DVD/TV Series Review: The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.: The Complete Series

 

The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. was a series that ran on Fox from 1993 to 1994. It ran for 27 episodes. I did watch it when it originally aired, and cannot really remember if it got two partial seasons or one really long season, but that is essentially what the complete series consisted of. The story is centered around the titular Brisco County, Jr. (played by the wonderful Bruce Campbell, who is best known for the Evil Dead series of campy horror movies) as a lawyer turned bounty hunter back in the late 1800s. He is hired by a group of wealthy industrialists to capture a notorious outlaw named John Bly (played by Billy Drago) and works along with the mouthpiece of the group Socrates Poole (played by Christian Clemenson) and often joined by sometimes rival bounty hunter sometimes sidekick Lord Bowler (played by Julius Carey). Brisco is consumed with the advancement of technology and pursuing "The Coming Thing". To that end, a plot device known as "The Orb" was used to that was a futuristic device that Bly was trying to use to rule the world.

The show was a mix of procedural case-of-the-week with a larger story arc involving Bly and the orb that intertwined. The case-of-the-week aspect usually involved Brisco trying to capture one of the members of Bly's gang as he is trying to find Bly. The show also had a strong supporting cast which included Kelly Rutheford as Dixie Cousins, a love-interest for Brisco who was kind of a combination of the characters that Mae West played and Madeline Kahn's character from "Blazing Saddles", and John Austin (from the Addams Family) who played a kookie professor/inventor who would help Brisco from time to time.

For those who get the DVD set, the extras include a commentary track on the pilot episode featuring Campbell and the series creator. There is also a feature called Brisco's Book of Coming Things which referenced the various future ideas/inventions from the show. There is also a documentary that was a look back at the making of the show and the various cast members, a feature on the various gadgets that appeared in the show, a Reading from the Book of Bruce, in which Campbell reads a chapter of his autobiography that mentioned the show, and a feature on the writers of the show. All in all, a very good collection of extras.

Overall, the series was very good and very unique. It was not a carbon copy of anything else that was on at the time which may have both helped and hurt the show. It had a very rabid fanbase, but not enough of one to ever get past the "cult following" category. It had a great mix of drama, action, and comedy and was a perfect blend of western and sci-fi/fantasy. It was very well written and acted, and the writers did a good job not overdoing the supernatural aspect of the show keeping the orb episodes infrequent so that they really advanced the storyline along. Chances are people reading this by now watched the show when it was on and are only looking to pick up the DVD, but if you have never seen the show and are trying to decide whether to watch it, I definitely recommend checking it out. It is a bit unsatisfying since the show never gets a great payoff (although the writers did have enough time from the cancellation announcement to make the season finale into a series finale, so fans did get an idea of what would have become of the characters), but still worth watching.