The
Episode First Shown:
As with many
dramatic stories, this episode opens on a light-hearted note. In the kitchen
Hoss has his foot in a bowl of hot water and is being cared for by a determined
Hop Sing. Enter Joe, who on discovering that Hoss twisted his ankle when he slipped
on a pencil, gives his classic giggle and pronounces Hoss's condition as
"writer's cramp"!
Joe and Ben go to
that some of the townsmen want to fire them unless they come up with answers.
Ben gives the support of true friendship to
We learn that Clem has become engaged (where did this unknown romance spring
from ??? LOL!) to a woman called Janie, currently living with her aunt, Roberta
Lund.
Dramatic fire footage of the wooden buildings burning in
The strain starts to affect everyone from the edgy townsmen to Ben's tiredness
to Joe's short temper. In a very human scene Joe arrives home, goes to the
kitchen and snaps angrily at poor Hop Sing. Although he apologises immediately
the hurt and bewildered look on Hop Sing's face is telling.
An interesting feature of this episode is that the viewer is left to discern
that Janie is the arsonist. This is done by portraying flashback scenes of her
abusive father, whose beatings she escaped when he died in an accidental fire,
and present day scenes where she is mesmerised by fire.
There are several "red herrings" as suspects are "found” but
each proves to be wrong: Mrs.Lund who lost her property in a fire but remains
well off, a hotel cook found in an alley near the latest fire and a man who was
dismissed from his job and could be seeking vengeance. There is some good team work
with Ben, Roy and Clem as they explore and reject each of these possibilities.
The episode reaches its climax after the engagement party of Clem and Janie.
Janie slips away and starts another fire which Clem discovers and enters the
burning store. Janie knocks him unconscious and but,
for Ben's quick action in carrying him clear, Clem would have died. Janie does
in fact die in the fire.
The episode closes with Ben comforting Clem and commenting that a new
Comments: I though that this was a really good story line with a very modern
insight - the link between an arsonist and their troubled past. However I had
trouble with two major parts: Janie Lund and Clem Foster.
I felt that Janie was portrayed too much as a "Bonanza bimbo" (not the
actress's fault) and that it would have been much better simply to have Roberta
Lund (Janie's aunt) as the arsonist. She was portrayed realistically as a
confident, mature woman and one of the suspects and I think she would have been
much more credible just as one of the townspeople, leaving the Janie/Clem
romance out of the story.
Now I have to say that I can never warm to the character of Clem Foster who is,
at best, solid and, at worst, stolid and boring. I frequently find Bing
Russell's portrayal to be the latter. JMHO. In this episode there is simply no
real romance between Clem and Janie and his reaction to her death is simply
wooden not stunned or traumatised. Having been rescued by Ben from the fire he
makes virtually no attempt to rush back to the store to try to rescue Janie:
think of Joe and the fire and
but Bing Russell just doesn't use the opportunity to portray Clem's pain. It
was almost entirely Lorne who carried that scene.
Overall though, this is a good episode. Despite very little Hoss, not much Joe
and not a lot of Ben, the story line is a good one.
Trivia: The fire was in real life needed to destroy the old
Angel Tompkins, particularly with her Janie hairstyle and clothes, bears an
uncanny resemblance to Mary Ingalls. This is made even more striking by the
fact that David Rose's "Big Bonanza" theme music in this episode was
reworked as the ending theme for "Little House on the Prairie"!
I wondered if Dan had been injured in real life as he only appears in two scenes,
in both of which he is resting his right foot.
Hilary
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