Daniel allows himself to be captured by a Spanish patrol his mission is to infiltrate an interloping Spanish fort being built with American prisoner labor. He tries to make contact with an inside Virginia militia agent (Gary Conway) and carry out orders to terminate the project.
A story mainly intended to put Boone in a prison setting, a staple episode of many 1960's westerns. Lots of physical labor and abusive guard scenes, plus a hunt among the inmates for an informer; Conway plays the same action-adventure teen heartthrob he did as the spaceship captain in the later "Land of the Giants." Also along is Mike Farrell of "MASH" as an American prisoner of dubious loyalties. The Spanish are mainly cardboard standees, and Dan's frontiersman skills really aren't needed for this assignment; Jimmy Dean could have filled in fine here.
Historically, the episode follows on the heels of last week's with another inch-deep research job. The Spanish did hold New Orleans during the approximate episode timespan (1783-89), but were mainly interested in stalling American aspersions toward control of the New Orleans port. Here, they are mounting an incursion up the Mississippi into the "Virginia grants," running all the way to the Mississippi until Kentucky statehood in 1789, and no factual basis for that. And why the Spanish would want the complication of constructing a fort with incarcerated foreign nationals in peacetime is left unexplained.
Continental soldier count - two officers who see Dan off on his mission, in Massachusetts Continental buff and blue. Not around by the mid-1780', the blue with red facings of the First American Regiment would have been more accurate.
Spanish presidio purview - a garrison of about 10, and accurately uniformed as the Fixed Regiment of Louisiana. But the officer in charge seems to be wearing a blue and yellow Polish uniform of the Napoleonic Wars.
I am nominally not a big fan of prison dramas; the usually endless abuse and absence of likable protagonists makes me look elsewhere. But the production values of this episode, notably the Boonesborough fort set shown under construction and the Spanish presence, vault this hour into a high ranking for Season 4.
A story mainly intended to put Boone in a prison setting, a staple episode of many 1960's westerns. Lots of physical labor and abusive guard scenes, plus a hunt among the inmates for an informer; Conway plays the same action-adventure teen heartthrob he did as the spaceship captain in the later "Land of the Giants." Also along is Mike Farrell of "MASH" as an American prisoner of dubious loyalties. The Spanish are mainly cardboard standees, and Dan's frontiersman skills really aren't needed for this assignment; Jimmy Dean could have filled in fine here.
Historically, the episode follows on the heels of last week's with another inch-deep research job. The Spanish did hold New Orleans during the approximate episode timespan (1783-89), but were mainly interested in stalling American aspersions toward control of the New Orleans port. Here, they are mounting an incursion up the Mississippi into the "Virginia grants," running all the way to the Mississippi until Kentucky statehood in 1789, and no factual basis for that. And why the Spanish would want the complication of constructing a fort with incarcerated foreign nationals in peacetime is left unexplained.
Continental soldier count - two officers who see Dan off on his mission, in Massachusetts Continental buff and blue. Not around by the mid-1780', the blue with red facings of the First American Regiment would have been more accurate.
Spanish presidio purview - a garrison of about 10, and accurately uniformed as the Fixed Regiment of Louisiana. But the officer in charge seems to be wearing a blue and yellow Polish uniform of the Napoleonic Wars.
I am nominally not a big fan of prison dramas; the usually endless abuse and absence of likable protagonists makes me look elsewhere. But the production values of this episode, notably the Boonesborough fort set shown under construction and the Spanish presence, vault this hour into a high ranking for Season 4.
