Revisiting the Wild Wild West: The Night of the Legion of Death

"The Night of the Legion of Death" 

Written by Robert C. Dennis and Earl Barrett
Directed by Alex Nicol

Synopsis: West and Gordon work to free a territory from the grip of a legion under the command of a dictatorial governor with presidential ambitions.

Trey: This episode could be called "The Night of the Very Shallow Citizenry." They'll accept a fascist police state from a guy who's "politician handsome," but they stand up and walk out on an average guy with a bit of a unsightly scar.

Jim: Yeah well, it's television, thankfully. If they had kept following him the episode might hit a little too close to home given the past four years.

Trey: But here we are giving away the ending right out of the gate!

Jim: There were a lot of nice scenes I noted here: West falling through several floors of the building was a great stunt. The lack of background music as he explored the house helped to build suspense. And that court room scene was a nice change of pace.

Trey: And a humorous one! In fact, this episode presents a more humorous West and Gordon than we typically see. 

In addition to the guest star Anthony Zerbe (from Omega Man and so many other films and TV shows), there are not one but two lovely ladies to flirt with West! Karen Jensen as Catherine Kitteridge and Toian Matchinga (in her 2nd of 3 WWW appearances) as Henrietta Fauer.

I feel like there was one thing this episode was missing though.

Jim: What was that?

Trey: A fight between West and Captain Dansby (long-time character actor Donnelly Rhodes) was called for, and we never got it!

Jim: Man! you are right about the missing fight scene. Where was that? You could have had a few seconds devoted to that, and less of Zerbe's yammering. Overall, this was an episode with some nice bits here and there, but the resolution to the chief problem seemed a bit pat - or maybe I was expecting something a bit more bombastic.