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Reviews
Highway Patrol: Revenge (1959)
The Father was Miscast
The father looks too old, with white hair and elderly facial features--looks more like a grandfather than a father. Maybe we are supposed to believe that he aged tremendously after the accident or that he had a son late in life or that he just did not age gracefully. The storyline was believable otherwise.
My Three Sons: A Perfect Memory (1961)
The Story is a Downer
Stories of this sort, in which the main character is looking backward over the past, especially past failures and foibles and failed loves, strike me as melancholy, sad, and somber, and definitely not funny. Life certainly can be that way, so if the point of this episode was to convey that, then it succeeded. Not all of the "My Three Sons" shows are funny. Some are more serious. This is one of them. In that respect, the show demonstrates some range and depth and realism sometimes, to put it positively.
Highway Patrol: Dead Hunter (1957)
Portrays Good Police Work and Some Lessons To Learn
Several lessons are derived from this episode. First, if you discover that your business partner is cheating you, it would be wise not to be so foolish as to tell him that you haven't told anyone else about your discovery, and then further that you will be cutting him out of your lucrative will. You just might be providing your unscrupulous business partner with a motive for murdering you. Secondly, police need to always be suspicious, to not be satisfied with pat answers and to be willing to dig beneath the surface, as was done in this case. Shows good police work, though, as someone else has pointed out, it is interesting that no patrolmen found it strange that the two were dressed too well to be out hunting in the woods in the first place.
Highway Patrol: Hot Dust (1957)
Unbelievable Plot
The storyline is unbelievable. First, one would think that a business that handles radioactive material would hire someone with more maturity and not a "kid" as Matthews called him. Secondly, one would think that such a business would train its worker on how to handle the material and the dangers associated with exposure so that the worker would be competent enough to transport the cannister and would not have misconceptions about the effects of exposure, should that happen. Third, no business like this would have just one worker, and a rather immature one at that, left alone to do the job without at least a second or third person or supervisor doing some oversight and support. At least, one would hope. Fourth, the lab worker Harry Wells (played by Leonard Nimoy) is such a bungler that he almost makes Larry, Moe, and Curley of the Three Stooges look professional by comparison.