Daniel, Becky, Israel and Mingo are traveling by freight wagon eastward to Philadelphia, and decide to stop off at Fort Pottersville (entirely fictional) to visit Dam's childhood friend and Revolutionary War hero Simon Jarvis. Unfortunately Jarvis has fallen on hard times; he has been charged with cowardice in a settlers' action against the Choctaw, had his father in law remove his family, and tumbled into alcoholism.
The hour is a strong personality-driven road episode, reminiscent of the formula "The Virginian" often deployed. Three " Star Trek: TOS" alumni show up here. Jarvis is played by reliable character actor Charles Drake, the rather ineffective Commodore Stocker in "The The Deadly Years." He does yeoman's workas a man on edge. From the same episode (the one where Kirk-Spock-McCoy prematurely age, and with two of the three now deceased in real life an unlikely one to age well in popularity among aficionados) is Sarah Marshall as Jarvis' suffering wife. Finally, from "The Omega Glory" is Roy Jenson as the settler who wants to move in on Jarvis' family and property; he happily serves up the dislikability quota for the hour.
This outing is notable for one of Ed Ames' final bows as Mingo in the series. Press accounts at the time quote Ames as saying the parting was amicable, and his business interests may have drawn his interest elsewhere; he took on only a few more tv appearances up to 1990. Perhaps just as well; as Season 4 meandered along the writers seem to have run dry on ideas as to what to do with the Mingo character, and he does little here except provide a target for settler prejudice. Dan spends his time mainly up a homespun AA operation for his friend, though he happily serves up a tavern-wrecking brawl.
Offscreen villains of the week are the Choctaw, mainly friendly toward American settlers except for a War of 1812 interlude - but their homeland until Andrew Jackson's removal was central Mississippi. The Boones are taking a pretty circuitous route from Boonesborough to Philadelphia. Boone implies he fought alongside Jarvis during the Revolution, but that Jarvis was decorated by General (Horatio) Gates. That would place Jarvis in upstate New York or the Carolinas, and the real Boone was nowhere near those campaign areas.
A fair hour of drama, though we are starting to see the shadow of Vietnam-era cynicism creep into the series as a character remarks we might not place so much reliance on heroes.
The hour is a strong personality-driven road episode, reminiscent of the formula "The Virginian" often deployed. Three " Star Trek: TOS" alumni show up here. Jarvis is played by reliable character actor Charles Drake, the rather ineffective Commodore Stocker in "The The Deadly Years." He does yeoman's workas a man on edge. From the same episode (the one where Kirk-Spock-McCoy prematurely age, and with two of the three now deceased in real life an unlikely one to age well in popularity among aficionados) is Sarah Marshall as Jarvis' suffering wife. Finally, from "The Omega Glory" is Roy Jenson as the settler who wants to move in on Jarvis' family and property; he happily serves up the dislikability quota for the hour.
This outing is notable for one of Ed Ames' final bows as Mingo in the series. Press accounts at the time quote Ames as saying the parting was amicable, and his business interests may have drawn his interest elsewhere; he took on only a few more tv appearances up to 1990. Perhaps just as well; as Season 4 meandered along the writers seem to have run dry on ideas as to what to do with the Mingo character, and he does little here except provide a target for settler prejudice. Dan spends his time mainly up a homespun AA operation for his friend, though he happily serves up a tavern-wrecking brawl.
Offscreen villains of the week are the Choctaw, mainly friendly toward American settlers except for a War of 1812 interlude - but their homeland until Andrew Jackson's removal was central Mississippi. The Boones are taking a pretty circuitous route from Boonesborough to Philadelphia. Boone implies he fought alongside Jarvis during the Revolution, but that Jarvis was decorated by General (Horatio) Gates. That would place Jarvis in upstate New York or the Carolinas, and the real Boone was nowhere near those campaign areas.
A fair hour of drama, though we are starting to see the shadow of Vietnam-era cynicism creep into the series as a character remarks we might not place so much reliance on heroes.
