Maverick: Two Tickets to Ten Strike (1959)
Season 2, Episode 24
9/10
An age when age was appreciated
31 October 2009
Connie Stevens was 21 when she filmed this episode, as a bright, bubbly, annoyingly perky flibbertigibbet, and she IS a beautiful woman, but Andrea King, even at age 40, was so hot that she made Connie Stevens look like a little schoolgirl by comparison.

Connie's character has come to town at the suggestion of a note that was received along with $100 and the promise of more to come. She can't seem to find her benefactor, but she spends some time telling the town banker - played by Lyle Talbot, 50, that age and money are unimportant; she's looking for character - such as exhibited by Bret Maverisk.

It was a different world in 1959, when women weren't considered over the hill at nineteen, and the curves of a mature woman were showcased.

Bret spends the episode trying to figure out why he's being advised to leave town for his own safety. As always, Maverick reverses the usual formula, presenting a situation that's hopeless but not serious, instead of a situation that's serious but not hopeless.

Ten Strike, New Mexico is supposedly about 20 miles from Faro City and from Prairie Flats. The USGS database doesn't show any Faro City or Prairie Flats, and the only Ten Strike is Tenstrike, Minnesota. A 1972 "Alias Smith and Jones" was entitled "21 Days to Tenstrike", about a cattle drive to Colorado. Roy Huggins, the writer who came up with the Maverick series, is credited with writing the Alias episode, but writers credits for this episode went to the director. Huggins complained bitterly of being snookered out of credit for many things he wrote early in his career, and this may have been one of them.

Adam West, who became TV's "Batman" a decade later, is in this episode. He's not easy to recognize, though. His appearance changed as he matured.
9 out of 14 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed