User Reviews

If you are a true mystery buff, you well know that horseback riding accidents and murder seem to go together. CHARLIE CHAN was famous for these kind of stories, and here good guy/bad guy Linden Chiles (a favorite of Quinn Martin) plays a man named Rod who is instrumental in the death of wealthy businessman Philip Pine.

Yes, I do agree with the last reviewer, Rod only makes it worse and resorts to murder, and its fairly grisly. What a tangled web, and don't we love it. This was written by Terence Sweeney, who handled some cop shows in the 70s, but mainly known as a tv producer.

The cast is outstanding. Popular actor A. Martinez (whose first name is Adolpho) has an excellent role here as the fall guy. Martinez later frequently appeared in soap operas. Young Eric Estrada, about a year before CHIPS fame, plays Ruben, also turning in a fine dramatic performance. Christopher Stone plays Father Wilkins, always a treat to watch. He was one of the best, featured in many tv dramas and cop shows.

Chris Robinson did a very good job directing, probably better known as an actor, in such soaps as GENERAL HOSPITAL. It's a bit of a mystery why Chris did not play a part in this episode. Missed opportunity.

Linden Chiles is certainly the one to watch sweat it out good here, and deservedly so. One of those fateful tales. It's interesting to see Barnaby smell a rat right from the start visting the presumed accident scene, again shades of Charlie Chan.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 19 remastered color CBS dvd box set.

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.

Plot good, however the production print is very poor - watching a show in the dark. They must have made this in the cheap. Plot good.