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Post-55th Anniversary Viewing
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"The Night of the Colonel's Ghost"
Originally aired March 10, 1967
IMDb said:
President Grant wants to go to Gibsonville to dedicate the statue of an officer under his command during the Civil War. James West travels ahead to ensure it's safe for the President. West finds Gibsonville is now a ghost town and is experiencing an "epidemic" of broken necks. The few residents left are seeking buried gold--and the number of bodies is rising.
After some train banter with Grant (whom, as I noted back in 2017, is conspicuously lacking any sort of entourage), Jim rides ahead into what he's led to believe will be a hopping town to find it practically deserted, coming upon a hostile man chopping at a wooden Indian with an axe (Ralph Gary), who says he's digging for gold, and informs West of the nature of the "epidemic" that hit the town. Nevertheless, the conspicuously shiny bronze statue of Colonel Wayne Gibson is in place...somebody had to put that up. Jim enters a dusty hotel to find a desk clerk, Jennifer Caine (Kathie Browne), who acts like she's in a trance...and quickly finds himself in an obligatory tussle with a couple of toughs--DRINK! Outside, Jim finds that the man with the axe, whom Jennifer identifies as Chris Davidson, has succumbed to the epidemic...and hears mysterious organ music, which she informs him always accompanies the neck-breakings. She attributes the murders and organ playing to the titular apparition.
Jim next visits Sheriff Hollis (Walker Edmiston), who's toasting Davidson with Doc Gavin (Arthur Hunnicutt), who diagnoses that Davidson died accidentally. The sheriff informs Jim that the town has been dubbed "Gibson's Folly" because it was built too far off the eventual railroad route. But when Hollis starts talking trash about the colonel, Jennifer comes to life to defend him; and Jim learns that the toughs who assaulted him are Jennifer's brothers, Abel and Bert (Billy Shannon and Gordon Wescourt), who are currently heard engaged in rowdy gunplay offscreen. Back in the hotel, the group finds that Abel's disappeared from a locked, shabbily kept room, and hear the music again.
Jim sets himself up in his own room and sends a message to the train via carrier pigeon and invisible ink...and lacking a key chemical, Artie has to borrow some of the contents of the president's flask to reveal the message, which is coded as a nonsensical-sounding poem but warns them not to proceed to Gibsonville. Grant exposits a bit about Gibson and how his unit was wiped out; then finds Artie's wood model of what he calls a "land crawler"--a steam-era tank that he says could eliminate the need for cavalry.
Grant: You know, Mr. Gordon...it's men like you who'll eventually take all the fun out of war.
Back in Gibsonville, Jim assembles the surviving townspeople--now including legal researcher Vincent Pernell (Alan Hewitt), who describes his business as potentially redrawing borders throughout the southwest. Jennifer reveals that she was secretly engaged to Wayne, and has stayed, like the others, expecting to "inherit" a stash of gold bullion that Gibson hid before his death--the various parties asserting their separate, dubious claims to the fortune. The sheriff quietly slips out, and when Pernell exits to another room behind a curtain, he becomes the latest victim of the epidemic, complete with music cue.
Artie then enters the scene in the role of a very English, very muttonchopped big game hunter. Jim privately conveys pressure from the prez, and Jim fills him in on what's going on. Artie brings a lobby parrot into Jim's room to try to get info out of it, then they search the place together, and accidentally trigger an obligatory secret panel in Abel's room--DRINK!--which leads not to the obligatory underground lair (aw, no drink), but a hidden closet where they find an unworn wedding dress and Abel's body. Then we hear the sound of Bert being killed and return in the aftermath--the remainder of the scene potentially having fallen victim to a Frndly interruption. The Sheriff and Doc cavalierly drink to Bert as they did to Davidson. Artie joins them, taking them aback when he matter-of-factly describes having shot a rattler overnight, and offers them drinks from his flask. As they succumb to the mickey, he shares his theory that the murders may have been committed by a pair of men such as themselves working together.
Jim is mulling about in his room when the door locks, bars go down over the window, and another obligatory secret panel opens (DRINK!) to reveal the organ, being played by a scarred Colonel Wayne Gibson (Lee Bergere). Jim accuses him of cowardice for having substituted the body of a soldier for his own and of committing the murders. When Jennifer enters the room, Gibson uses her as a hostage. When the colonel asks why West's there, Jim claims it's to correct an error in the inscription of Gibson's statue. The colonel takes them out to inspect it, and is about to kill them when Artie rides up posing as Grant and tries to talk the colonel down, but makes an error in describing Gibson's service history, so the colonel un-muttonchops his beard--DRINK! Jim grabs Gibson only for Jennifer to play her hand by pulling a gun on him. Artie drops an exploding cigar and a firefight ensues in which Jim shoots Gibson and a stray shot by the colonel reveals the gold beneath the bronze covering of the statue. The episode ends not with a train coda, but with Gibson's dying words about having "found" his gold.
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Post-50th Anniversary Viewing
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"Good Will Tour"
Originally aired March 26, 1970
Wiki said:
Ironside finds his order to guard a visiting crown prince difficult due to the prince's thirst for night life.
We now switch gears and move substantially forward to an odd Season 3 episode that I'd missed when this show was in my 50th anniversary viewing lineup.
On the last stop of a visit to the States, Crown Prince Mikhail (Bradford Dillman) is greeted at his country's Frisco counsulate by Consul General Peter Mysodon (Ben Wright) and his aide, Boudaris (Wesley Addy--Post-opening credit alert!). Team Ironside is getting dressed up for the reception, as they're providing low-key security to protect the Prince from politically motivated attempts to discredit him and endanger his country's relations with the US. At the reception, Boudaris goes right to work acting suspicious, offering to show the prince around town incognito afterward. Ed and Eve tail the prince to Fisherman's Wharf, which has come a long way from the foggy dockside set of the nineteenth century. In a gift shop, the prince bumps into a seemingly normal tourist named Laura (Claudia Bryar), and she and her husband, Victor (Pitt Herbert), immediately makes a scene about how Mikhail allegedly tried to steal her purse. Eve intervenes, defusing the situation, following which Boudaris questions Eve about potential tourist stops and arranges for the reluctant prince to take Eve to a happening North Beach discotheque called the Lighthouse...while Ed watches warily from a distance over a hot dog. (Artie should get to work on putting frankfurters in buns.)
Boudaris makes a rendezvous with Victor and Laura to pay them off and chastise them for the botched attempt, following which he reports the failure to Mysodon, whose next move is to go to the Ironsidecave and make a stink about how the prince has gone missing with the officers...but the Chief dissuades him from reporting the matter and causing a public incident. Back at the wharf, after some awkward small talk about the White House segues into Mikhail getting into the burdens of his busy schedule of state functions on behalf of his father which involve places and things that he invariably describes as "most impressive," Eve takes the prince to Coit Tower...and accidentally drops the wallet with her badge in it (before which I didn't realize that the prince wasn't in on her being a cop--she did meet him in line right behind the Chief).
Mikhail is upset that he was allowing himself to become attracted to a nursemaid from what those in our country would call "the fuzz". Eve reasons with him and gets across that despite her assignment, she has been having a good time with him. They proceed to the Lighthouse, which the prince is expecting to be a naval installation; and Ed, who'd been chatting with the couple's cab driver (Jimmy Allen), is unable to follow because his rear tires have been slashed. He alerts the Chief, who gets rolling with Mark. At the establishment, Eve encourages Mikhail to get on the dance floor, where he displays some awkward moves that appear to be sped up...to the quiet amusement of the Chief and Mark when they enter. Boudaris also drops in and pays off a male patron (Michael Bow, I presume, whose character is billed as Burly Guy) to try to cut in on Mikhail's time with Eve, provoking a fight in which the prince slugs the man in front of a female photographer who's also on Boudaris's payroll. The Chief intercepts Boudaris, who denies having been slipped the film, but is wheelchair-tripped, following which Mark pilfers the roll while helping him up. Eve and Mikhail run into the Chief, who alerts the prince to Boudaris's activities.
The coda takes place over breakfast at the Ironsidecave...
Mark: How are the eggs?
The Chief: Please, Mark, not while we're eating.
...where Mikhail unexpectedly drops in to announce that Mysodon and Boudaris will be reassigned to the consulate in Siberia; and to present the only print made of him punching Burly Guy, which he gives to Eve as a parting gift before romantically bidding her goodbye.
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Scheduled to be with us for the remainder of hiatus season...
"See the Eagles Dying"
Originally aired September 29, 1970
Frndly said:
Pete poses as a hoodlum to get close to a teenage girl and her thrill-seeking crowd mixed up with sky diving---and murder.
We pick up with the second episode of Season 3, as the final Decades Binge skipped the season premiere for whatever reason.
An old wino named Gus (James Nusser) who's living out of a broken-down station wagon at an airfield joins a group of young skydivers, putting on gear and declaring that he wants to go up with them. When they're airborne, Cindy (Lane Bradbury) doesn't want to go through with it, but Joe (Paul Carr) insists that he'll be there with Gus. Once they're in freefall, however, Gus--fully conscious but fixated on the rising ground--doesn't respond as the divers futilely try to get him to pull his chord. They eventually have to pull their own, and Gus is looking to be the first one down before we cut to a new version of the opening credits, which hews very closely to the version from the previous two seasons, but there are differences in hair, clothes, and framing--most notably how Pete is seen running in the logo's O.
Cindy and the gang--which includes Phil (Judd Laurance) and occasionally an extra or two--are subsequently arrested for acting drunk and disorderly at an arcade, and Greer's there when she's brought in, as her father, John Jeffers (Ross Elliott), is an old friend. The Mods watch through the interrogation room mirror as Cindy rejects her father's help. Afterwards, Greer tells the Mods how Cindy used to be an ambitious student, and he's afraid that she's headed for real trouble. When Cindy's released on bail, Pete's in line with her, chatting her up in character as a likeminded adventurist. Pete leaves with Cindy's gang on cross-country motorcycles for the airfield, and Cindy has flashbacks to Gus as Pete acts reluctant about joining them the following morning, but is encouraged by Joe.
Pete drops Cindy off at Stately Jeffers Manor, where John tells Adam how something happened that changed her two months prior, on June 21. The next morning, despite his own reluctance and Cindy's concerns, Pete releases his chute immediately upon clearing the plane, and enjoys the ride down, though Cindy has another flashback as he lands. On the ground, Pete finds a cooking fuel can that was left behind by Gus at his campsite, which gets Cindy conspicuously uptight. When they're alone afterward, Joe has a talk with Cindy about how she has to stay cool about the accident, and encourages her to get rid of Pete, before he has to.
The Squad meets at Pete's pad as he's recovering from a skydiving hangover, Linc and Julie having learned of other members of the group having shown signs of trauma following June 21st--one of them was picked up for drunk driving; the other didn't show up for work and lost his job. At Jeffers Manor, John wakes Cindy up from a nightmare in which she's begging Gus to
pull, pull! Linc and Julie subsequently show up at the airfield posing as legal clerks who ask about Gus in relation to a probate case, Greer having been tipped off by John and the Mod duo having since learned of an old man who'd been living at the airfield. When they confer with Pete afterward, he puts this together with the campsite evidence he found, and goes back to the airfield to snoop around Gus's wagon, unaware that Joe and Phil are watching. Joe approaches Pete and sets up an impromptu practice session that day before the group leaves for a competition in Reno, and encourages Pete to join them. Linc learns of the session when he picks up a call from Cindy at Pete's place, and alerts Greer.
Joe sabotages Pete's chute, and when Cindy arrives, she senses that Joe's in the process of dealing with Pete as he threatened to. In freefall, Cindy tells Pete to pull his cord and nothing happens, but she stays close and literally hooks up with him, so he can share her chute. On the ground, Pete goes after Joe, tackling him as he tries to get away on his bike, and Greer arrives with CLE backup. In the coda, the entire diving group is being taken in to be charged, though Greer thinks that only Joe got in too deep. Pete offers Cindy some encouraging words and she walks off with an escorting officer to a waiting squad car.
It might've come up in my previous
Mod Squad viewing, but this episode reminded me of how
The Incredible Hulk ended up doing episodes centered around practically every recreational activity known to man...or at least Southern Californians. Anyway, there was some nice stunt footage.
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RJDiogenes said:
This is a great plot idea. Too bad they wasted it on a monkey.
It felt like another half-baked story overall.
Having refused to write it down or share it with anyone.
Yep.
