User Reviews

Actor Alfred Ryder missing from the credits! Otherwise top notched show!!

Marshal Sam McCloud is settling in to his new assignment in NYC, and goes horse-riding in Central Park on his day off, when he's interrupted by a message from The Commissioner's niece... his high-class girlfriend Chris. Following a terrific day together, she gives him advice not to "get involved" when neighbors in his hotel are fighting. But that's not his style. After breaking up a lovers' spat, the following night he gets a call he believes is from the woman next door begging for his help, which leads him to a dark alley, where a professional hit man tries to take him out. Where did THAT come from?

At one point, to avoid bringing scandal on his department, Chief Clifford manages to secure Sam something he's wanted since he got to town-- permission to go home. Joe Broadhurst gets the job of making SURE McCloud gets on the plane, and once he does, you can see Joe will miss his new friend. But Sam gets off the plane and refuses to leave town until he knows the woman he met is okay. This seemingly-simple story gets more complicated than expected, when it turns out the man he met earlier is a political hopeful who was cheating on his wife. It just gets darker and nastier after that.

Following the (frankly, AWFUL) pilot, Leslie Stevens moved up to executive producer, and hired Glen A. Larson and Bill Egan as producer & associate. What can I say? The quality across the board JUMPED UP drastically. I think it's safe to say Larson "saved" the show from an early demise. As producer or writer, over 7 seasons, he became one of my top favorite people to ever work in television.

Carl Betz is "Aldon F. Flanders", whose rising political star is tied in with his new father-in-law, who he once helped avoid getting convicted when Flanders worked in the DA's office. With a long resume, Betz is probably most known for 50 episodes of JUDD FOR THE DEFENSE, and 272 episodes of THE DONNA REED SHOW! Oddly enough, I think this episode may be the only thing I really remember him for.

Randolph Mantooth has a tiny cameo as a hospital intern, 2 years before achieving fame on EMERGENCY.

Terry Carter & Diana Muldaur both return from the pilot as Joe Broadhurst & Chris Caughlin, he even more friendly to Sam than before, she looking somehow WAY prettier than she did when she first met Sam.

J. D. Cannon makes his debut here as "Chief of Detectives Peter B. Clifford", and from his very first scene, he totally blows his predecessor Mark Richman out of the water! He's got so much more personality, charisma and style, and back in 1971 he quickly became one of my favorite characters on TV. Clifford's relationship with McCloud is a complex one, always ranging from admiration to annoyance (often at the same time). In this story, he goes from wanting to help McCloud go back home, then annoyed when he hasn't, then working tight with him to try and nail a MURDERER. At the end, when he informs McCloud that now he has to stick around as a material witness, he comically warns him, "Whatever you do... DON'T try to leave town!" --and then SMILES.

Thanks to the sheer, unbridled incompetence of Universal Pictures, the 6 first-season episodes of McCLOUD that were run as the initial part of the FOUR-IN-ONE anthology in 1970-71 were BUTCHERED and turned into a trio of incoherent, UNWATCHABLE tv-movies for syndication. And they LOST the originals! This was a crime asgainst TV, and McCLOUD wasn't the only show they did this with. Some years back I learned the only place one could get copies from was Australia, but as they use the PAL system rather than NTSC, that means DVDs from there would be running in America at the WRONG speed! I don't know where VEI (Visual Entertainment Incorporated) found these 6 episodes, but I'm SO glad they did! The prints have some slight damage here and there, but remain very watchable, and are a welcome relief after decades of having nothing but those awful, ghastly re-edited butcher-jobs.

Something tells me VEI was waiting to put their box set out until they could get ahold of copies of these 6 one-hour episodes, and may have almost put the box out without them. The 2 discs are in a sleeve that separate from the rest of the set (which are bound together), and they're listed on the box as a "BONUS", like they were a last-minute addition. Oddly enough, while the entire box has the episodes in the correct order, the 2 FOUR IN ONE discs are slightly out-of-order. (Not too much of a problem when they're DVDs.) Also odd is the menu on these discs features the theme song from seasons 4-7, instead of the original theme used in the pilot and seasons 1-2.

When I got the 2021 box, I checked out the first few minutes of one of these episodes, just to see how the picture quality was. I was almost brought to TEARS. I haven't seen these episodes INTACT in 52 YEARS!!!