Daniel and Mingo are en route to the French settlement of St. Genevieve (must be Missouri) on fur trade business when they are waylaid by Spanish soldiers suspecting that Dan is an anti-Spanish French rebel named Gabriel. Having taken the fort for Spain, commandant Esteban de Vaca (Cesar Romero) interrogates Dan while the real Gabriel (Vincent Becky) plots to foil de Vaca.
The series is at full steam this week with an intriguing if fanciful great-powers-on-the-frontier outing. Romero ("Batman's" Joker) takes the first of his two series roles as a Spanish officer, and deploys the full range of courtliness at his command. An outbreak of authentic casting places Jacquline Beers - Miss France of 1954 - as Gabriel's paramour. A pleasure seeing an actual Frenchwoman playing a French colonial settler, and she went on to even greater things as a director of archaeological museums in Europe. Reliable TV supporting actor Beck is playing something of a Rambo role on the approaches to Fort St. Genevieve (the Boonesborough set repurposed), with much action and minimal dialogue.
Much of the action takes place inside the fort, but when set dressing is done right, around-the-fort does not have to conform to the constraints of a bottle episode. Plus, the matching of the ebullient Romero and the taciturn Fess Parker is a confrontation well worth the development. Mingo gets to show off his whip skills.
As always, when DB attempts a historical adventure some deconstruction is needed, so onward:
* Spain rules Louisiana in real life from France's defeat and withdrawal after the French & Indian War from 1764 to 1803; France took over for a brief period before the U. S. Louisiana purchase.
* The episode purports to show a revolt of French settlers in Missouri against Spanish rule. None such recorded, but to be consistent with Napoleon's desire to take back Louisiana - interest lost after the Haitian Revolution drained resources he needed for war in Europe - this would need to take place c. 1800.
* French troops would not have been garrisoning a fort in Missouri during this period and there could not have been evicted by the Spanish.
* Correct to depict Boone as antagonistic toward the Spanish - Louisiana was a bone of contention between the Spanish Bourbons and the nascent U. S. over rights to use New Orleans as a port outlet for the American trans-Appalachian settlements.
Spanish soldato supplement - about eight, a fairly substantial garrison. Uniformed in an interesting mix of pre-Napoleonic and Napoleonic gear; enlisted are garbed in the white with green facings of the Fixo de Cueta Regiment, officers in an approximation of the Espana dragoons. Not sure that either unit made it to Louisiana, but unlikely. The period-correct Fixed Regiment of Louisiana wore white with blue facings.
Gabriel is seen handling crates of Hawken rifles, a buffalo-hunting gun that did not arrive on the frontier until the 1820's.
Overall a well-paced hour of frontier action that plays to the series' strength when it places Daniel at the locus of great-power politics. Though the history is a bit contrived, this is among Season 2's first rankers.
The series is at full steam this week with an intriguing if fanciful great-powers-on-the-frontier outing. Romero ("Batman's" Joker) takes the first of his two series roles as a Spanish officer, and deploys the full range of courtliness at his command. An outbreak of authentic casting places Jacquline Beers - Miss France of 1954 - as Gabriel's paramour. A pleasure seeing an actual Frenchwoman playing a French colonial settler, and she went on to even greater things as a director of archaeological museums in Europe. Reliable TV supporting actor Beck is playing something of a Rambo role on the approaches to Fort St. Genevieve (the Boonesborough set repurposed), with much action and minimal dialogue.
Much of the action takes place inside the fort, but when set dressing is done right, around-the-fort does not have to conform to the constraints of a bottle episode. Plus, the matching of the ebullient Romero and the taciturn Fess Parker is a confrontation well worth the development. Mingo gets to show off his whip skills.
As always, when DB attempts a historical adventure some deconstruction is needed, so onward:
* Spain rules Louisiana in real life from France's defeat and withdrawal after the French & Indian War from 1764 to 1803; France took over for a brief period before the U. S. Louisiana purchase.
* The episode purports to show a revolt of French settlers in Missouri against Spanish rule. None such recorded, but to be consistent with Napoleon's desire to take back Louisiana - interest lost after the Haitian Revolution drained resources he needed for war in Europe - this would need to take place c. 1800.
* French troops would not have been garrisoning a fort in Missouri during this period and there could not have been evicted by the Spanish.
* Correct to depict Boone as antagonistic toward the Spanish - Louisiana was a bone of contention between the Spanish Bourbons and the nascent U. S. over rights to use New Orleans as a port outlet for the American trans-Appalachian settlements.
Spanish soldato supplement - about eight, a fairly substantial garrison. Uniformed in an interesting mix of pre-Napoleonic and Napoleonic gear; enlisted are garbed in the white with green facings of the Fixo de Cueta Regiment, officers in an approximation of the Espana dragoons. Not sure that either unit made it to Louisiana, but unlikely. The period-correct Fixed Regiment of Louisiana wore white with blue facings.
Gabriel is seen handling crates of Hawken rifles, a buffalo-hunting gun that did not arrive on the frontier until the 1820's.
Overall a well-paced hour of frontier action that plays to the series' strength when it places Daniel at the locus of great-power politics. Though the history is a bit contrived, this is among Season 2's first rankers.
