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The Adventures of Brisco County jr - Pilot
episode 1
USA 1993
produced by Jeffrey Boam (executive), Carlton Cuse (executive) for Boam/Cuse Productions, Warner Brothers/Fox Network
directed by Bryan Spicer
starring Bruce Campbell, Julius Carry, Dan Gerrity, Christian Clemenson, Billy Drago, John Astin, R. Lee Ermey, M.C. Gainey, John Pyper-Ferguson, Kelly Rutherford, Anne Tremko, Stuart Whitman, Rayford Barnes, Paul Brinegar, James Drury, Robert Fuller, Bert Remsen, Bill Bolender, Charles Noland, Mark Twogood, James Hong, Melissa Behr, Gary Carlos Cervantes, Rick Dean, Eric Lawson, Chi Muoi Lo, Lego Louis, Kevin Lowe, Norman Merrill, Sunshine Parker, Jerry Potter, Mark Silence, Kenneth Scott Allen, Peter Bromilow, Carlton Cuse, Terry Funk, Fernanda Gordon, Al Hansen, Armando Ortega, Stuart Quan, Buck Rooney, Tom Simmons, Frank Vlastnik
screenplay by David Simkins, Jeffrey Boam, Carlton Cuse, created by Jeffrey Boam, Carlton Cuse, music by Randy Edelman
TV series The Adventures of Brisco County jr
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The Old West: Marshall Brisco County (R. Lee Ermey) has just arrested
the heads of the John Bly (Billy Drago) gang. But then, the train he ships
them to justice in crashes into a boulder that has, in best cartoon
tradition, a landscape painted onto it to camouflage it, and of course
it's an ambush laid by Bly's associates, and the Marshall is shot dead by
all of those he had just captured. Now this worries the "barons"
who "rule" the West, having shared all the profitable businesses
among themselves, so they had their lawyer Socrates Poole (Christian
Clemenson) hire a bounty hunter to track down the Bly gang, none other
than the deceased lawmaker's son Brisco County jr (Bruce Campbell). In
an at first separate storyline, while blasting through a mountain to make
way for the railroad, four Chinese railroad workers find a weird orb that
gives them superpowers, so they break their chains and escape. Now this is
something railroad baron Thorogood (Stuart Whitman) desparately wants to
get his hands on, but it's confiscated by the gouvernment. Meanwhile,
Brisco is almost killed by the Chinese Tong, but when he goes
investigating deep into Chinatown, he meets a man (James Hong) indebted to
his father who tells him John Bly's associate Big Smith has put a hit on
him (M.C. Gainey), so Brisco is off to track down Big Smith via his saloon
singer girlfriend Dixie Cousins (Kelly Rutherford), who does have a soft
spot for him, and has no problems following her to Big Smith's hideout,
where he's quick to impress Smith, taking on another identity. It doesn't
take him long to find out the gang is planning to rob a train carrying a
large gold shipment and the orb from above narrative thread, and
they plan on doing this by diverting the train to an abandoned coal mine.
Before he can do anything to interfere though, Brisco is found out thanks
to the arrival of rival bounty hunter Lord Bowler (Julius Carry) and tied
to the train track to be overrun by the very train Smith and gang want to
rob. He's saved by his horse last minute though, and thanks to the help of
befriended professor Wickwire (John Astin), he's equipped with a rocket
that helps him overtake the train, enter it, use the element of surprise
to overcome Smith and his gang - while losing the orb in the process - and
ultimately foiling the baddies' plans and take out the first one of the
Bly gang's inner circle. One question remains open though, how did the
gang know when the gold train would pass through pretty much to the
minute? Why, from train baron Thorogood of course, who wanted the orb to
gain superpowers - but of course, he gets his just dessert in the end. Now
this is a fun throwback to B westerns and western serials of the 1930s and
40s, before the genre as a whole got too standardized, but the hommage is
lightened up with humour (not parody), which is pretty much lead actor
Bruce Campbell's forte. The outcome is maybe no masterpiece, and this
pilot is also hampered by 1990s TV traditions and limitations, but a very
enjoyable little romp that flows along very well and entertains
throughout. It's rather unfortunate then that in 1993 there was no great
demand for light-hearted western and no 1930s or 40s revival in sight, and
Bruce Campbell, talented as he was, was a star almost exclusively to the
horror crowd with only limited mainstream appeal, so the series only
lasted one season - which is some shame because it's some good genre
television and probably among the best shows that the 1990s had to offer.
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