final hours in the hospital. But I have no regrets. Every day I think of him and smile.”

“I keep expecting him to walk in the door,” Gray said. “He’s so missed. But his presence is everywhere!”

___

Online:

http://www.tntdrama.com

___

Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

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