Bonanza (TV Series) The Mill (1960) User Reviews

The Green Eyed Monster

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 8 November 2010]

This particular Bonanza episode touched on some very adult issues and was borrowed from the classics. If you're going to get inspired, it's good to be inspired by the best.

In this case the plot of The Mill is taken from none other than the Bard himself in what some consider his greatest work. Harry Townes plays a paralyzed Othello, confined to a wheelchair and having to be assisted by his general factotum Claude Akins. His Desdemona is Dianne Foster and it is hinted that due to injuries Townes can't do his husbandly duties. Foster has an itch that needs scratching, but is repelled by the thought of Akins doing the scratching.

In the meantime Akins is a swaggering Iago in the piece who drinks and gambles with Townes who winds up owing him considerable money. He encourages jealousy in Townes, first over Pernell Roberts and then over Lorne Greene. Townes is in that wheelchair over a drunken shooting accident that involved Greene. All in all a recipe for tragedy.

This western version of Othello was nicely done, but I'm wondering just how many people recognized the source when watching it.

Mixed Feelings

[mitchrmp · 8/10 · 5 April 2014]

The story line is excellent. A woman who loves her husband feels unloved because he cannot learn to get along without the use of his legs. (This is also a theme that is played over and over in Bonanza. In this particular episode, Ben seems to have an attraction to the wife and decides his family needs to help them find some sort of way to make a living.

Besides the husband and wife, there's a "friend" who is actually what I believe to be a crooked gambler. Claude Atkins is the only character actor, I think, who could have played this bad boy row to perfection. In the end, his character becomes so evil that you wish he would die.

Morally, I cringe at Ben's kissing the wife and then at Adam's admitting that he's fine with it. This is the very thing that the man is accusing the Cartwright's of, and Ben's actions are simply proving him true. I think Ben had no right acting on his attraction to this woman who is unhappy in her marriage. But that's just a question of morals.

2 dead.

Grand Guignol

[deforest-1 · 8/10 · 24 September 2013]

I didn't recognize "The Mill" as inspired by Shakespeare's "Othello" because I couldn't recall the character Othello played as a spineless drunkard as his equivalent was here; because this Othello doesn't throttle his Desdemona to death; and because it's "Bonanza" after all. It's obvious early on in this second season of "Bonanza" why critics were calling this 'a horse opera' measured up against more authentic westerns like "Gunsmoke", "Wagon Train" and "Rawhide". The drama is heavily wrought, more akin to say, "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", the film that came out two years later. Guest stars Harry Townes and Claude Akins lay it on pretty thick. But it's good to see all the regulars acting like they still enjoyed it, especially Pernell Roberts who came to look severely jaded even judging by episodes screened in 1963. Maybe starting the notorious tradition, the lady, played by a rather sparkling Dianne Foster, escapes the love of a Cartright (Ben in this case) through a ridiculously contrived excuse, going to "friends in Denver" on her way Back East, carrying as she does an unquenchable torch for the husband who lost her in a bet to "Iago".

The worst Bonanza episode ever

[doomsdayrocks · 1/10 · 18 January 2019]

The cartwrights defy all logic and reasoning in this episode. They don't shoot an obvious snake and let him destroy a family. The focus of the episode, Tom, knows that Ezekiel is a snake. Yet the character is allowed to live. This episode is given high praise but it is garbage. Too many characters act out of character including Tom.

Weird episode

[reb-warrior · 4/10 · 14 March 2024]

Tom, a wheelchair-bound man is manipulated by a farmhand, Ezekiel, into thinking there is something going on between his wife, Joyce, and Adam. Then with Ben.

First of all, how does a farmhand get away with all of this? Tom doesn't even like him. Nobody ever heard of firing their own employee before? It was so odd how Tom and Joyce put up with him.

Ezekiel feeds into Tom's jealousy of Adam. Suggesting there is something going on between Adam and Joyce. So this seems to be the premise of the plot, right? But wait, out of nowhere in a sudden flipflop, it then turns out Ben replaces Adam as the one Tom becomes jealous of. Thinking that now Ben and Joyce have something going on. But wait, out of nowhere suddenly Joyce and Ben kiss thereby, making Ezekiel and Tom right. Now suddenly Ben and Joyce are in love. It's weird. Lol.

I kind of wanted Tom to not be killed. I wanted to see his sense of horror once he was sober, at what he had done, gambling away his home and his wife to Ezekiel. And how he was manipulated. They didn't even bother to show when Tom was killed. What exactly was the altercation? How did Tom finally man up to Ezekiel? All of this took place over two days. Lol.

This ain't no Othello. It's Bonanza for goodness sakes. So no.

I don't know what this was. Just a weird episode where everyone was acting odd. This would be a skip-it if I did another rewatch. 4/10.