I am reviewing off of a "best of" DVD, have covered episodes 1, 2, and 7 so far.)
Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall gang busts him out of the Elkton County (Maryland!?) Jail, but Butch is wounded; Dr. Baxter is duped into visiting the outlaw camp to treat him, and held hostage.
The FD writers ambitiously attempt to incorporate true-life Western history into the storyline. Joe Sawyer of "The Petrified Forest" plays a less-than-dapper Cassidy at an age he never reached in real life, and ever reliable 1950s-90s TV villain Michael Ansara is his chief henchmen. Ingenue and TV guest appearance Doris Singleton is the gang's turncoat moll.
The gang hits on a complicated plan to rob the Elkton bank by breaking a dam and compelling the authorities to leave town to fix it; didn't know the Cassidy gang had an in-house engineering unit. Baxter has a near-fatal encounter and escapes courtesy of built-in TV villain stupidity before he goes after the perpetrators. He does look good galloping in his dark town suit. The series attempts to add one big production value per half-hour episode, in this case a flood.
There is just enough in the real Cassidy story to shadow the hour with a patina of historical authenticity. FD was dated by the San Francisco earthquake episode (1.2) as taking place in the 1900's, and Cassidy was active at the turn of the century before fleeing to South America in the 1900's. While Sawyer's portrayal of him as a woman-abusing lout here may be somewhat over the top, it is a useful corrective to Paul Newman's urbane lovable rouge in the 1970's theatrical release. In between, you cannot really go wrong pegging Western outlaws as mostly inarticulate never-do-wells who found some guns and liked easy money; its just that robbing stagecoaches and banks seems more romantic than knocking off convenience stores.
Baxter finally grabs a Colt and does some shooting in this episode, which delivers an engaging action-filled half hour.
Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall gang busts him out of the Elkton County (Maryland!?) Jail, but Butch is wounded; Dr. Baxter is duped into visiting the outlaw camp to treat him, and held hostage.
The FD writers ambitiously attempt to incorporate true-life Western history into the storyline. Joe Sawyer of "The Petrified Forest" plays a less-than-dapper Cassidy at an age he never reached in real life, and ever reliable 1950s-90s TV villain Michael Ansara is his chief henchmen. Ingenue and TV guest appearance Doris Singleton is the gang's turncoat moll.
The gang hits on a complicated plan to rob the Elkton bank by breaking a dam and compelling the authorities to leave town to fix it; didn't know the Cassidy gang had an in-house engineering unit. Baxter has a near-fatal encounter and escapes courtesy of built-in TV villain stupidity before he goes after the perpetrators. He does look good galloping in his dark town suit. The series attempts to add one big production value per half-hour episode, in this case a flood.
There is just enough in the real Cassidy story to shadow the hour with a patina of historical authenticity. FD was dated by the San Francisco earthquake episode (1.2) as taking place in the 1900's, and Cassidy was active at the turn of the century before fleeing to South America in the 1900's. While Sawyer's portrayal of him as a woman-abusing lout here may be somewhat over the top, it is a useful corrective to Paul Newman's urbane lovable rouge in the 1970's theatrical release. In between, you cannot really go wrong pegging Western outlaws as mostly inarticulate never-do-wells who found some guns and liked easy money; its just that robbing stagecoaches and banks seems more romantic than knocking off convenience stores.
Baxter finally grabs a Colt and does some shooting in this episode, which delivers an engaging action-filled half hour.
