THE LUCK OF PEPPER
The Luck of Pepper
'Pepper Shannon, a dime-store hero and a wanted man, asks
Jamie to 'capture' him and bring him to
Guest Stars: Neville Brand as Pepper
*****
I simply could not raise any enthusiasm for this story. It
is again one of those episodes where Ben, Hoss and Joe seem relegated to a supporting
role and where the main characters are just not interesting. I kept wanting to
yell: "This is Bonanza and that should
mean Cartwrights as the stars!" LOL!!
The story revolves around the former outlaw Pepper Shannon (now a dime novel
hero) and various sub-plots about financial extortion over land and a second
trial of Pepper.
The adventure mostly features Jamie who admires Pepper but does not realise how
dangerous are the lives of outlaws or other rogues.
In the end the baddies are caught and Pepper dies so presumably justice was
served and Jamie learnt some tough lessons.
Mitch gives a good performance which would have been greatly enhanced by much
more participation from Ben, Hoss and Joe.
There were two enjoyable scenes, both tellingly with the family and at the
Ponderosa. In the first Jamie believes that he has "captured" the
outlaw Pepper Shannon (because Pepper is jailed in
The second enjoyable scene is where Hoss is playing chess with Deputy Clem and
there is enjoyable banter between them. (It was nice to see the reappearances
of Deputy Clem and Sheriff Roy.)
Comment: Neville Brand played Uncle Gunnar before becoming Pepper Shannon and I
actually found Gunnar more interesting.