The Daniel Boone series serves up a well- executed alternative history episode as Dan and Mingo are put on the trail of Gen. Benedict Arnold's 1780 treason to the Revolutionary cause.
In a clever writing move, the script drafters avoid simply redoing the Arnold story with Dan force-fed into it; Arnold is retitled Gen. Hugh Scott (oddly the name of a US Army Chief of Staff during the WW I period), played by standby authority figure Kent Smith. The change adds a greater element of suspense to the story and allows for more alt-history world building on a small scale. British Major John Andre retains his historical name, and is played by TV journeyman Bill Fletcher.
1960's TV dramas with a history background assumed their viewers had some foreknowledge of period events, including who Benedict Arnold was - sadly, not so much the case anymore. Arnold was a successful but in his view much unappreciated Continental commander during the early years of the Revolutionary War. Summarized, Arnold married a demanding Tory wife, was appointed commandant of the strategic post of West Point, New York in 1780, and decided to defect to the British and hand over the fortifications in the process. He was unsuccessful in the later, but escaped to British HQ in Manhattan and spent the rest of the war as a British brigadier general. But, unhappy with his eventual fate, he was forever after cast as the Revolution's serpent in the garden.
Of course, all the particulars of the 1780 drama on the Hudson are not going to make it into an hour of network television. West Point during the Revolution was an elaborate series of stone and earth fortifications, and here the wooden Fort Boonesborough set is recycled for use. Dan and Mingo have been summoned to the Hudson Valley ostensibly to lead a unit of rangers against the tribal villages of Iroquois leader Joseph Brant, who is attacking toward Scohlarie, NY with Tory commander John Johnson. This melds the events of the 1777 Saratoga campaign and the 1779 Sullivan Expedition. Fletcher's Andre sports a Scottish accent; the real Andre was of French Huguenot descent. Arnold's wife Peggy was adjacent to him for the treason drama, and although it would have been a nice opportunity to introduce a female lead, she is absent here.
Continental soldier count - one of DB's larger armies, about 10-12. The regulars are again uniformed as the nowhere-near Fairfax Co. Va. Militia. The rangers are garbed as the green-buckskin French and Indian War Rogers' Rangers. The later had a 1950's early color series devoted to them, and these might be recycled costumes.
Redcoat report - about 8-10, and again they are presented as the Royal American Regiment, who spent 1780 in Florida.
Other TV depictions of the Arnold-Andre affair have included the 2003 TV movie "Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor" (with "Frasier's" Kelsey Grammar as George Washington) and the 2014-17 AMC series "Turn: Washington's Spies."
But for DB, this episode hits all the high marks. Nonstop action is served up - a tavern brawl, a barracks brawl, a stockade breakout, some chase sequences, and a substantial flintlock skirmish (alas, again filmed in the dark). The usual Boonesborough impediments to a fast storyline are entirely absent, and the history-inclined viewer is kept in the dark as to how all this will play out until the finale. For these reasons and more, this reviewer awards the episode the championship crown for DB, Season 3.
In a clever writing move, the script drafters avoid simply redoing the Arnold story with Dan force-fed into it; Arnold is retitled Gen. Hugh Scott (oddly the name of a US Army Chief of Staff during the WW I period), played by standby authority figure Kent Smith. The change adds a greater element of suspense to the story and allows for more alt-history world building on a small scale. British Major John Andre retains his historical name, and is played by TV journeyman Bill Fletcher.
1960's TV dramas with a history background assumed their viewers had some foreknowledge of period events, including who Benedict Arnold was - sadly, not so much the case anymore. Arnold was a successful but in his view much unappreciated Continental commander during the early years of the Revolutionary War. Summarized, Arnold married a demanding Tory wife, was appointed commandant of the strategic post of West Point, New York in 1780, and decided to defect to the British and hand over the fortifications in the process. He was unsuccessful in the later, but escaped to British HQ in Manhattan and spent the rest of the war as a British brigadier general. But, unhappy with his eventual fate, he was forever after cast as the Revolution's serpent in the garden.
Of course, all the particulars of the 1780 drama on the Hudson are not going to make it into an hour of network television. West Point during the Revolution was an elaborate series of stone and earth fortifications, and here the wooden Fort Boonesborough set is recycled for use. Dan and Mingo have been summoned to the Hudson Valley ostensibly to lead a unit of rangers against the tribal villages of Iroquois leader Joseph Brant, who is attacking toward Scohlarie, NY with Tory commander John Johnson. This melds the events of the 1777 Saratoga campaign and the 1779 Sullivan Expedition. Fletcher's Andre sports a Scottish accent; the real Andre was of French Huguenot descent. Arnold's wife Peggy was adjacent to him for the treason drama, and although it would have been a nice opportunity to introduce a female lead, she is absent here.
Continental soldier count - one of DB's larger armies, about 10-12. The regulars are again uniformed as the nowhere-near Fairfax Co. Va. Militia. The rangers are garbed as the green-buckskin French and Indian War Rogers' Rangers. The later had a 1950's early color series devoted to them, and these might be recycled costumes.
Redcoat report - about 8-10, and again they are presented as the Royal American Regiment, who spent 1780 in Florida.
Other TV depictions of the Arnold-Andre affair have included the 2003 TV movie "Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor" (with "Frasier's" Kelsey Grammar as George Washington) and the 2014-17 AMC series "Turn: Washington's Spies."
But for DB, this episode hits all the high marks. Nonstop action is served up - a tavern brawl, a barracks brawl, a stockade breakout, some chase sequences, and a substantial flintlock skirmish (alas, again filmed in the dark). The usual Boonesborough impediments to a fast storyline are entirely absent, and the history-inclined viewer is kept in the dark as to how all this will play out until the finale. For these reasons and more, this reviewer awards the episode the championship crown for DB, Season 3.
