Continuing a Season 2 theme of Daniel and Mingo road adventures, the pair's campsite is interrupted by an ebullient trapper (Royal Dano) and a quiet boy (Jose Galindo). The trapper claims the boy is from Cibola, the Spanish Conquistadors' famed city of gold; Dan and Mingo attempt to see him home.
Season 2 is drawing to a close, and unfortunately the fatigue of a 30-episode run is seeping out of the writers' room and into the final product. Attempting damage mitigation are Westerns supporting stalwart Dano, playing another iteration of his garrulous frontiersman. Unfortunately he fills the screen with a completely over-the-top effort. Argentinian Alejandro Rey is fittingly cast as a Spanish captain, but he shouldn't be held responsible for the miscast setting detailed below.
Innovative to at least attempt giving Dan and Mingo a Southwestern adventure comparable to their earlier Florida outing (legend has the real Boone making it all the way to Yellowstone Park, though documentation is less than thin) but this was the wrong way to go about it. Dan and Mingo go from a woodland setting to Southwestern desert in less than a minute, but once there run into a hostile Spanish garrison.
Fair enough, except Rey's men are impossibly outfitted as Spanish Conquistadors from the 17th century, and DB is set c. 1775-1800. Purportedly they are the survivors of a mutinous troop that set out from New Orleans ten years before looking for Cibola, about 250 years after Spain's previous attempts. The writers should have been decent enough to at least throw in a time warp or fantasy element, though in the denouement the imaginative viewer might be able to discern one. Rey is allowed some character development, but there are too many other loose parts rattling around here for a successful hour.
A more grounded story would have depicted Dan trying to get to Santa Fe, New Mexico, which was a draw for early 19th century American traders. They ran into much hostility from the Spanish authorities who disliked the ideals of the American Revolution disrupting their established system of governance.
Apparently major portions were filmed in the Mojave, and the desert fort set is also seen in "Bonanza," "Star Trek: The Original Series" (the Captain Kirk v. Gorn one), and numerous other Westerns. Some tribesmen show up early, but look nothing like the region's Navajo, Hopi, and Apache.
To top things off - or bottom them out - the hour does offer an opportunity to introduce a Hispanic continuing character, but the idea will not survive the summer hiatus. Hard to think of any series instance when a clip show would have been preferable, but this hour makes a strong case for one.
Season 2 is drawing to a close, and unfortunately the fatigue of a 30-episode run is seeping out of the writers' room and into the final product. Attempting damage mitigation are Westerns supporting stalwart Dano, playing another iteration of his garrulous frontiersman. Unfortunately he fills the screen with a completely over-the-top effort. Argentinian Alejandro Rey is fittingly cast as a Spanish captain, but he shouldn't be held responsible for the miscast setting detailed below.
Innovative to at least attempt giving Dan and Mingo a Southwestern adventure comparable to their earlier Florida outing (legend has the real Boone making it all the way to Yellowstone Park, though documentation is less than thin) but this was the wrong way to go about it. Dan and Mingo go from a woodland setting to Southwestern desert in less than a minute, but once there run into a hostile Spanish garrison.
Fair enough, except Rey's men are impossibly outfitted as Spanish Conquistadors from the 17th century, and DB is set c. 1775-1800. Purportedly they are the survivors of a mutinous troop that set out from New Orleans ten years before looking for Cibola, about 250 years after Spain's previous attempts. The writers should have been decent enough to at least throw in a time warp or fantasy element, though in the denouement the imaginative viewer might be able to discern one. Rey is allowed some character development, but there are too many other loose parts rattling around here for a successful hour.
A more grounded story would have depicted Dan trying to get to Santa Fe, New Mexico, which was a draw for early 19th century American traders. They ran into much hostility from the Spanish authorities who disliked the ideals of the American Revolution disrupting their established system of governance.
Apparently major portions were filmed in the Mojave, and the desert fort set is also seen in "Bonanza," "Star Trek: The Original Series" (the Captain Kirk v. Gorn one), and numerous other Westerns. Some tribesmen show up early, but look nothing like the region's Navajo, Hopi, and Apache.
To top things off - or bottom them out - the hour does offer an opportunity to introduce a Hispanic continuing character, but the idea will not survive the summer hiatus. Hard to think of any series instance when a clip show would have been preferable, but this hour makes a strong case for one.
