A Pinch of Salt

While on a mission for the Continental Congress, Dan (Fess Parker) and British-accented surveyor David Watson (as David Scott) stop at a ranch for some water. There, they meet attractive sisters Joan Hackett (as Theodora) and Donna Baccala (as Leslie). "Educated in Europe," and sporting what could either be a natural coonskin-cap hairstyle or a Beatle haircut, Mr. Watson seems interested, but there is no real romance between the foursome. However, and quite strangely, Ms. Hackett decides to make the men her slaves. She orders them to mine salt, at gunpoint. We later find out that Hackett has a beef with Bo Svenson (as Warren Haskins), who arrives to take over the villain role. This is an interesting change in the regular series' situation, but the story is too cartoonish and it doesn't even get started until halftime.

*** Daniel Boone: A Pinch of Salt (1969-05-01) William Wiard ~ Fess Parker, Joan Hackett, David Watson, Bo Svenson

Daniel and young English expatriate artist David Scott (David Watson) are on a surveying trip when they lend a hand to two young homesteader women (TV journeywomen Joan Hackett and Donna Beccala). But the winsome pair turn on them and force them to work at gunpoint in their salt mine because the local land magnate keeps running off their hired labor.

Season 5 falls on its face at the finish line with a ridiculous hour of contrived story, perhaps an effort to co-opt the Virginia Slims era with purported female empowerment. It's ultimately ineffective; both women quickly turn into annoying chatterboxes who handle their firearms like they are posing for a gun show calendar. Eventually Daniel handles them simply by pushing their rifle tube to the side. David Watson, earlier seen in "The Dandy," is brought back for another turn as Dan's sidekick, and the episode might have been redeemed if this had been the launch pad for his own series about an Englishman in Revolutionary America. But 1970 loomed and the TV historical dramas were soon to be jettisoned in favor of primetime urban comedies.

Tall Swede and later Quentin Tarantino stock player Bo Svenson handles prime villain duties as a handsome Scandinavian Frankenstein, and Westerns reliable Jim Davis is along as an underutilized assistant. But the conflict between the pair and the women leaves the viewer overwhelmingly underinvested. Fess Parker is in for the whole hour, but his presence is largely wasted in this semi-farce.

Dan refers to surveying for the Continental Congress, but no other reference to the Revolutionary period.

The hour gets a bit darker when Svenson turns to manhandling and property damage, but no real revenge satisfaction provided, and the whole hour slides from mirroring feminist empowerment to absolute regression when romance is suggested as a resolution. Season 5 terminates on a downward slide, and the DB aficionado can only hope some of the early series magic can be recaptured in the Season 6 finale.