Rod (Linden Chiles) has to rank as one of the dumbest perpetrators on "Barnaby Jones". Early in the episode, he is having an argument with Lyle Harrison (Philip Pine) and Lyle starts whipping Rod from atop his horse. Rod then grabs the horse and they fight. Lyle falls off and dies. Now at this point, he really hadn't committed a crime. But how Rod reacts is just plain dopey. First, he rigs it up to look like an accident where Lyle just fell off his horse while riding. Then, when he realizes someone saw the death, instead of being happy as Carlos (A Martinez) could exonerate him...but instead he seeks to kill him (killing someone else by mistake) and then decides to destroy Carlos' reputation by planting stolen stuff among his possessions. But, then, oddly, he abandons this plan and just tries to shoot him!
The question I ask about all this is WHY??? Why not tell the truth. At the worst, he MIGHT face minimal jail time...but it seemed really unlikely. Instead, again and again, Rod makes foolish choices...and this doesn't make this an especially good episode. As for Carlos' friends...well, they're not an especially bright lot either! All in all, any episode that relies that much on dumb people isn't a particularly good one...and the way it portrays Hispanic youth might offend a few. About the only interesting thing to me was seeing Erik Estrada playing a gun-happy jerk before he changed sides and became a cop on "CHiPS".
By the way, the other review currently posted complained about how dark the print was of the episode on MeTV. Well, the YouTube print I watched looked just fine....as have all the "Barnaby Jones" episodes I've seen so far.
The question I ask about all this is WHY??? Why not tell the truth. At the worst, he MIGHT face minimal jail time...but it seemed really unlikely. Instead, again and again, Rod makes foolish choices...and this doesn't make this an especially good episode. As for Carlos' friends...well, they're not an especially bright lot either! All in all, any episode that relies that much on dumb people isn't a particularly good one...and the way it portrays Hispanic youth might offend a few. About the only interesting thing to me was seeing Erik Estrada playing a gun-happy jerk before he changed sides and became a cop on "CHiPS".
By the way, the other review currently posted complained about how dark the print was of the episode on MeTV. Well, the YouTube print I watched looked just fine....as have all the "Barnaby Jones" episodes I've seen so far.