The original leads had a rare onscreen chemistry, which always made even the silliest episode fun. Caroline was an intensely irritating character and I think the boys would have been well advised to turn her down. The interactions between Kid Curry and Sister Grace and the conversation between Lucy Fielding nicely highlights the partner's complimentary but different personalities Decent story, fun dialogue and a nice amount of 'peril'. Enjoyable episode that highlights much of what made the series so much fun.
Alias Smith and Jones (TV Series)
Six Strangers at Apache Springs (1971)
User Reviews
Review this title4 Reviews
One Fun Main Plot vs Two Poor Sub-Plots(who's going to win?)
brtndr4 November 2013
Warning: Spoilers
The show opens with Smith and Jones deciding to bed down for awhile in the one horse town of Apache Springs. An ex-mining town that's long past its gold rush boom days, and is now just a few shades above a ghost town that has far more lost, and way-ward tumble weeds, than it has merchants and customers. However, before the boys can even get a room, they're quickly approached with a financial proposition inside of the towns hotel and saloon, by a local hard drinking elderly frontier woman, and possibly insane, Caroline Rangely (played by Carmen Mathews) who delightfully steals every single scene that she appears in.
Interested by the opportunity of a huge financial pay day, our two protagonists mosey on up to the hotel bar, and poor themselves a couple of mugs from Caroline's pitcher of morning beer (hey, it's noon somewhere in the world) to discuss more specifically what the possibly insane drunken woman wants them to do for payment, and why.
Eagerly, the wild eyed woman soon begins to narrate a interesting and colorful yarn that started two years ago when she, and her late husband, collected thousands of dollars worth of gold dust from one of Apache Springs old abandoned gold mines. However, they were forced to stash it away in the nearby hills after suddenly being attacked by the Chiwacawa Indians who had recently relocated to the same area after escaping from their reservation, and have remained there ever since.
As it turns out, Caroline's husband was killed in that Indian attack, and she's been unable to return to the hills to retrieve her hidden gold dust out of fear of the Indian tribe. After some contentious haggling between Caroline and the two guys over the percentage of recovered gold dust she's willing to offer, Smith & Jones eventually come to terms with the crazy frontier lady over dinner and a bottle of bourbon. I believe Smith and Jones had a little dinner to go along with their whiskey, while Caroline focused solely on bourbon consumption.
The next morning, Caroline provides them with a map locating several sacks of gold that's sporadically hidden in the nearby hills, and it's off we go to recover lost gold while being harassed by the local renegade Indians.
While the main plot of this episode, and the colorful Caroline are enjoyable to follow along with. Unfortunately, the show gets really bogged down with its 2nd sub-plot involving a young catholic woman that Kid Curry(Ben Murphy) tries to financially assist and advise. Kid Curry's new friend, the young Sister Grace, also recently just arrived in Apache Springs with very little money, and is struggling to pay for room and board while attempting to start a new congregation after becoming disillusioned by the corruption of her last Mission.
What ever potential interest there might have been for the audience in Sister Grace's story line? It immediately died out while listening to her drone on to Kid Curry about the unfortunate reasons that she's currently stuck in the one horse town, and her unrealistic hopes of ever starting a successful congregation in Apache Springs that's practically abandoned by day, only to later erupt into a wild and ruckus drinking, fighting and gambling scene for the local ranch hands at night.
As soon as Sister Grace begins talking with Kid Curry, the whole "trying to rediscover her faith" story line appears to be completely tact on, and doesn't posses a single connective thread to the main story to justify its existence. But, that doesn't stop Kid Curry from advising Sister Grace that she's not a very talented soul saver after just meeting her. And, to put aside delivering the wild west from its own evil ways for awhile, move back to Boston, and to just "have a good time" while she's still young enough to enjoy it. Sort of the, "Tune in, turn on and drop out.", Timothy Leary approach to the problem. This poorly written and under developed story line makes our hero, Kid Curry, seem like he's temporarily freelancing as the Devil's advocate, after a hard day of taking gold from the land of dispossessed renegade Indians.
In the 3rd, and far more organically interesting sub-plot (that never really gets resolved) Smith and Jones are temporarily joined on their golden journey into Indian country by Edward Fielding, who's there to negotiate the fairest terms of a possible surrender and relocation for the local renegade Indian tribe to try and avoid the inevitable blood shed that a military action would cause.
Unfortunately, this story line isn't given the time it deserves, and we're never given much information about how Edward's negotiations with the Indians are progressing or failing, other than Edward suddenly appearing in a few scenes to mildly complain about being shot by the Indians. So, we're left to assume that the times Edward wasn't shot by the Indians was considered a successful pow-wow. Although, it's kind of hard to tell because, Edward doesn't seem to mine very much about getting shot by the Indians.
While the main plot of recovering gold in the hills occupied by renegade Indians for the colorful Caroline makes the episode worth watching. But, overall, I give the episode 6 out of 10 stars, for having too many sub-plots, where the 2nd one about the young Sister Grace needed to be completely tossed out the window, so to allow us more time to follow the 3rd story line about the Indian negotiations.
In closing, episode 7 of season 2, is one of the weaker episodes of the otherwise strong remaining few months that Peter Duel and Ben Murphy continued to star together. The entire episode is currently available on IMDb and YouTube if you're interested in checking it out for yourselves.
Interested by the opportunity of a huge financial pay day, our two protagonists mosey on up to the hotel bar, and poor themselves a couple of mugs from Caroline's pitcher of morning beer (hey, it's noon somewhere in the world) to discuss more specifically what the possibly insane drunken woman wants them to do for payment, and why.
Eagerly, the wild eyed woman soon begins to narrate a interesting and colorful yarn that started two years ago when she, and her late husband, collected thousands of dollars worth of gold dust from one of Apache Springs old abandoned gold mines. However, they were forced to stash it away in the nearby hills after suddenly being attacked by the Chiwacawa Indians who had recently relocated to the same area after escaping from their reservation, and have remained there ever since.
As it turns out, Caroline's husband was killed in that Indian attack, and she's been unable to return to the hills to retrieve her hidden gold dust out of fear of the Indian tribe. After some contentious haggling between Caroline and the two guys over the percentage of recovered gold dust she's willing to offer, Smith & Jones eventually come to terms with the crazy frontier lady over dinner and a bottle of bourbon. I believe Smith and Jones had a little dinner to go along with their whiskey, while Caroline focused solely on bourbon consumption.
The next morning, Caroline provides them with a map locating several sacks of gold that's sporadically hidden in the nearby hills, and it's off we go to recover lost gold while being harassed by the local renegade Indians.
While the main plot of this episode, and the colorful Caroline are enjoyable to follow along with. Unfortunately, the show gets really bogged down with its 2nd sub-plot involving a young catholic woman that Kid Curry(Ben Murphy) tries to financially assist and advise. Kid Curry's new friend, the young Sister Grace, also recently just arrived in Apache Springs with very little money, and is struggling to pay for room and board while attempting to start a new congregation after becoming disillusioned by the corruption of her last Mission.
What ever potential interest there might have been for the audience in Sister Grace's story line? It immediately died out while listening to her drone on to Kid Curry about the unfortunate reasons that she's currently stuck in the one horse town, and her unrealistic hopes of ever starting a successful congregation in Apache Springs that's practically abandoned by day, only to later erupt into a wild and ruckus drinking, fighting and gambling scene for the local ranch hands at night.
As soon as Sister Grace begins talking with Kid Curry, the whole "trying to rediscover her faith" story line appears to be completely tact on, and doesn't posses a single connective thread to the main story to justify its existence. But, that doesn't stop Kid Curry from advising Sister Grace that she's not a very talented soul saver after just meeting her. And, to put aside delivering the wild west from its own evil ways for awhile, move back to Boston, and to just "have a good time" while she's still young enough to enjoy it. Sort of the, "Tune in, turn on and drop out.", Timothy Leary approach to the problem. This poorly written and under developed story line makes our hero, Kid Curry, seem like he's temporarily freelancing as the Devil's advocate, after a hard day of taking gold from the land of dispossessed renegade Indians.
In the 3rd, and far more organically interesting sub-plot (that never really gets resolved) Smith and Jones are temporarily joined on their golden journey into Indian country by Edward Fielding, who's there to negotiate the fairest terms of a possible surrender and relocation for the local renegade Indian tribe to try and avoid the inevitable blood shed that a military action would cause.
Unfortunately, this story line isn't given the time it deserves, and we're never given much information about how Edward's negotiations with the Indians are progressing or failing, other than Edward suddenly appearing in a few scenes to mildly complain about being shot by the Indians. So, we're left to assume that the times Edward wasn't shot by the Indians was considered a successful pow-wow. Although, it's kind of hard to tell because, Edward doesn't seem to mine very much about getting shot by the Indians.
While the main plot of recovering gold in the hills occupied by renegade Indians for the colorful Caroline makes the episode worth watching. But, overall, I give the episode 6 out of 10 stars, for having too many sub-plots, where the 2nd one about the young Sister Grace needed to be completely tossed out the window, so to allow us more time to follow the 3rd story line about the Indian negotiations.
In closing, episode 7 of season 2, is one of the weaker episodes of the otherwise strong remaining few months that Peter Duel and Ben Murphy continued to star together. The entire episode is currently available on IMDb and YouTube if you're interested in checking it out for yourselves.
This is NOT the worst western
jmontana-6061710 March 2019
Everything about this western is fine with me from the late great Pete Deul and Ben Murphy to the plots and to this clown who said it basically sucked must be some young punk who doesn't know great old time westerns. This series and the Wild Wild West are my two favorite shows of all time so live with it alfred !! And for this mouthy a-hole in this episode Carmen Matthews, she was THE worst part of this episode with her constant mouthiness !
Worst Western
alfredpr-696119 March 2019
Alias Smith & Jones is just wrong on so many levels, this show has very trite stories and the lead actors have no chemistry, besides they are ugly, not Brock Peters, Al Lettieri or Michael Landon ugly but ugly. I can't watch something with ugly actors. Their pairing is forced and it shows.
The only redeeming thing about this episode is watching the pulchritudinous Carmen Mathews in that tight pants (what an ass!)
I stay away from Alias Smith n Jones
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