The Lady of the Fifth Moon

This episode is actually narrated by one of the supporting characters -- perhaps our first clue that this is best seen as an "Americanized" fairy tale. Certainly all the Archetypes are present -- a beautiful princess, a fatal curse, and princess's stalwart protector, who falls completely under her spell.

I have as yet found no reference to "The Lady of the Five Moons", represented in an exquisite statuette Paladin accepts in exchange for escorting the daughter of a slain friend to a rendezvous with the ship that will return her to her aristocratic family in China, before a vengeful Tong appropriates her as payment for her father's gambling debts -- or simply kills her. But this story does manage to incorporate one of the most famous musings of the Chinese Philosopher Chuang Chou regarding dreams, men, and butterflies.

Kudos to Bethel Leslie for her performance as both the young Kim Sing and as the elderly matriarch determined to save both her granddaughter and her Family's honour. And to the equally talented William Schallert, as the faithful retainer who sadly watches events unfold and move slowly to their inevitable conclusion.

You would think Richard Boone would have some input on this show because this is the last season. But you never know, maybe he was fighting with the producers and didn't care anymore. And it's soon to be the last show. This is a sad way to end a great series.

Sad to see an episode like this come this close to the end of this otherwise excellent series. I found it difficult to follow the story-line every time they went to William Schallert as a Chinamen. It's just too silly. There were many fine Asian actors in Hollywood in this era. Why in Gods name would they do a whole episode involving Chinese people and have all the Chinese speaking parts go to Western actors. It looked ridiculous and sounded ridiculous. They had a few Chinese actors at the beginning purely as window dressing. Williams Schallert was a fine actor. But, watching him in this role was almost unbearable. The actors attempts to do Chinese accents failed miserably. And putting Schallert in some kind of Chinese (?) clothes and sticking a ridiculous hat on him. Did nothing to make him the least bit convincing. This is an episode that should not have been made.

The Americans portraying Chinese in this episode was totally laughable and poorly acted. Why would anyone accept a role in this is beyond me. I have gone through HGWT episodes of using white people as native Americans (Indians), but this one was too much to bare. This episode should be kept in a vault collecting dust.

The lack of action, the fact that two obviously caucasian actors portrayed Chinese people, the poor script and long, drawn out dialogs make this episode possibly one to avoid. I had to laugh when the set where much of the episode occured was referred to by one of the characters a a beautiful place. The entired time I was watching this half-hour long nighmarishly boring show, I was praying for it to end. It's little wonder that Richard Boone left the series because he was frustrated with the poor writing among other things. Time to go take a well-deserved nap now.