In two decades, Burt Reynolds went from being a TV actor to a movie star, and following both GUNSMOKE and HAWK, a Western and a cop series playing part Indian, he's in the latter's genre as pure white guy DAN AUGUST, a small California town cop who seems to know everyone he's investigating...
Except a ragged, falsely-charged hippie in Harrison Ford, featured here from THE MANUFACTURED MAN, and his future STAR WARS co-scoundrel, Billy Dee Williams, is an idealistic reporter trying to convince Reynolds' Lt. August into blaming a governor and his flaky, boozing son (David Soul), both protected by token stern chief Richard Anderson while tagged-along by mellow partner Norman Fell (later co-starring in THE END and PATERNITY) and curbed by the gov's political aid Mickey Rooney, surprisingly down-played (and there's a dubbed Gary Busey as a protesting hippie)...
All DAN AUGUST episodes play out almost exactly the same: one person seems the likely candidate for a cold open murder (revealing everything but the killer's face) until the truth is revealed... as it's more of the Mystery genre than Thriller or Action while enveloped within a Neo Noir/Gumshoe mold of going from person to person, location to location asking questions and, until the end, getting nowhere answers from various red-herrings...
And while Reynolds is famous for being a talented actor who threw it away by having too much fun in car chase movies like SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (ironically the second-best ep features Mike Henry) after being legitimized in DELIVERANCE, it turns out, by his monotone, robotic persona as DAN AUGUST, a little levity was needed...
And yet he looks the part and plays it well enough... just not enough for more than one season where this is the best episode, providing many tiers and interesting-enough characters to hold them.
Except a ragged, falsely-charged hippie in Harrison Ford, featured here from THE MANUFACTURED MAN, and his future STAR WARS co-scoundrel, Billy Dee Williams, is an idealistic reporter trying to convince Reynolds' Lt. August into blaming a governor and his flaky, boozing son (David Soul), both protected by token stern chief Richard Anderson while tagged-along by mellow partner Norman Fell (later co-starring in THE END and PATERNITY) and curbed by the gov's political aid Mickey Rooney, surprisingly down-played (and there's a dubbed Gary Busey as a protesting hippie)...
All DAN AUGUST episodes play out almost exactly the same: one person seems the likely candidate for a cold open murder (revealing everything but the killer's face) until the truth is revealed... as it's more of the Mystery genre than Thriller or Action while enveloped within a Neo Noir/Gumshoe mold of going from person to person, location to location asking questions and, until the end, getting nowhere answers from various red-herrings...
And while Reynolds is famous for being a talented actor who threw it away by having too much fun in car chase movies like SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (ironically the second-best ep features Mike Henry) after being legitimized in DELIVERANCE, it turns out, by his monotone, robotic persona as DAN AUGUST, a little levity was needed...
And yet he looks the part and plays it well enough... just not enough for more than one season where this is the best episode, providing many tiers and interesting-enough characters to hold them.