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THE RETURN OF THE CHEYENNE KID
Produced and Written by Mitch Toney
Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Dave StewartCheyenne Kid - Bob Wallace
Lizzy Johnson - Hayla Mason
Tommy Johnson - Thomas Flippen
Wild Bill - John Powell"Fuzzy" Johnson's been kidnaped by some ornery cusses out to move in on his best grazing pasture. What these dastardly bastards don't know is that Fuzzy used to be the sidekick for that famed old west lawman known round these parts as The Cheyenne Kid. Do you think Kid will come out of retirement and save his pal from a bunch of murderous land barons?
Sounds strange and trite doesn't it? I was prepared to give Dave Stewart's newest production, THE RETURN OF THE CHEYENNE KID, a negative review due to the stiff and stilted nature of the plot and dialogue when I happened to be clicking across the Westerns channel on DirecTV and came across an episode of that Gene Autry show from the 1950's. While not an identical match to the source material, it was easy to see that Dave Stewart perfectly captured the major beats and rhythms of that old show. With an episode of Roy Rogers following right afterwards, all was confirmed.
Recent television programming with an old west setting has always tried to infuse the historical context of the program's events with modern storytelling techniques. The results are better flowing narrative than what was once popular television in the 1950's. View for yourself an episode of modern westerns such as Dr. Quinn, The Magnificent Seven, or even the Bonanza-inspired failure Ponderosa, to the reruns you'll find on the Westerns channel and you'll see what I'm talking about.
One thing those old shows have that the news ones lack is a sense of cut and dry innocense where good is good and bad is bad. Ambiguity is not an issue in character construction as there's no middle ground, either you uphold the law or you don't. I guess this goes back to the old concept of morality plays where good will always triumph and the audience is left sharing in the victory. Any empathy towards the villains would undermine such notions and couldn't be considered family viewing.
This installment of the CHEYENNE KID is designed to be a pilot for a proposed series. I can't honestly say that in its current form it will be picked up by any network. It doesn't push the boundaries of prime time programming, and the Saturday morning crowd can't get past Saved by the Bell. Retro-inspired programming just doesn't work anymore, regardless or how entertaining it may be. Perhaps submitting a copy directly to the Westerns channel wouldn't be a bad idea. It would fit in perfectly and appeal to their target audience who's looking for family oriented programming that fills their need for wholesome westerns.