The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.


Bruce Campbell
Julius Carry
Christian Clemenson

by Jeffrey Boam and Carlton Cuse


One of the most vivacious series of the '90s unfortunately succumbed to a short-lived life when it was canceled after its first season of 27 episodes. That Fox TV series came on right before the brand new X-Files and was filled with its own otherworldly object known as The Orb, visitors from the future who were now living in the 1890's and "The Coming Thing," which was always a futuristic item for the 1890's that would eventually come into being throughout the 20th century.

What was this amazing, comedy/action/sci-fi/western adventure? It was non-other than
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. starring Bruce Campbell as the title character. As creator Carlton Cuse put it, the show was "just under over-the-top" with its wackiness and adventure filled anachronistic dime novel tales.

Brisco is a former Harvard-educated lawyer who has come out west to take up bounty hunting. He is hired by the Robber Barons to find John Bly (Billy Drago) and his gang of 12 to protect their investments. Bly and his gang killed the most famous lawman in the west, which happened to be Brisco County, Sr. So Brisco sets out to stop the gang in various parts of the west (and occasionally Mexico or New Orleans) with the occasional helping hand from another bounty hunter, Lord Bowler (Julius Carry), a hot saloon singer, Dixie Cousins (Kelly Rutherford), who once dated some of the gang, another lawyer, Socrates Poole (Christian Clemenson, who acts as his liaison for the Robber Barons and the wacky Professor Wickwire (John Astin) who is always inventing things like rockets, scuba gear and such. Brisco's only full-time partner is his faithful and intelligent horse, Comet, who can open safes, knows Morse Code and can maintain a conversation with Brisco even if no one else can understand them. Comet doesn't know he's a horse, in case you couldn't tell.

There were also quite a few recurring guests such as M.C. Gainey, John Pyper-Ferguson, James Hong and Jeff Phillips that played an integral part to the stories that were set up like the old serials (for those of us old enough to remember going to the Saturday matinees) where you had to come back "next week" to see if the hero survived the fall of the cliff, the train crash, etc.

This is the complete season with 27 episodes, including the nearly 2-hour pilot. This makes for nearly 20 hours of entertainment on the 7 discs of programs, plus another couple of hours on the eighth disc featuring Brisco's Book of Coming Things, which is a video catalog of some of the inventions that appeared on the show; The History of Brisco County, which is a 30-minute look at the creation of the show and the people who played a big part in it, including interviews with Campbell, Cuse, Carry, Clemenson and Rutherford; Tools of the Trade, a small gallery discussing horses, guns, and other items and methods used on the program; A Reading From The Book of Bruce, which has Campbell reading a chapter from his first book "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor". He reads the chapter where he talks about his days on the show; and finally, A Brisco County Writer's Room, which is 40 minutes of the half-a-dozen writers that kept this show going. Some of this section will only be of interest to people in the biz or people interested in getting into the biz, but there are some funny moments that will entertain those of you who would rather watch movies than make them.

The packaging is laid out beautifully, full of unobscured color photos for each section you open up. There is a nice booklet with synopses of each episode by Campbell, there are a ton of guest stars, especially if you were a fan of the old westerns and TV shows like The Virginian, Wagon Train, etc. and there is a commentary by Campbell and Cuse on the pilot episode.

The disc has subtitles in French or Spanish, has closed captions and comes in the standard TV format. There aren't any choices on audio, but it is in Dolby Digital Stereo. And if the theme song sounds familiar to you, it's because they used Randy Edelman‚s theme for the 2006 Olympics.

Needless to say, this show had a little bit of something for everyone. Sure it got corny at moments, but normally it worked. It didn't take itself as seriously as Bonanza or Little House On The Prairie, it didn't get too technical or sci-fi like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon and its comedy didn't rely on the audience's knowledge of events one hundred years ago and could keep pace with any sitcom out there without being a sitcom. But at $100 for the collection, I could see where you might want to rent a disc from NetFlix first and see what you think. I recommend Disc One with the pilot and 2 other episodes, Disc Two with the episode "No Man's Land" filled with gorgeous women and the "Riverboat" episode plus two other episodes, or Disc Four with "Crystal Hawks" (Starring pop star Sheena Easton) and the "Mail Order Brides" episode plus two others. Whatever you do, don't rent Disc 7 first because the last two episodes should be left as a surprise ending on whether Brisco and Lord Bowler live or die. Let's just suffice it to say that the guest star is Terry Bradshaw and he's gunning for the two bounty hunters.
 

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