A lousy script by Jo Pagano makes for a dreary, deadly dull segment of Route 66. It makes one wonder what a rejected screenplay for the show must have looked like.
Leading the guest cast of one-dimensional cardboard characters is John Ericson, intense and one-note as he returns to his tiny hometown of Harcourt, Texas for revenge, after spending five years in prison having been framed for a bank robbery he did not commit.
The nominal villain is the town's big shot, a nothing role for DeForest Kelley, four years before he finally achieved immortality as Dr. McCoy on Star Trek. Female lead is a young and dramatic Marion Ross and sentimental favorite is another cliched character, a guy with pipe dreams of striking oil played by Noah Beery Junior.
Pagano's story artificially ropes M & M into the local Kangaroo Court trial of Kelley as they drive into town in the Corvette, following the show's format of them getting entangled weekly in a strange culture. Of course Maharis interferes, provoking a fist fight with Ericson, and the finale of the story is arbitrary and completely unsatisfactory, leaving nothing resolved and lots of loose ends.
Leading the guest cast of one-dimensional cardboard characters is John Ericson, intense and one-note as he returns to his tiny hometown of Harcourt, Texas for revenge, after spending five years in prison having been framed for a bank robbery he did not commit.
The nominal villain is the town's big shot, a nothing role for DeForest Kelley, four years before he finally achieved immortality as Dr. McCoy on Star Trek. Female lead is a young and dramatic Marion Ross and sentimental favorite is another cliched character, a guy with pipe dreams of striking oil played by Noah Beery Junior.
Pagano's story artificially ropes M & M into the local Kangaroo Court trial of Kelley as they drive into town in the Corvette, following the show's format of them getting entangled weekly in a strange culture. Of course Maharis interferes, provoking a fist fight with Ericson, and the finale of the story is arbitrary and completely unsatisfactory, leaving nothing resolved and lots of loose ends.