Although Larry Hagman appeared in seven episodes of season two, he actually died during filming of the fifth episode. The producers managed to keep J.R. "alive" for two more episodes by re-writing the script and stretching the footage he filmed out with the help of some dialogue re-used from earlier episodes.
The sudden death of Larry Hagman meant that there was no death scene filmed for J.R. Producers then went through every bit of footage filmed with Hagman, as well as every piece of recorded audio to find suitable pieces to use. The final shot of Hagman was taken from an un-used scene in an earlier episode where J.R. finds out that John Ross and Pamela are sleeping together. It was originally filmed on SouthFork, but the background was digitally removed and replaced with the red background of the hotel room in which J.R. was killed.
Mitch Pileggi (Harris Ryland) appeared on the original Dallas (1978) playing two different characters: a nameless cowboy in a bar in 1983, and "Morrisey" in 1990. Brenda Strong appeared in the tenth season of the original series, playing "Cliff's One Night Stand".
With the beginning of season three, the show's opening credits properly adopted the iconic style of credits of the original Dallas (1978), displaying three images of each of the main actors along with their names.