User Reviews

Rising stars Robert Colbert ("The Time Tunnel) and Tom Skerritt ("M.A.S.H."--the movie) are background items in this curiously uninvolving episode of "The Virginian."

Trampas and the eponymous Virginian round up wild horses from the hills to fulfill an army contract.

Eddie Albert plays the father of a clan who believes they own the hills and all the wildlife in it (though a good case could be made that wild horses travel about and aren't part of a land claim).

Albert is supposed to be a mean old cuss but apart from an episode with water carriers he doesn't seem particularly dangerous until the end. We all know from "Green Acres" how Albert can show a short fuse and lots of yelling, but here he seems subdued, dangerous as he's supposed to be.

He does show a certain amount of treachery. Though his children seem devoted to him, mean though he is.

Overall, despite the excitement the plot should engender, especially since we know Albert's character is planning to bushwhack them somewhere along the line despite making pals with them about half-way through, it never really generates any tension. Perhaps in the last sixty years we've seen it all too often.

The ending is almost funny, a case of . . . overkill. But I won't explain what that means. Find out for yourself.