User Reviews

Anyone who has watched Bonanza knows that in the opening credits the map shows the boundary of the Ponderosa shows it bordering Lake Tahoe on the south. And also that Ben Cartwright was a sailor in his younger days. So that at some point the Cartwrights would inly want to have water transportation available.

So Lorne Greene gets himself a riverboat to travel Lake Tahoe and an old friend Karl Swenson to pilot it and teach Candy and the sons the trade fresh water sailing.

But Swenson has a checkered past and a smooth talking villain in Richard Anderson is using that to leverage Swenson's help in a robbery.

This was a nice episod and one of the few not using any studio sets, but done completely outdoors. And at Lake Tahoe to boot. Good gun battle with the Cartwrights and the bad guys at the climax.

No more could a western fan want.

This is a fine adventure/drama, just, please, don't over-think it. It does not matter why a riverboat is transported "in pieces" from Mississippi river to Tahoe, it does not matter why there was a million dollar payroll transported in one bulk and on one stage across Panderosa. It does not even matter where or how little Joe and Candy learned to navigate a river boat. If you can get past all that, it was a fine adventure, and as always, little Joe in two inch heels saves the day. But I missed Hop Sing taking his turn at the wheel.

All of the sudden Ben Cartwright has a steamship and guess who is the driver of the ship, none other then the foreman of the ranch, Candy Canaday. Not sure that Candy had the credentials to pilot a steamship but for this episode the Cartwright's Steamship, 'Dixie' is driven by a foreman as it travels around Lake Tahoe for unknown reasons.

The premise of the show was that a gambler named Jamison Fillmore (Richard Anderson) and his cronies plan on robbing the Cartwright payroll and then use the Dixie to escape. Candy is going to play like he is with the robbers but really have the Cartwright's interest at heart. But things get even more odd as a female stowaway starts driving the ship (seems like everyone had some nautical training) and a gunfight breaks out between the outlaws and shore-locked Cartwrights.

This story was so strange that it almost seemed comical in nature. From the stowaway swooning to the base of the steering wheel to the preacher citing from the Bible, it was a cast of unnatural characters. The plot was not that bad- they just had the terrible idea to do the show on water with a steamboat we have never seen nor will see again. Didn't seem real.