Why are Santa Barbara, Denver, and Dallas held up as examples of the glamorous high life?

Question

From I, Milena in Your Ad Could Go Here,

Did they (the women [who appeared on Milena's show], not the moths - although who could say with confidence what a moth is thinking?) Perhaps dream that by crossing over into that space beyond the screen, they would get back the soul that a man had taken from them, and not just get it back, but get it back completely renewed, enormously enriched, bathed clean in the glow of fame and raised up to unreachable Heights above the lives they had lived until now, melded forever with the fantastic colorful shimmering of all the pictures in the TV at once, so that the Santa Barbara, the Dallas, the Denver dynasty, and the snow-white villas on the shores of tropical seas would all become their own...?

What is the "Denver dynasty"? Also, why did the author pick Santa Barbara and Dallas in particular as examples of the glamorous high-life?

Answer 1

Denver was the setting of the soap opera Dynasty. Santa Barbara and Dallas were the settings of soap operas named after the cities. All three of them concentrated on wealthy and glamorous families. Consequently, "crossing over into that space beyond the screen" would get a person into those shows and their high life.