Dead Man's Revenge
Steven Hellerstedt | 09/24/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"NED BLESSING: DEAD MAN'S REVENGE (1993) isn't really a movie. It's two episodes of the short-lived CBS series butted together. If you're viewing these in sequence, and have already seen the pilot `Return to Plum Creek,' sit yourself down and let me catch you up some.
Like `Return to Plum Creek,' DEAD MAN'S REVENGE opens with the older, one-armed Blessing in an unidentified jail cell, scratching out his memoirs while the setting sun casts the shadow of the hangman's scaffold - it's Blessing's noose that dangles from the end of the rope. I don't know what his crime was, but his hanging is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Flash backwards a few dozen years and Blessing is the sheriff of the small Texas town of Plum Creek. Wren has quit the `business,' Sheriff Larson's head - which used to sit in a pickle jar in Big Emma's saloon, is set to be buried with the rest of him, and the man with the burned face might have survived the barn fire. Oh, yeah, and Ruby Borgers has saved up $2 to pay for a night - his first - with Wren, but like I said she's out of the business and anyways, she's kind of fallen for Ned. And, surprise, Ruby has kind of fallen for her.
I don't remember Ned Blessing in its first incarnation, but that's not too surprising. Apparently it lasted all of five episodes. The complete series is available on dvd and the two I've seen so far have a quirky charm to them. The acting is good, the characters are likeable, and the stories are a little off-the-wall while retaining their roots in reality. Strong recommendation for this one, although I'd watch `Return to Plum Creek' first.
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