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johnlongo767
Reviews
The Outcasts: My Name Is Jemal (1968)
Support by great character actors!
I like this series! Wish it did more than 26 episodes. Our heroes, Earl & Jemal (Don Murray & Otis Young), have a love hate relationship. In this episode, Jemal gets drugged & substituted for a Buffalo soldier who is slated to be hung. The escaped soldier gets involved with robbing a stage coach, and is pursued by Earl. Jemal is wrongfully jailed and tormented by a redneck sergeant (Charles Diederkop) and a local Sheriff (John Marley) attempts to help him. Suffice to say that Earl arrives in time to save him, reuniting the team.
The Outcasts: Gideon (1969)
Early Roscoe Lee Browne GEM
Our protagonists (Don Murray & Otis Young) cross a Sheriff's checkpoint and enter a town full of bounty hunters. There, Earl encounters an old family ex-slave named Gideon (Roscoe Lee Browne) whom he embraces and shares old memories with. But not is all that it seems. Gideon has his own agenda that involves a safe full of gold dust and his desire to turn his new freedom into a better life. Sit back and enjoy Browne's great acting and rich baritone voice. Good appearance by Howard Kaine (Major Hochstetter from Hogan's Heroes) as the saloon owner. A standout episode in this series' single season run.
The Outcasts: The Glory Wagon (1969)
Good plot, typical Jack Elam
Good western plot about our two protagonists (Don Murray & Otis Young) escorting bank robber (Elam) to justice, when they get caught up in rescuing a dozen trapped miners by hauling nitro glycerin across the desert in a rickety old wagon. Elam wants to escape but his conscience gets the better of him and he comes through, albeit a bit late as the miners are dug out shortly before the team's arrival.
Centennial (1978)
Great Beginning then Fades
Starts out well, but after the characters of Pasquinel (Robert Conrad) and Alexander McKeag (Richard Chamberlain) leave the scene, it bogs down into retrospectives of earlier episodes. The last 3rd ends up as a preachy interpretation of Michener's liberal views of white guilt over treatment of the Indians and discrimination toward Hispanics and the trashing of the environment by big businesses. If they had only maintained the high quality of acting and script in the last half as they did in the first, it could have been a REAL epic series. Again, kudos to Bob Conrad for his portrayal of French-Canadian trapper Pasquinel, which is a great jump from his 4 seasons on the Wild Wild West.