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55th Anniversary Viewing That Died at Bitter Creek
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So here's the deal with INSP's
Branded schedule: They finished the "Call to Glory" 3-parter, then skipped the next episode, "The Ghost of Murietta" (March 20, 1966), and are now on the following two-parter...after which they're for some reason going back into the middle of Season 1, also leaving us short the last three episodes of the series. So I'll just be keeping an eye open for whenever they might get back to the four remaining late Season 2 episodes.
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Branded
"The Assassins: Part 1"
Originally aired March 27, 1966
Frndly said:
McCord infiltrates a group of men suspected of conspiring to assassinate President Grant.
A telegram summons Jason to Washington under the pretense that his grandfather, General Joshua McCord (John Carradine reprising his role from last season's three-parter, "The Mission"). But when Jason reunites to find the old man as feisty as ever, he learns that the message was sent by a secret guest at the McCord home--President Grant, who believes that somebody's out to assassinate him, but doesn't know who. For those of us who might be getting our shows mixed up, he quickly dismisses the idea of using a couple of other leading characters...
Jason: Well, sir, if there is a plot against your life, isn't that the responsibility of the new Secret Service agency?
Grant: They belong to the Treasury! They guard important things like dollar bills.
Parties of interest include those against Grant's intention to support Cuban revolutionaries; and gold-hungry potential land-grabbers who want the Sioux driven from the Black Hills. He assigns Jason to check out a pair of visitors of the latter variety, bearing a doctored survey of the hills, and encourages Jason to feign a grudge against him...
Grant: It's good to know there's a man who hates me I can trust.
First Jason pays a call on a wealthy old flame who also appeared in "The Mission," though I'd have to go back to refresh my memory...Laurette Lansing (Kamala Devi), who, after a smoochy reunion, drops the bomb that she got tired of waiting and tied the knot with Senator Keith Ashley, whom she insists Jason meet...

"Jason, do you like moving pictures about gladiators?"
The senator, it turns out, is both a colleague of one of the men Jason's been assigned to get in with, James Swaney, and is also hosting Cuban freedom activist Dr. Felix Cueverra and his sister Socorro (Carlos Rivas and Margarita Cordova). Ashley expresses his belief in taking the Black Hills from the Sioux, and invites Jason to a boarding house where ex-president and current Tennessee senator Andrew Johnson (who's probably on the IMDb list as one of several uncredited actors listed as "Senator") holds court to a group of anti-Grant DC power brokers. (Johnson's current job places this episode between March and July of 1875.) There Ashley introduces Jason to James Swaney (Jim Davis) and the other person of interest, Lou Carlisle (also potentially an uncredited "Senator"). Swaney discusses an interest in getting the VP promoted to where he can be of use in their Black Hills scheme, and when Jason starts waving his survey around, offers him a job as his surveyor. The man Swaney already had lined up, Jim Randall (uncredited Michael Ross), brings up Jason's reputation and is promptly pummeled. The job is Jason's, and Swaney promises that their mutual nemesis Grant won't be in office much longer.
Jason returns home to report to Grant over a game of pool. Grant offers Jason a ride in his coach, and outside they're jumped by three men, two of them masked, and fight them off--Grant employing his cane, and Jason cutting one of them in the hand with his own knife before the two masked men run. The coach driver has been killed, and Jason notes that the knife seems too fancy for the Black Hills conspirators.
INSP
is running the end credits, as superimposed text at the bottom of the screen, in lieu of the original sequence.
ETA: I just went back and watched the commercials...the ones that they're playing on
Branded all seem pretty benign and typical of retro TV channels: AARP, a weight loss program, a nutrition supplement, a nebulizer, a Lifetime commercial that seemed to be inserted by Frndly in place of something else, William Shatner about a Medicare helpline, CashNetUSA, a blood sugar medication.
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Which neither will finish.
True.
I love the sound of ELP. Beautiful Art Rock.
It sounds nice, but isn't terribly memorable.
Probably my favorite of his early work. Overall not one of my favorite artists.
This is sort of the generic Rod Stewart song.
Why did I listen to that?
Morbid fascination with how low the early '70s can go?
Good one. I remember it mostly from Lost 45s.
This one I didn't have. I'll probably end up getting it, but I've got a backlog of singles I'd been intending to get.
Decent but pretty low-key.