Sometime in the upcoming week I am gonna start a rewatching of MAVERICK, this time I am gonna start with episode 1, season 1 and go all the way through to the end. I usually just pick random episodes to watch.
According to a couple of sources I've read, there were plans for season 2, much of which was set up in the series finale - Tom returns to being sheriff, Bart stays in town and co-manages the bar with Kate.
Supposedly this was done to free Bret up to travel a bit more, as in the original series, and keep a Maverick brother, Bart, in Sweetwater.
And I agree it would have been a great direction for the series.
It would have been a great direction for the series, and it would have been interesting to see what would have developed. Having said that, I still would have been fine with continuing the second season as the first season. If they would have included Jack Kelly in some of the episodes, that would have been a plus, too.
This is my first time through the Warner's set, and I finally got to see the episode, "Welcome to Sweetwater". They never ran that on Encore Westerns back when I still had satellite. I finally found a copy online, but the quality was pretty bad. It's nice to be able to have a complete set of Bret Maverick and I'm glad Warner's got this out.
I have now received Bret Maverick from an Amazon marketplace seller (Warner Archive will not ship to the UK, ridiculous). I was too young to watch Maverick but fondly remember Bret Maverick on television in the early 1980's. What a great show this was and the image quality on the DVD is excellent.
I notice something in the Season 3-episode 1(The Trial of the Canary Kid) of SUGARFOOT.
In the Sheriff Office there is a $500 Wanted Poster for Bret Maverick(Photo).
(Posted this originally in the Reviews forum, but wanted to post it here as well):
I've recently started collecting MAVERICK the past few months, having picked up Seasons 1-3 (I'm currently on episode 20 of Season 2). Having always been a Western fan, I curiously avoided MAVERICK when it was rerun on a local station for years when I was a child in the 70s/80s, but once I started watching Season 1 back in August, I was hooked.
I think the show was ahead of its time--like the best TV shows, it could be many different things. One week it's a murder mystery, the next it's a romantic farce, the next it's a suspense/thriller or action/adventure, the next it's a comedy, etc. It also did someting I'd never seen before in shows of that era--it had continuity with previous episodes, referring to events of past episodes on occasion, and featuring a stable of semi-recurring characters (my favorite being Doc Holliday). I also enjoyed the rotation of Garner and Kelly shows, as each brings their own unique talents to the shows and keeps the show fresh (at least in these first few seasons).
My favorite episodes so far from Seasons 1 and 2 are by and large the same as everyone else's: "The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick", "The Quick and the Dead", "Day of Reckoning", "Alias Bart Maverick", "Escape to Tampico", "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres", "Two Beggars on Horseback", and the one with Clint Eastwood, "Duel at Sundown" (you could easily tell with that one that Eastwood was destined to be a star).
I'm looking forward to finishing Season 2 and then moving on to the final Garner season. The transfers look nice and I'm delighted that Warner completed the series on DVD so that folks like me could discover this series anew.
I've been watching the series in order myself. I had previously only seen about half of the Garner episodes but not many of the others. I have a new appreciation for Jack Kelly. While not as good as Garner I think he doesn't get enough credit as his episodes are still very enjoyable. I just started Season 4 and I've found the series does not drop off as much as I suspected with Garner gone. Roger Moore is a fun replacement and its also clear in these episodes that he was destined to be a star.
Funny to see this. I watched the first episode of BRET MAVERICK, "The Lazy Ace".
I really like this show. I think it may have been better served with just focusing on Bret and Tom with fewer " have to be worked in to every episode" supporting characters.
I agree that MAVERICK itself rarely had a bad episode. Heck, I even like the episodes with brother BRENT!!