towncaller
Sophomore
@lostcauses
Posts: 174
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Post by towncaller on Nov 6, 2021 20:06:00 GMT
By the "Indentured Servitude" plot, I don't mean actual slavery or Jim Crow laws, I mean those plots where our protagonists are somehow sentenced to work in a setting where they are jailed or chained due to false charges or a trumped-up miscarriage of justice. There's actually quite a few of these around, so I'll just list a couple of them so to give others a chance....
Gunsmoke, S20 E20, Hard Labor, Matt Dillon is sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor by Judge Flood, who uses an illegally constituted court to staff his private silver mine.
Bonanza, S12 E27, Kingdom of Fear, A delusional mining tycoon has the Cartwrights and Candy arrested on false trespassing charges and sentences them to slave labor at a gold mine.
Others?
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vrkalak
Sophomore
@vrkalak
Posts: 511
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Post by vrkalak on Nov 6, 2021 21:10:56 GMT
S2, Ep 8: Wild Wild West, TNOT Bottomless Pit. West gets imprisoned on Devil’s Island.
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towncaller
Sophomore
@lostcauses
Posts: 174
Likes: 50
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Post by towncaller on Nov 18, 2021 17:34:32 GMT
Cheyenne, S2 E8, The Trap, Cheyenne rides into Stagge City and is arrested on trumped-up vagrant charges. After a "trial" lasting less then a minute, he's sentenced to 90 days hard labor at the nearby silver mine owned by the Stagge family.
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towncaller
Sophomore
@lostcauses
Posts: 174
Likes: 50
|
Post by towncaller on Nov 28, 2021 21:05:05 GMT
Wagon Train, S3 E28, The Amos Gibbon Story, After an argument with Major Adams, Flint leaves the wagon train and goes to a bar at a nearby town. What he doesn't know is the locals are shanghaiing strangers for slave labor in the mine and no one on the train knows where he went.
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Post by Richard Kimble on Mar 6, 2022 10:43:53 GMT
The Rebel, "The Vagrants" (s1 e11) Nick Adams w/guest star Wright King.  |
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Post by Richard Kimble on Mar 6, 2022 10:54:34 GMT
A closely-related subgenre: Bonanza, "The Crucible" (s3 e28) After being robbed in the desert, Adam stumbles onto the isolated camp of a seemingly chivalrous prospector named Peter Kane, who offers him a mule and supplies for three days work. However, Kane is in fact a demented madman who imprisons Adam and starts a dangerous game of psychological cat and mouse...   I'm not the world's biggest Bonanza fan -- it had too much soap opera, and Michael Landon gets on my nerves. This is probably my favorite episode (supposedly Pernell Roberts' favorite as well), with an intriguing premise and the great Lee Marvin at his Lee Marvinest. The Big Valley -- "Journey Into Violence" (s3 e14) Heath is kidnapped by a religious sect who accuse him of murdering one of their members. Acting as their own judge and jury, they convict Heath and he is sentenced to slavery to atone for his crime.  A similar premise to "The Crucible", but this episode emphasizes romance -- a girl from the cult (as it happens, the widow of the man he killed) falls in love with Heath and tries to help him. She's played by Quentin Dean (yes, that's her name -- she's best remembered as the "field slut" in In The Heat Of The Night), who is quite a babe. |
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Post by Richard Kimble on Mar 6, 2022 11:01:17 GMT
Bonanza, S12 E27, Kingdom of Fear, A delusional mining tycoon has the Cartwrights and Candy arrested on false trespassing charges and sentences them to slave labor at a gold mine. This was shot in 1968, but due to network concerns about the episode's violence in the wake of civil unrest it was not aired until 1971, by which time David Canary had left the series: he receives a "Special Guest Star" card in the opening credits. Also notable as perhaps the only post-1965 episode in which Adam is mentioned.
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Post by Richard Kimble on Mar 28, 2022 23:53:59 GMT
Cheyenne, S2 E8, The Trap, Cheyenne rides into Stagge City and is arrested on trumped-up vagrant charges. After a "trial" lasting less then a minute, he's sentenced to 90 days hard labor at the nearby silver mine owned by the Stagge family. Just watched this one Rhodes Reason (right) steals it as a debonair heavy  Also features western mainstay Kenneth Macdonald as a corrupt sheriff 
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