last to first episodes

Was watching on AMC the other morning. Gee, they were showing them in order... duh, took me a bit to figure out.

But they ran the last episode of the series, followed by the very first in the series and the next couple in order. Enjoyed the first episode, good way to start the series.

I saw a couple things in the first episode that germinated a thought or two.

Mark's accent was really strong in the first show, painfully so, and it was most remarkable seeing the contrast from the previous show which was 5-6 years later. Ok, I thought, of course that would wear off doing a long series, but it seemed to me to wear off by the second show of the series! His accent was much softer it seemed. I wonder if directors decided it would be too hard for the kid to keep it up?

I like the Rifleman, I think it one of the better of the old TV westerns, but it's interesting contrasting the writing with the series Gunsmoke. It just doesn't stack up in contrast, a lot less depth and detail, the characters, even the minor ones are far less developed.

An example was the ending of the 2nd show where a rancher(Oat Jackford) tries to drive him off his homestead. Between Lucas, the cowboys, and the ranch owner, it seemed like someone was going to die, the fighting was pretty intense. It didn't follow easily that the ranchers' hands would be so readily friendly and chastened when they arrived at Lucas' place with the lumber wagon, even while Oat had still threatened him after being beaten.

The Meston version might have either less intense of a battle, or an unresolved conflict at the end. Meston's writing was full of the very stuff of this episode, the conflict between the germinating rule of law in lands where the cattle baron was previously dictator and pretty much had his way.

Oat was very important character to North Fork, supposedly, but only showed up one more time in the series, played by different actor.