Wagon Train (TV Series) The Andrew Elliott Story (1964) User Reviews

The Lost Expedition

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 25 January 2014]

I'm still trying to figure out how John McIntire did not know of a little side trip that Denny Miller took scouting for an expedition into the Badlands that involved the son of a US Senator. Still when Colonel Alfred Ryder of the cavalry arrests Duke Shannon the whole Wagon Train comes to a halt as he commandeers his services to find out what became of that son and the rest of the expedition.

So Denny Miller takes Ryder and Senator Everett Sloane to find out what happened as they retrace the expedition's steps. Through many flashbacks from Miller the story unfolds and it ain't a pretty one. The son is an amiable but weak sort of individual, but he has a cousin in Skip Homeier who is a cruel and ruthless sort. As usual Homeier plays a man with a lot of issues.

The story as Miller unfolds it is not a pretty picture. He was lucky to be the only survivor of this expedition. Sloane finds out some hard truths about both Homeier and Dick Sargent who plays his son and whom he used as an extension of his own ambitions.

Ryder is antagonistic toward Miller from the beginning for no apparent reason. But he's working an agenda all his own that we find out at the very last minute. Talk about ruthless, that scene at the end with Sloane and Ryder is really something.

Memorable episode

[drystyx · 8/10 · 6 July 2021]

This is one of the most memorable episodes of Wagon Train.

It is told mostly in flashback. In fact, all the "action" is in flashback, because the story is how scout Duke must prove he is innocent of wrongdoing in being the only person who returns alive from a small hunting party that includes a senator's son.

The fact that two others also returned alive goes unnoticed because those two actually never wanted to be found, and were the "secondary" cause of the mess in the first place. They deserted during the night, taking all the supplies and horses.

Which left four men stranded and in a bad spot in the desert. Of those, only Duke returned.

We go back and forth from flashback to present, as the senator and an army officer question Duke about the hunting party.

The senator's son is played by Dick Sargent. I bet he regrets not letting his wife get him out by magic, but alas, he has no wife here. Skip Homier plays his cruel cousin who dominates him.

That domination becomes a major theme throughout.

The theatrics and drama make this quite memorable. In Duke, we see strong heroics, in the cousin we see a disturbed cruelty, and in the senator's son we get a view of a complex and troubled man who struggles to do the right thing, not knowing if he has the power to stop evil.