"Sometimes you have to play dirty to get filthy rich," announces the trailer for the new primetime show "Blood & Oil," which premiered Sept. 27 on ABC. But "Blood & Oil" is a somewhat-mistimed pop culture take on the boom towns springing up as the shale revolution has gained speed.

In fact, the timing could not be worse. After production issues delayed the show, the moment it tries to describe has already passed. The media recently reported on the seizing up of credit lines for U.S. shale producers following the sharp drop in crude prices, now that firms are not able to use sought-after oil and gas assets to secure their loans.

"Blood & Oil," touted as this generation's answer to "Dallas," tells of fresh-faced young couple Billy and Cody LeFever who move to North Dakota to make it big and soon become entangled in the messy local politics. It certainly doesn't pull any punches: sex, fights, explosions, strip joints, megalomaniac business tycoons, wrestling in puddles of crude — it is the latest in a long line of popular culture products (movies, books and even R&B music) where oil has penetrated and lefts its mark.

The 1999 James Bond film "The World is Not Enough" featured Bond racing across a collapsing offshore platform in his quest to protect a beautiful billionaire oil heiress, and to prevent KGB agent-turned-terrorist Renard gaining control of the Caucasian oil supply. It was a sensitive issue amid rising concerns over energy security off-screen in the '90s.

But the resonance of the characters in "Blood & Oil" is unmistakably American. Don Johnson, famous for playing Sonny Crockett in "Miami Vice" in the 1980s, is cast here as the stereotypical ruthless oil tycoon, a motif as old as the industry itself.

We can trace the figure back to the larger-than-life original "oilman" John D. Rockefeller and through to Daniel Day Lewis' acclaimed role as Daniel Plainview in 2007's "There Will be Blood." The latter, where Plainview is cast as a tragic robber baron figure, is a story that could not take place anywhere else other than America.

The story of the oil boom contains many elements of the American dream — a tale as old as time of ordinary, hard-working Americans risking it all to make it big on the frontiers, in an industry with little space for niceties. But does North Dakota really look like this?

The obvious irony is that the boom towns are simply no longer booming, now that oil prices have halved. Billy notices on-screen that "they make so much money up here, they don't bother picking up loose change," but oil prospectors in "Blood & Oil" may find it easier to negotiate with Rock Spring's racy loanshark Jules Jackman than with J.P. Morgan.

The re-evaluation of oil and gas credit lines take place biannually, in April and October, based on the value of producing reserves. Now those shale companies that used the value of those reserves to secure cheaper loans are seeing their credit lines cut back.

There is another sense in which "Blood & Oil" harks back to a bygone era, one before the FCPA really started to bite, and BP's rebranding of "beyond petroleum" tried to make over the image of oil companies as the "bad guys" into one of responsible corporate citizens. The industry is far from squeaky clean, but commodities trader Mike Ciccarelli points out that Brigg's son Wick would be highly unlikely to get away with outright "bunkering" of oil in the US.

Many watching "Blood & Oil" will be wondering whether this is really how things go down in North Dakota. The reality is almost certainly less glamorous. The buzzing bars of Rock Springs are more likely to be filled with trafficked sex workers than the sensual glitz we are led to believe.

As Plainview says in "There Will be Blood," "I want to earn enough money I can get away from everyone." Big Oil has once again provided juicy characters for media producers, but there is a more melancholy, lonely side to these towns, whose success rides on the least predictable of all tradeable goods. Oil can make as well as break fortunes.