I Generally love Gunsmoke. I like it for it's realism and believable characters. But this episode had none of that. (WARNING SPOILERS) From the beginning when Harvey Easter guns down two thieves where he had no way of knowing they were coming for him. Or two cowboys, who know nothing about farming, being persuaded to start a farm on land ten miles from a water source. When characters act like imbeciles, the story becomes unbelievable. Worse was Marshall Dillon's utterly out of character reaction to Harvey's murder. This episode should have been done as a comedic farce.
Reviews
3 Reviews
There is no politics here!
1 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
It is sad how many people see politics here. Serling was better than that. The people in this story had been saved from a holocaust that had consumed nearly all of humanity by Goldsmith. But when a cheap thug offers them freedom they reject Goldsmith and party. And commit suicide. Sounds like a country I know. America has rejected it's faith. There is no brotherhood or sense of community. Love has been replaced by its cheap substitute, sex. Money is our true god. And we spend our lives acquiring more no matter how much destruction it causes the environment, community or country. We claim we believe in freedom but exploit the enslaved people of China to maximize profits. We love the dollar more than each other. And yes we too are doomed.
Why this is a great episode
7 May 2006
Pacing. Yes Pacing. That is what makes this and other first year Trex episodes seem real. Yeah! Real! Like you are really there. Like, You are a person in our time privileged to see into the future. It may seem trivial, but that is what so many of the modern Treks lack. They don't give you the feeling you are in the future or in space or anything. Just a PC college campus at Halloween. The right pacing makes the people come alive as real - like me and you. Makes Charlie seem like any other teenager until his -well- quirks show up. And it makes it a real tragedy when they have to get rid of him. A real boy, one of me and you, has to get sent to hell. And we really don't want to do it. And it makes us ask were we like Charlie when we were teenagers? This is a great episode and it is why Star Trek lives forty years later.
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