dcp-93910

One often hears of an actor "chewing the scenery" when they over-act to silly extremes. Think Dustin Hoffmann in "Hook", or (at least to me) Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in anything. Rarely does anyone say the WRITERS were doing so, but this episode achieves it in spades.

The cast does their usual jobs, the overall show is lightweight (enough to float), so if your expectations are for time killing diversion, watch it. Based on the first three seasons though, if you have to miss an episode, this is the one to pick.

To be fair, I made it through almost 20 minutes... including ads. It's not even good military satire - we have the tired supply sergeant/hustler and long-haired overweight private tropes, nobody's hair anywhere near regulation length (including the hard-core colonel), and ridiculously overblinged uniforms. Welcome appearances by Joe Morton and Catherine Tate are nice, although her Dutch accent sounds silly. The father- daughter dynamic - well, it's perhaps more credible than the show's basic premise, but that is a pretty low bar. As a fan of Leary's I was really hoping for something showcasing his talents. What I saw showcased TV's desperation to do ANYTHING to fill a time slot. Kudos to whoever actually sold the network on this, they can obviously polish a turd to previously unknown levels.

Reasonably well written, ok performances. Historically superficial and somewhat inaccurate. For instance. Custer proclaimed he graduated last in his West Point class, a popular fallacy. He graduated 34th of 108.

Whoever ran the props department obviously "phoned it in." Jesse James' gang robbed a bank in 1869 carrying guns not made unttil 1873. Cavalry troops had 1873 rifles when slauhtered in 1868. Believe I even saw 1890s vintage Winchesters used by Indians in the 1860s. Having read "The Outlaw Trail" several times, I expected better from a Robert Redford project - this reminded me more of something thrown together by Alec Balwin.