One thing is certain - "The Dakotas" had the coolest sounding episode titles of any TV Western series ever. Like 'Red Sky Over Bismarck' and 'Requiem at Dancer's Hill'. Or how about 'Walk Through the Badlands'? They all conjure up these terrific images of heroes and villains in the Western landscape of the late 1800's. The great thing is, the series had some terrific stories to back up the titles. Part of that greatness I think is that they didn't rely on a lot of the standard formula. Sure there were showdowns and gunfights, but a lot of the tension came from how conflicted the principal characters were often portrayed. Take for example 'Crisis at High Banjo' - Marshal Ragan (Larry Ward) struggles to balance the scale of justice versus revenge when he discovers the identity of the man behind the murder of his newlywed wife five years earlier. Then there's the remorseful deputy Del Stark (Chad Everett), questioning his very existence in the stunning episode, 'Sanctuary at Crystal Springs'. Both are among the best stories of the series.
Of course, deputy J.D. Smith (Jack Elam) was pretty much conflicted in every episode. It wasn't unusual to see him question Ragan's authority from time to time, and his renegade past often came back to haunt him. As in 'Reformation at Big Nose Butte', when his old gang leader (Telly Savalas) is released from jail and summons his former comrades to join him. That one also featured DeForest Kelley as another gang member, before he joined the crew of Star Trek.
Though Larry Ward was top billed, I'd have to agree with most posters on this board who feel that the series got it's energy from Elam. By this time in his career, that lazy eye of his gave him the perfect 'bad guy' look to offset the 'good guy' image he was meant to portray. Oddly, his name was the third one down in the credits, behind Chad Everett, who supplied the beefcake factor in a number of stories, most notably in 'Mutiny at Fort Mercy' where he spends most of his time bare chested and staked to a whipping post. The fourth member of the cast, Michael Greene, had largely a throwaway role as Deputy Vance Porter, but he got to use his size and strength to good advantage a few times. However in those episodes he didn't appear, sad to say, I don't think he was much missed.
Though short lived for only a few months during the 1963 NBC season, the series managed to secure a few prominent guest stars. I guess they seem more prominent today at least, since back then, they probably didn't make much of a dent in the recognition department. Savalas and Kelley were two mentioned earlier, but you also had Dennis Hopper (Requiem at Dancer's Hill), Claude Akins (The Chooser of the Slain) and the great Lee Van Cleef (Thunder in Pleasant Valley). Additionally, you had your reliable bunch of character actors as well who saw action, folks like Royal Dano, Richard Jaeckel, Strother Martin and Beverly Garland. Part of the fun for me in these old time series is just waiting to see who shows up.
A number of reviewers here make mention of the 'The Dakotas" getting it's start as an episode of "Cheyenne". Specifically, 'A Man Called Ragan' was the season six finale of that series. What's interesting to me is that Clint Walker doesn't appear in that one - how about that!
As a huge fan of the Western genre, I find it hard to pick a favorite among all the great Western Series that have come down the pike, but for it's brief run, "The Dakotas" would have to rank highly. Overall, maybe not as strong as the first season of "Rawhide", but better I think than most of the half hour series of the era. That owes to it's heroic but flawed characters, and stories that put you in the middle of the action where you had to pick who's side you were on, as many times, Marshal Ragan and his men found themselves facing tough questions without easy answers.
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