igcolonel

Cheyenne is a solid western series, but it is problematic in certain ways. One problem is a complete lack of internal logic. For instance, in Season 3 they did a two-parter about the death of Custer at Little Big Horn. But in season 4 they had an episode where an army officer told the star (Clint Walker) that Col. Custer was asking for him to help scout in the Black Hills. Huh? Custer died the season before! Also, Bode had way too many jobs for any one man. This series was supposed to take place in the 1870s, 80s, and maybe 90s. But Bode was a sheriff one week, a Mexican freight man another, a cattle drover, in another, back to being a sheriff in a completely different town the next, then a cattle drover again, and even an Army spy several times... seriously. This guy had every job in the west in those tiny few number of years. There is no way he could have been elected sheriff in half a dozen towns, yet also spent a year driving cattle half a dozen times, AND been a drifter, and hired hand half a dozen other times in just 20 or so years. Each show on its own is fine, granted, but they just had Bode doing too many things, and the series taken as a whole just makes no cohesive sense as a story about a man's life.

If I were John O'Dea, the man credited for writing this abomination, I'd be hanging my head in shame. There isn't a single thing that makes sense about this plot. But the actors aren't free of blame, either. The cartoonish acting, bad accents, and idiotic character development in this farce is shameful. This whole episode must rank as one of the single worst hours of television ever put to film. Everyone involved with this episode should feel shame. With examples like this it is no wonder that this series got one lone year before the ax fell. Not every episode of The Girl From UNCLE was bad--though many are--but THIS one takes the cake.

As other reviewers noted, the story wasn't bad, but the costuming was the absolute worst I think I've ever seen. Leather cowboy hats?? SERIOUSLY!? The clothing looks like they scoured every Goodwill shop in California to find anything that was remotely a western-like flair quite despite any accuracy or logic. And why did every male character have to have the worst fright wig long hair. Long hair for men was not popular during the era portrayed. The civil war scenes were something awful, too. One has to watch this movie and suspend any thought that it is in the least bit a real western and is just a fantasy movie. A lot of the actors are recognizable, from other shows over the years, so at least they hired real actors for the piece. That really helped.