Medicine Man

First off, it's startling to see the unconventional, innovative Kovacs in a conventional 1960s' sitcom setting. Kovacs apparently did not care for situation comedies, but accepted the lead role in this pilot, because he had to — he owed a lot of money, especially to the IRS. At any rate, Kovacs plays an Old West conman, a role well-suited to him. He had played a similar part in the successful 1960 John Wayne comedy-western North to Alaska. At the time the Medicine Man pilot was filmed in January 1962, Kovacs was also starting to appear on screens as another shady character in the movie Sail a Crooked Ship, which had just been released. As it is, Medicine Man has some mildly amusing moments, with Kovacs and Buster Keaton a good team. As with many great classic sitcoms, the pilots are often lame compared to what came later with the series, so one should not dismiss Medicine Man as a misfire; there's every reason to believe it would have led to a solid series. If Kovacs had lived and this pilot had led to a spot on the fall 1962 CBS schedule, it's easy to see Medicine Man as one of the classic 60s' sitcoms, which, if it had lasted to 1965, would have changed to color. One of the writers of the pilot was Jay Sommers, who went on to create Green Acres. Medicine Man had potential, but filming ended Jan. 12 and Kovacs died that night in an auto crash.