Wagon Train (TV Series) Around the Horn (1958) User Reviews

The Other Way To The Coast

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 23 May 2007]

This is an episode I well remember from the old Wagon Train series, it was the first episode of their second season.

After having gotten the Wagon Train safely to California, Ward Bond, Frank McGrath and Terry Wilson get a visit from Mr. Michael Finn at a dive on the Barbary Coast. The three of them wake up and find themselves in the foc'sle of a clipper ship making a return voyage around the Horn. As did so many folks who were not careful in San Francisco back in the day.

The ship is the Sea Witch and it's captain is William Bendix, promoted from his role as first mate in Two Years Before the Mast. Bendix is a tough cookie as he has to be in the job he's in. What's unusual is that he's got his young daughter on board, Sandra Descher. He's raising the child on board the ship.

Bendix is like Captain Ahab, who if you remember never left the Pequod when they were in port. Unlike Ahab his story has a much happier ending.

Wagon Train never really bothered with continuity too much, but in this case it did for one episode. Ernest Borgnine was the guest star on the very first episode in the first season and the Wagon Train crew bids him goodbye at the start of this episode.

We saw very little of the wagons crossing the plains in this episode.

Shanghaiing isn't a brutal crime--it's a sign of a dysfunctional family

[susanhathaway · 26 May 2021]

This episode started out well, with Wooster, Hawks, and Adams shanghaied onto a ship whose captain and first mate appear to be brutes. This part was very different from the usual Wagon Train episodes, and I had some hopes that the plot might involve the men's planning and executing an escape, possibly bringing charges against their kidnappers, maybe even inciting a mutiny. But no, the wagon train men determined that the captain's trouble was being an inadequate father, raising his young daughter on board ship and not even getting around to courting her pretty governess. So, instead of escaping their captivity and righting the wrongs done to them, they set out to fix the sea captain's family life and get him to adopt Wagon Train-style family values. So much for expecting anything different from this series.