Hostage stories are a dime a dozen. Every show has a bunch of them, especially Westerns. Given the story structure is pretty expectable, I guess they serve as a litmus paper to test levels of creative writing. With this one, the writers flunk terribly.
When my eye caught the robber brothers, at first I thought one was Keith Carradine. But no, even better, it was David Carradine, who was gonna play the part of his life in Kill Bill 6 years after shooting this. The other robber was Jason Keach, who had the same eyes with his brother Stacy.
Come to think of it, I guess there was some intentional irony with casting these two as brothers, as they both have brothers they can be conflated with in Hollywood.
Anyways... Why's that such a lame episode? Because it looks like it was written on the set, with no particular twists or ideas to distinguish the story in any way. Dr. Quinn gets taken hostage with her kids, her husband tries to save her, then come the friends to save all. That's it. Really.
Oh, no! Some things DO happen... Like, Dr. Quinn stares at the rifle resting on the wall and does nothing. She notices the pistol hidden in the wounded robber's boot, does nothing. At least half a dozen times, she literally notices things that can change the situation in her favor, yet, does nothing. We don't know why. Does she subconsciously enjoy being held hostage?
Finally, when her wounded husband is literally being from wall to wall by the bad guy, she observes the situation in fake agony. She doesn't jump on the intruder and sink her nails deep in his skin. She doesn't throw something at him. For almost 3 minutes straights, she makes us wonder if she really loves her husband, challenging the very premise of the show.
Then she finally takes the rifle and points it at the intruder, tells him "You're wrong if you think I wouldn't shoot!"
Well, I have been watching how she was coping with the situation, and even I thought she wouldn't shoot! These are just things to feed the viewer with false tension, after all.
I dunno how better they could have wasted the presence of two notable actors as the evil bros.