The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.

Plot synopsis:
=== Background ===
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., is set in a fictional American Old West of 1893. Robber barons control the financial and industrial interests of the West from the boardrooms of San Francisco's Westerfield Club. The famous U.S. Marshal Brisco County, Sr. (R. Lee Ermey) has apprehended a gang of outlaws and its leader, the notorious John Bly. While transporting them to stand trial, County is murdered and the gang escapes. Meanwhile, in a nearby mine, a group of shackled Chinese workers unearths "The Orb", a large golden globe studded with rods. A worker draws one of the rods from out of the Orb, then touches several of his co-workers with it. As each worker is touched with the rod he is imbued with superhuman strength which they use to break the iron chains binding them, thus freeing themselves. The murder of Brisco County, Sr., and the discovery of the Orb set into motion the major plots of the series.
=== Synopsis ===
Members of the Westerfield Club hire Brisco County, Jr. (Bruce Campbell), the son of the slain U.S. Marshal, to track and re-capture Bly (Billy Drago) and his gang. The Westerfield Club's timid lawyer, Socrates Poole (Christian Clemenson) relays instructions and financial support to Brisco. Another bounty hunter, Lord Bowler (Julius Carry), who is known for his expert tracking skills, also hopes to capture Bly. Bitter over the elder County's fame, Bowler treats Brisco as a rival. The two men often find themselves reluctantly joining forces to achieve a common goal. Later in the series, Brisco and Bowler work together as partners and friends.
In the pilot episode, Brisco tracks John Bly's second-in-command, Big Smith (M.C. Gainey). In a battle on a train car, Brisco knocks Smith off the train and into a river; he is assumed dead until he reappears later in the series. Brisco, Bowler and Socrates hunt the rest of Bly's gang in subsequent episodes. All ten of the gang members are captured or killed, and Brisco's pursuit of Bly, who is seeking the Orb for its supernatural power, frequently puts him into contact with the object. Each encounter with the Orb reveals a fantastic effect on people who use it. In the episode "The Orb Scholar", Bly shoots Brisco and leaves him to die. Professor Ogden Coles, a scientist who studies the Orb, heals Brisco with the device. In the episode "Bye Bly", it is revealed that Bly is a fugitive from the distant future who has traveled to 1893 to steal the Orb. Bly plans to use the Orb to travel back to his time and rule the world. Instead, Brisco uses the Orb to travel through time to save Bowler's life. Brisco eventually kills Bly by stabbing him with a rod from the Orb. Series creator and executive producer Carlton Cuse said that the Orb represents faith and that depending on the intentions of those who use it, the object rewards or punishes them accordingly.
The pilot episode introduces several characters who make recurring appearances throughout the series. Big Smith's moll Dixie Cousins (Kelly Rutherford) is a saloon singer and con artist who has a brief romantic encounter with Brisco. In later episodes, Dixie becomes Brisco's primary love interest. In his first mission, Brisco also meets Professor Albert Wickwire (John Astin), an eccentric scientist who returns to help many times during the series. Wickwire's ideas and inventions play into Brisco's interest in technology and the future, something Brisco calls "The Coming Thing". Pete Hutter (John Pyper-Ferguson) is a hapless mercenary working for Bly. He has a compulsive attachment to his "piece" (pistol), and given any opportunity will pontificate about topics such as art and philosophy. Pete appears throughout the series as a comic foil to trade barbs with the heroes. He appears to be killed three times during the series, but returns each time with a comic excuse for why he didn't die. The second half of the series includes many episodes with Whip Morgan (Jeff Phillips), a young cardsharp whose attempts to assist Brisco and Bowler often end up causing trouble.
=== Signature show elements ===
The show features classic Western motifs such as train robberies and gunfighter showdowns, in combination with atypical elements. Much of the series is devoted to the science fiction plot surrounding the Orb, and it is this mix of the Western genre with fantasy that has helped Brisco maintain its cult status. In almost every episode, the characters discover or are confronted by fantastic technology. In the pilot episode, Brisco and Professor Wickwire modify a rocket to run on train tracks. In the episode "Brisco For the Defense", Brisco uses a slide projector to show a trial jury fingerprint evidence. Professor Wickwire returns many times in the series to assist with technology, including tinkering with motorcycles and rescuing the heroes with a helium-filled zeppelin. Campbell told Starlog magazine, "It's kind of Jules Verne meets The Wild Wild West." The presence of futuristic technology in a Victorian era Western places the series in the steampunk genre; it is one of the few such shows to have aired on prime-time television. At least one-third of the show's episodes contain steampunk or Weird West elements. Though "technology-out-of-time" frequently intrudes into the plots of Brisco, the fantastic machines or methods rarely appear again. Some of these out-of-time technologies were archaic imaginations of those prevalent in the 20th century, and two film researchers, Cynthia Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, suggest that followers of the show may be puzzled that such inventions, so useful in their own lives, are not exploited further.
According to Cuse, the show was purposefully set in 1893, exactly 100 years before the series premiered in 1993. Brisco is meant to be aware of the imminent changes in society and technology and actively looks for them. The writers of the show, and also the character of Brisco, refer to this concept as "The Coming Thing". Elaborating on this theme, Campbell said, "Basically this show is about the turn of the century, when the Old West met the Industrial Era. Cowboys still chew tobacco and ride the range and states are still territories but, over the horizon, is the onset of electricity, the first autos and telephones. Brisco is in the middle of a transition from the past to the future." The collision of cowboy characters with puzzling technology and other anachronisms generates humor throughout the series. The writers made it a point to insert scenes mirroring the pop culture of the 20th century, from the apparent invention of the term "UFO" in the pilot episode to the appearance of a sheriff who looks and acts like Elvis Presley. Speaking about the humor of the show, Campbell said, "I would say 30 percent of each episode is being played for laughs. But it's not a winking at the camera, Airplane-type of humor. We're funny like Indiana Jones is funny; the laughs come primarily from the wide variety of ridiculous, colorful characters that come in and out of this series."

Tags: sci-fi

Review:
Billy Drago was a great villain as John Bly, a character that appeared in a story arc running through the season.
Bruce Campbell and Julius Carry had great chemistry.
I also liked how Brisco and Bowler weren't friends at first, but rather were more like competitors, and only after several episodes of crossing paths and being forced to work together did they learn to like one another and partner up.
Many episodes featured some nice father/son moments as Brisco found himself talking with the ghost of his legendary bounty hunter/father, well-played by Lee Ermy.
It's tame violence and family-friendly stories helped make it an audience favorite and develop a following that continues to this day, but Fox ultimately decided to pay attention to THE X-FILES instead, and they canceled BRISCO after just one season, despite it's big audience and decent ratings.
Each character was eccentric in his/her own way and great fun to watch.There isn't a bad performance in sight!
Great fun, and it stars Bruce Campbell!
Such is Brisco County, a western genre light comedy show with a hint of sci-fi thrown in for good measure.When this show first came out I didn't watch it, primarily because I assumed it was simply another Western series, like Bonanza, or High Chapparal, to which I had been forced to endure by my parents as a kid.
So I missed out (first time round) on something really fantastic.Luckily, I have since started gathering up any episodes I can find and have been able, at last, to appreciate the wonder that is Bruce Campbell.
If ever there was an actor that is deserving of fame and fortune, it is him.As for Brisco County, Bruce's portrayal is surprisingly subtle to those familiar with his Evil Dead work.
I haven't seen all the episodes yet, but I look forward to watching Messrs Campbell and Co eagerly.Look out for Comet, Brisco's horse.
I used to watch it every Friday night--my sister and I started watching it because it starred "that guy from EVIL DEAD", but it wasn't till "Brisco" that I considered myself a Bruce Campbell fan.
The show also introduced me to another favorite actor, Billy Drago, who made John Bly the weirdest Old West villain in TV history.
The camaraderie between Brisco, Bowler, and Socrates was great, and I loved the anachronisms and bad puns ("You got the sheriff!" "Yeah, but I didn't get the deputy.").
Some great guest stars from earlier Old West shows, and John Astin as the recurring Prof.
Bruce Campbell played the title character who was a Harvard-educated attorney turned bounty hunter that fought bad guys in the year 1893.
Most of the episodes were focused on Brisco chasing after John Bly [Billy Drago], the criminal responsible for the murder of Brisco's father during a train robbery, though it was the episodes with more tongue-in-cheek humor that I liked the best.
Bruce Campbell plays Brisco County, Jr. who is a bounty hunter trying to find his father's killer, John Bly.
While Brisco and Bowler travel around looking for John Bly, they run into Dixie Cousins, Brisco's sometime girlfriend and saloon girl, and a host of other characters that make up this show.
In this episode, Brisco and Bowler are aided by Aaron, the sheriff, who happens to dress in leather, has his hair slicked back into a DA, and runs around acting like singer Elvis Presley.
Adventures took the TV Western in a direction that hadn't been seen since Maverick and The Wild Wild West:  light-hearted comedy.
Bruce Campbell show she has the stuff to be a series regular, but another strength of Adventures...
Billy Drago has never been better, utterly over the top and so far off the wall that he is in the next room; John Pyper-Ferguson gets to speak some of the most bizarre lines in television history; Bruce Campbell is simply perfect as the titular lead; and nobody lets down the side in acting.
I now see far more than I did then, the chemistry of the cast is superb between Brisco, Bowler, Socrates and Dixie.
A great pity unless you have a multiregion player, but then this series is worth the cost of investing in one.I am now sitting down to watch it again, this time with my stepson who is curious to see "whats it all about".
Bruce Campbell played Brisco County Jr, bounty hunter son of a much revered marshal who was gunned down by a smarmy villain by name of John Bly (Billy Drago).
Brisco forms an uneasy alliance with Lord Bowler (AKA: James Lonefeather), a hulking Civil War Union soldier turned fellow bounty hunter, a lawyer,  and a mad scientist played by John Astin in his various missions and personal quest for vengeance that often found him up against various technological advancements like motorcycles and also a funky alien gizmo that looked like a big gold orb with spikes and possessing various "magical" properties.
Kelly Rutherford played Brisco's on again/off again girlfriend.Even though I wasn't big on westerns I was really excited when this show came on and I enjoyed watching it every Friday night.
It had action, adventure, comedy, and the last episode actually had a naked time traveling FBI woman!
A fun series that was just too good to last, with a great assemblage of wonderful character actors including the King, Bruce Campbell (Praise Him)!
Although it's set in the Wild West, it's no more a 'western' than that series was.
Brisco County Jr...ah, we some great times, didn't we?
This show is on my "top 10" shows of all time list...it had a great hero, who would shoot a tree branch, causing it to fall onto someone's head, rather than shoot the villain - violence was not really his bag.
Can you imagine that during the year that Brisco County did it's TV run, it was called "the most violent show on television" by one of those groups that have nothing better to do but protect the world from entertainment?
I don't know if it was intended to continue from the point where we were left but as it stands, the story concludes and the final few episodes found Brisco and friends working for the president!Amazing show with great writing and superb acting (WHY isn't Bruce Campbell a huge star?.
Great News for "Brisco County" fans!.
Similar to the original Maverick TV series "Brisco" did not take himself too seriously.
A spoof of a real life character on Brisco County, and the episode that gave me the biggest laugh, had an Elvis like sheriff with long side-burns and dark glasses who ate hamburgers and whose lines in the show were taken from some of Elvis's biggest hit songs.
Also, like Maverick with his two brothers (Bart and Bert), I thought that the supporting cast of characters on Brisco County was great and that they contributed much to the series.
If you haven't seen it, might take 2 or 3 episodes to understand the character dynamics between Briscoe, his horse, Doc, Lord Bowler and Dixie - but it is well worth it!.
This was a good TV series; not great but rather original.
Some commentators stated that it copied a great deal from the 60's western TV series "The Wild, Wild West" and though there definitely was some influence there I do not believe it was as much as some would think.
Is B.C. Jr. out on DVD?If not, when can we expect it?I watched all of the episodes when they aired, and all of them again whenever they were on.I've been hoping to see it come out on DVD, and would be ready to buy it, as would several other people I know.I've several of B C's other DVD'S and would like to add this title to my collection.His wry sense of humor in this character, reminds me of Nathan Fillion's character in FireFly..
Inspired by 'Maverick' and 'Back to the Future 3' Jeffrey Boam screenwriter ('Funny Farm') created the son of Brisco County's unbelievable adventures.I've seen the pilot film.
Good script (by Boam), witty editing, catching melodies (by Randy Edelman) and so-so acting characterizes this well-done western/comedy directed by the talented Bryan Spicer.The cult-actor Bruce Campbell ('Evil Dead') was the best choice for the leading part.
His humorous performance surpasses Mel Gibson's or James Garner's in 'Maverick'.Altough some bad guy's role is too comics-like (Billy Drago as John Bly is awful), the gags and actions make the viewers want to see the sequels of the film's adventurous events.'Brisco County Jr' has one of the best pilot I've ever seen.
I wish I had seen The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. when it first aired on television.
I was 6 at the time, and it would have been the perfect addition to the lineup of shows I watched from the greatest of all vantage points, my dad's lap: Bonanza, The Rifleman, Zorro, a one-season wonder called Bordertown, and Star Trek: The Next Generation (the western in space).
Unfortunately I didn't discover it until its fortuitous DVD release a few years ago, but better late than never, I suppose.The pitch for Brisco County was probably something like "Indiana Jones in the Old West"--in fact, co-creator Jeffrey Boam penned the screenplay for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Like Indiana Jones, eponymous protagonist Brisco County is armed with an unconventional set of weapons and tools, a quick wit, a square jaw, and a smarmy sense of humor.
The viewer is also treated to inaccurate origin stories for Dunkin Donuts, drive-through windows, and the phrase from which a certain Robert Plant-led rock band took its name.The strength of Brisco County lies in that miraculous intersection of great writing and the perfect cast.
Because Brisco is generally a noble character, the writers tended to invent more clever solutions to problems than simply having him whip out his pistol and shoot someone, and for that reason the show is both more inventive and surprising than it might have been, and also family-friendly.The late Julius Carry is perfect as brash, pompous rival bounty hunter Lord Bowler, another testament to the writing.
Watching the relationship between Brisco and Bowler grow throughout the series, from rivals to grudging allies to, ultimately, friends, is one of the highlights of the show.Christian Clemenson is Socrates Poole.
John Astin is a charming riot as Professor Wickwire, a spacey but forward-thinking brilliant inventor who often shows up to provide Brisco with the "coming thing," usually in the form of futuristic gadgets such as rockets, diving suits, and blimps.
Lee Ermey is great as Brisco County Sr., the father with whom Brisco Jr. had something of a troubled relationship (shades of Sean Connery and Harrison Ford in Last Crusade).In the "odds and ends" category, Brisco has the same brilliant scope as classic westerns of yore, having been shot on the Warner Brothers back lots that, as I understand it, simply don't exist anymore.
No, and there's one big reason for that: the Orb. Apparently the writers didn't think Brisco's quest to track down the members of John Bly's gang was enough to keep the show going, so they introduced a vague, powerful, mysterious artifact, the Orb. It's clear that nobody on the writing team figured out exactly what this plot device did or meant, which resulted in its uncanny ability to do whatever was needed for a particular episode, including resurrecting the good guys, incinerating the bad guys, giving people superhuman strength, and enabling time travel.
It was the failure to clearly define the Orb's mythology or purpose that makes it feel like a clunky, frustrating deus ex machina, and toward the end of the series its storyline starts to get both convoluted and pretty silly, resulting in a very unsatisfying exit for the character of John Bly.That aside, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. is a top notch western/sci fi/adventure/comedy/action/romance with great performances and a unique, fun flavor.
I was about 5 years old when I was watching Brisco County Jr discover the "coming thing" and chasing John Bly & his gang.
He had the quick thinking attitude and the bravery I was looking for in my prince charming :-P Brisco County Jr. is the type of show that really can't be put into a certain one genre of TV shows.
Lord Bowler and Socrates added just as much fun as Brisco did to the show.
Too bad that end had to come too soon, after only one season.Now in order to get my Bruce Campbell fix, I have begun watching the sitcom Burn Notice and he possesses some of those same characteristics as Brisco did.
If you like clever humor and good writing with a little weirdness thrown into the mix, this series may be for you.
Briscoe made for an unusual hero, and Lord Bowler was one of the best sidekicks ever.
When the show returned, it turned into a Wild Wild West thing, with Briscoe and Lord Bowler being made secret agents under President Grant's administration.
This show had all the right ingredients.Iconic genre legend Bruce Campbell in the lead.Cool old west setting.Science fiction subplot about mysterious other worldly objects.Cool supporting characters that were just as interesting and enigmatic as the lead.I could really kick the idiot at FOX that was completely blind to this shows potential.This had future cult classic written all over it..
"Brisco County, Jr." was another show killed off before its time, and really does epitomize the cult classic; but it's gotta be one of the most inspired series, especially, from the early '90s.
It was a great cast, playing a wide array of memorable characters, and the writing was also a contributing factor: that big arc with the orb really swung for the fences.But a big part of its appeal (huge!) was Bruce Campbell - in full leading-man mode.
A TV Show/series that many people liked, but that got canceled anyway.
I'm a big fan of Bruce Campbell and he plays his leading role really great here.
Dixie was/is great and other part time/bit players are thrown successfully into the mix.
Where some really great characters were thrown back on the screen again and a good story was found.
"The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." was great fun, as long as the sci-fi story line continued.Bruce Campbell gave a great performance, as always, and this was the most innovative western show I've ever seen.
With a side kick like Lord Bowler, Julius Carry, and a villain like John Bly, Billy Drago, together with actors like John Astin, as Professor Albert Wickwire, and Christian Clemenson, as Socrates Poole, the show meant incredibly much fun and excitement brought to us by a great set of actors.The love interest Dixie Cousins, Kelly Rutherford, was an almost unbearably beautiful character, just as the actress portraying her, that added quality to every episode she was in.All good things end though.
The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr., was a wonderful show with great writing and fantastic ensemble acting.
The plot of the show was Briscoe County, Junior (Bruce Campbell), who had grown up more or less a spoiled rich boy in the late 1800s USA, finally becomes a man trying to track down the gang who killed his bounty-hunter father, with the help of blustering bounty-hunter competitor Lord Bowler (Curry) and lawyer Solomon Poole (Clemenson).
Billy Drago played a memorably vicious John Bly, leader of the gang Briscoe and Bowler are up against, while Kelly Rutherford turned in bravura performances as Dixie Cousins, the traveling showgirl who Briscoe hooks up with from time to time.The writing and comic pacing of this show were usually spot-on and this show deserved to be on far longer than it was.
It was a shame, too, because Briscoe, Bowler, Solomon, Dixie and Comet the horse deserved to have many more adventures.Those of us who are fans still remember this show extremely fondly, with copies of the series on VCR traded like gold.
It was funny, well acted and the plot, though flawed (which one isn't?), were weird and engaging!Bruce Campbell is brilliant as Briscoe, though Billy Drago steals most scenes he appears in.
The supporting cast is excellent, from Bowler to Socrates.This is a sci-fi, fantasy western with old time serial style cliffhangers.
Still, 27 episodes isn't a bad run.The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. is a western series with a lot of humor, bizarre characters, and several bits of science fiction.
However, this isn't just an imitation.Brisco County Jr. is the son of Brisco County Sr., one of the great bounty hunters of the western territories toward the end of the 19th Century.
And then of course there's Comet the Wonder Horse.One of the reasons this series works is its casting.
Brisco is played by the veteran actor Bruce Campbell.
He brings to his role here a professional and keenly calculated sense of timing and of humor  not to mention very athletic performances.Brisco's partner, Lord Bowler, is played by the accomplished Julius Carry.
It's Hollywood's great strength that they have done a lot toward moving away from that sort of pseudo Jim Crowism.Third in the series' trilogy of stars, playing Socrates Poole, is the delightful and talented Christian Clemenson.
Drago is a well-represented film veteran, with 90 films (including some TV work) to his credit.The various episodes are well plotted, full of action and humor, witty lines, good character byplay, and the Orb. The Orb (of which there are 3, although 1 is destroyed early in the series and another vanishes into the future ...
The attempts by Bly to get an Orb for himself and the efforts of Brisco to prevent this form the backdrop of many episodes.The production values of this series are very high.
"Wild, Wild West" (the series and the film) is of course an exception, and so is the Brisco County Jr. series.