While loading up supplies for Boonesborough in Williamsburg, Virginia, Daniel by happenstance learns of a new and soon-due tax on Kentucky landholdings, with the penalty for failure to pay being forfeiture. Racing back to Boonesborough with the news, Boone is ambushed by an agent working with covertly out of the Va. Governors' office, who is also working with a past friend of Boone's, Jack Dorsey (Cameron Mitchell). For his own agenda Dorsey foils the ambush unknown to Boone, then attaches himself to Boone's return trip with the tax payments through hostile Tuscarora country.
While this would have been a fine begin-the-Revolution episode due to the predictable violent response of the Boonesborough settlers, Daniel here is too busy playing the middle-class patriarch who wants to get things with the IRS paid off and smoothed over. The obstacles of the money race are well-spaced and provide a taut dramatic thread with well-timed action. Cameron Mitchell in a number of westerns provided a tv-accessible version of Jack Palance's menace in the same way James Arness did for the John Wayne stand-in role on "Gunsmoke." In his second role on the series, Mitchell is allowed to approach portrayal of a multi-dimensional character.
In a light brush with authenticity, the Transylvania Land Company is referred to as a background malevolent presence, though the TLC was actually an attempt by North Carolina merchants to start a trans-Appalachian colony in the 1770's, and actually employed Boone for a time. Plus, the episode leaves vague as to whether this takes place under Crown rule or Kentucky's time as a Virginia county (c. 1775-92). Williamsburg is another DB locale utilized for town settings, and unfortunate that NBC could not have garnered some period setting and publicity by filming at Colonial Williamsburg. Hard to imagine CW objecting on historical authenticity grounds, since their orientation film then and I believe to the present - "Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot" - features Jack Lord of "Hawaii 5-0" (1968-80), clearly chosen to deploy his JFK-like demeanor in a 1770's dramatization.
For unknown reasons the Tuscarora tribe are brought in as the secondary villains here. Though indigenous to western North Carolina and therefore at least in the general DB neighborhood, by the 1770's they had largely been exiled to western Pennsylvania and New York, leaving only a minimal number resident in their former territory.
An above-average and engaging episode of the DB series.
While this would have been a fine begin-the-Revolution episode due to the predictable violent response of the Boonesborough settlers, Daniel here is too busy playing the middle-class patriarch who wants to get things with the IRS paid off and smoothed over. The obstacles of the money race are well-spaced and provide a taut dramatic thread with well-timed action. Cameron Mitchell in a number of westerns provided a tv-accessible version of Jack Palance's menace in the same way James Arness did for the John Wayne stand-in role on "Gunsmoke." In his second role on the series, Mitchell is allowed to approach portrayal of a multi-dimensional character.
In a light brush with authenticity, the Transylvania Land Company is referred to as a background malevolent presence, though the TLC was actually an attempt by North Carolina merchants to start a trans-Appalachian colony in the 1770's, and actually employed Boone for a time. Plus, the episode leaves vague as to whether this takes place under Crown rule or Kentucky's time as a Virginia county (c. 1775-92). Williamsburg is another DB locale utilized for town settings, and unfortunate that NBC could not have garnered some period setting and publicity by filming at Colonial Williamsburg. Hard to imagine CW objecting on historical authenticity grounds, since their orientation film then and I believe to the present - "Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot" - features Jack Lord of "Hawaii 5-0" (1968-80), clearly chosen to deploy his JFK-like demeanor in a 1770's dramatization.
For unknown reasons the Tuscarora tribe are brought in as the secondary villains here. Though indigenous to western North Carolina and therefore at least in the general DB neighborhood, by the 1770's they had largely been exiled to western Pennsylvania and New York, leaving only a minimal number resident in their former territory.
An above-average and engaging episode of the DB series.
