the virginian: journey to scathelock (1969)

[miscellanium]

yes i made this my icon a while back, just look at that absolutely adorable face

the "is it worth watching this for lawrence dane" rating: 1/5

it looks like my original rating for this episode was 0.5/5, but i rewatched it recently in order to write this post and would have given it a 1.5, maybe a 2, so i'll split the difference by giving it a one. i was prompted to put this together because i was reminded that dec 10 was the anniversary air date of this episode, though the post itself was delayed because i've been fighting covid.... maybe that's why i was feeling more generous with my rating this time around. but burr debenning is good as the sleazy Bad Guy du jour and anne helm gives a solid performance, so it's not a drag watching the dane-less parts.

the plot: a visibly young-looking guy who i guess was a new series regular or something is sent to take care of business instead of the main character, since the main character has to deal with something more urgent. he suffers some frankly comical prejudice from older men who are skeptical of him due to his age, then proceeds to basically prove them right when he gets scammed by a man and woman who make off with a shitload of money meant for a business deal. he tracks them to the canadian border where lawrence dane is helping them hide out.

you don't need to know anything about the series to watch this one, really, since all the important facts are communicated pretty well early on. the pacing is slow - the episode is about 75 minutes long and dane shows up for the last third of it - but if you think of it as a short film then the pacing works better. the acting isn't terrible, though dane's character as written is kinda cartoonish (still cute tho) and the plot twist during the climax felt a little like an ass-pull. also, the conflict in the second half was kind of incomprehensible to me: baby-face man is mad at the female half of the con artist team because she took "his" money, but she points out multiple times that it's not his but rather his boss's money and it's money that was gonna go to yet another rich asshole so it's not worth risking getting murdered for, and he simply has no argument for this. he just goes "you don't understand" and that's the end of that? lmao. he'd probably report desperate walmart shoplifters to the police.

at least dane's character is less morally confused - he'll help whoever pays him best but he's not gonna risk actually getting arrested. is he a "good" guy? no, but honestly i respect him more than the guy who seems like he'd defend shitty landlords. and the man knows how to cook omelettes! i can ignore the attempt at a french-sounding accent because at least he tried and he's still a delight to watch. such an easy physicality....

dane cut is here, no autocaptions, sorry, but this season 8 episode isn't hard to find online with captions if you're willing to sit through ads or watch a low-res vhs rip (or pirate it, but it's been difficult for me to locate english subtitle files). if you're just curious about dane, then skip to about 47 minutes in.


highlight: *screaming white cat gif* *disney stitch licking glass gif*

he spins his rifle around here so smoothly it is extremely sexy. look:




i know he doesn't have an especially noteworthy ass but i do very much appreciate the work being done by the stripes on his pants here






an unexpectedly nice shot here with the lighting and general composition... oh if he could gesture me into a storage shed and threaten to do unspeakable things to me


1. hnng hand 2. a nice little costume design detail in how the panels of his vest are misaligned. however you want to interpret it, it tells you something about his character.


brazen flirting but still respecting her boundaries. what a gentleman






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screams he's so handsome!! he could've easily played a leading man if things had gone a little differently. that's ok at least we can still appreciate what we got of him


he got bamboozled into trading places with the teenybopper-bait guy and did his own stunt fall for it so that was cute, but also i like the lighting here


ON A HORSE!!!! and he's actually riding it too, we get a couple long shots of him to show it's not a stunt rider. looking very bodice-ripper hero here






*points*


*points harder*

and then he leaves the story because he doesn't want to cross the canadian border into america. smart of him tbh.

so yeah, that was dane's last virginian episode of three he did. the first one he's one of the main antagonists but iirc he has about the same amount of screentime as he does in this episode. the second one he has a meatier role and acts opposite ricardo montalban(!) - it's a pretty good episode, even if dane's facial hair doesn't really suit him imo. but this one isn't half bad and it certainly makes for acceptable background entertainment while you're waiting for him to show up.

if you can relate to the protag guy's hangup re his boss's money, please feel free to help me understand what was going on there lol.