Outlaws

I watched this pilot movie the night it aired. Since it sandwiched between For Your Eyes Only and The Sound of Music ... not many other people did.

The pilot itself is very compelling. After five old west gun slingers are mysteriously transported from 1899 to 1986 by a stroke of lightning, a sequence of scenes showing their shock at the modern world and stumbling attempts to interact with it are very effective ... both in the imaginative scripting of the scenes and the acting.

Luckily for the men, the four outlaws have just made off with a thousand Double Eagle coins ... worth $500 each in 1986 Houston. So they're not going to starve soon. In fact, they split the sale of the coins and use part of the money to buy a ranch.

Some well-done tension causes the group to split, and the three who leave the ranch predictably get into trouble, and that trouble involves a violent and possibly psycho gang leader. Eventually, all five decide they must pursue him, since the cops are having no luck.

Okay, so a lot of the story after that doesn't make a lot of sense, including the final action, but it's fun. We enjoyed it. :-)

In nearly every episode the boys would prepare for battle by saying: "Let's do it." "Amen." "Slow and easy.""All the way.""To the hilt!" My daughter and I would gleefully speak the words along with them. This wee series was a romp: from the ever enjoyable Richard Roundtree through Rod Taylor (a childhood favourite of mine from "Hong King" and "The Time Machine" and all the other members of the wonderful cast to the absurd premise of a band of "morally conflicted" 19th century Westerners being projected into the 1980s. It was fun. Perhaps it could not have sustained a longer run or perhaps it starred actors who were too old for the fashions of the self-absorbed '80s; whate'er the case, it was fun while it lasted and I still miss it.

I enjoyed this program very much and I really miss it! I love cowboy movies and shows, but to put five men in the future was the best, and then turning out to be lawmen was really great, I love the shoot outs and the outcome of the show, I only wish it was back on TV to see again, I never missed a show. If you never seen the show you missed a good program.

The thing I really enjoyed about this 1986 series was the remarkable soundtrack score, by Joseph Conlan. It was a prominent part of the show, so surely the producers knew they had something good.

I can still hum the theme, the climactic action cue, and a wistful dulcimer (?) finale to one episode.

There's a difference between serviceable scores that pretend to be solid music (The West Wing's theme, IMO), and scores that really bring it. Bruce Broughton's Jag theme is great--and so is Outlaws's.

And I think the Conlan score is worthy of being compared with the Western-movie big boys: composers Bernstein, Goldsmith, Newman et al.

Too bad this enjoyable TV series got canceled, but somehow I still hope the show's music will find an audience.