Daniel and Israel are trading furs with pompous plantation owner Carruthers (Bernard Fox) when they witness mistreatment of indentured servant Jamie Blue (Christopher Connelly). Taking pity on Blue, Dan purchases him and tries to acclimate him to life as a free man.
As in the previous hour, late-60's Western tropes are being checked off the DB final season list. Last week it was family-in-danger, this round its wrongful imprisonment and readjustment. An early and quick nostalgic treat is served up first with Fox's cameo, familiar to anyone who remembers his Colonel Blimpish role as an over the top toff in many period productions. (Likely a polished put-on, he had the real-life chops to serve on Royal Navy minesweepers in World War II.) Connelly does what he can as a suspicious former incarcerated; he would later try to build his own genre base as the title character in the "Paper Moon" series and as frontiersman Kit Carson, with limited success before his career was cut short by an early fatal illness. Rosey Grier is along for this one, but his role easily advertises last-minute script additions. Israel mouths off to Caruthers about his no-wages plantation, and Dan approves; nice to see Darby Hinton break slightly out of his good-kid rut.
We quickly veer over into Disney country when Blue is given a sick horse to tend (and we see the Boones have acquired horses and a huge new barn). But we return to adult drama with the introduction of romantic interest JoAnna Cameron - later superheroine Isis on the cult hit 1970's CBS Saturday morning live action show.
A mixed bag on historical context here; while some attention should be paid to the era's white indentured servitude, such was largely gone by the Revolution - replaced by the dubious progress of more reliance on African slavery.
This is an around-the-fort episode that never really achieves liftoff, and given the soaring national crime rates of the late 1960's the prime time TV audience probably had little taste for reformed-prisoner stories.
As in the previous hour, late-60's Western tropes are being checked off the DB final season list. Last week it was family-in-danger, this round its wrongful imprisonment and readjustment. An early and quick nostalgic treat is served up first with Fox's cameo, familiar to anyone who remembers his Colonel Blimpish role as an over the top toff in many period productions. (Likely a polished put-on, he had the real-life chops to serve on Royal Navy minesweepers in World War II.) Connelly does what he can as a suspicious former incarcerated; he would later try to build his own genre base as the title character in the "Paper Moon" series and as frontiersman Kit Carson, with limited success before his career was cut short by an early fatal illness. Rosey Grier is along for this one, but his role easily advertises last-minute script additions. Israel mouths off to Caruthers about his no-wages plantation, and Dan approves; nice to see Darby Hinton break slightly out of his good-kid rut.
We quickly veer over into Disney country when Blue is given a sick horse to tend (and we see the Boones have acquired horses and a huge new barn). But we return to adult drama with the introduction of romantic interest JoAnna Cameron - later superheroine Isis on the cult hit 1970's CBS Saturday morning live action show.
A mixed bag on historical context here; while some attention should be paid to the era's white indentured servitude, such was largely gone by the Revolution - replaced by the dubious progress of more reliance on African slavery.
This is an around-the-fort episode that never really achieves liftoff, and given the soaring national crime rates of the late 1960's the prime time TV audience probably had little taste for reformed-prisoner stories.
