Despite starring George C. Scott, this episode was very disappointing. Perhaps Scott felt the same, because his name did not appear on the credits. Filled with wordy, overly long scenes, which was a weakness of this series in an attempt to stretch the weekly shows to 90 minutes. We even had Scott read an entire poem by Oscar Wilde, and it wasn't a short one. In one scene, a woman fleeing a hostage situation was shot in the back. We see her body on the ground, but... it's just an empty cloak, with no head, hands, or feet. Did the actress refuse to lie on the ground and there wasn't a stand in? Or did everyone go home and they staged it later? Quite odd. In light of today's unfortunate rash of school shootings, this was a textbook case of how not to deal with a school shooting situation, as the townspeople, although armed, chose to lie in wait for an hour instead of taking a shot at one of the two gunman who stood by an open window the entire time. Very cowardly, as in the recent Uvalde school shooting in Texas, the Parkland massacre in Florida, and the Columbine massacre in Colorado. In each case, the police huddled outside and did nothing until it was too late.
Review of The Brazen Bell
