User Reviews

This Virginian episode belongs to Doug McClure. A legendary black bear who is 9 feet tall on his hind legs comes out of the mountains because game is scarce and invades the barn at Shiloh Ranch killing Trampas's favorite horse. He wants to get that bear as do all the ranchers but it's roundup time and James Drury needs him there.

But loutish Charles McGraw another rancher is as obsessed with that bear as Captain Ahab with the White Whale. He becomes crippled after tangling with the bear and blames it on McClure. He also bullies his son Fabian into challenging Trampas.

As he says he regrets it but Doug McClure might have to kill Fabian. McGraw who played many a thug on the big screen is really expansive in his role. Royal Dano has a nice part also as an old time mountain man who provides invaluable knowledge and assistance on the hunt.

A good one for fans of Doug McClure and any and all of the guest cast.

Woolly depiction of a big early spring roundup, with its frosty nip in the air and warm communal spirit, makes some lumpy plotting and flawed acting easy to forgive. Pop star Fabian is likable but lightweight as a sensitive youth trying to reconcile his own ideas about manhood with his father's expectations, and familiar film noir tough guy Charles McGraw overdraws his aggression as the combative parent. McClure is on the mark with his responses though; painful regret over the outcome of one shooting and acute apprehension over the prospects for another. Royal Dano, one of the most skilled actors to regularly turn up during the golden age of TV westerns, plays a sage old hand who joins Fabian and McClure on a perilous bear hunt.

I've hunted from florida to alaska and there are no black bears that large .. the one filmed here looks like a russian circus animal i saw once ... i guess the writers had to dream up some cockeyed tale to make this episode more dramatic than a mere cattle roundup ... fabain does good