DVR Theater: Telepathic (?!?) Time Travel with Ricardo Montalban in 'The Wild, Wild West'

 Another Episode already?  It's only the second one ever, so, why not?

In this Episode, we see a famous Guest Star, a silly bit of 'science' and the inspiration for the Movie.

This is...

A Magician- Montalban- gets Artemus on Stage for his act and makes him disappear!

He leaves behind a sword, which West uses to track him down.

As it turns out, he was a Confederate Commander who was wounded in the War, but saved by West.  

He lost his legs, however, and hates the guy...for saving him.

He casually drops into conversation the fact that he can warp time with his mind.  That old chestnut. 

He demonstrates this by sending Jim to see Artemus in the past, where he thinks that he is someone else.

They have a fight- since Artemus doesn't 'know him' and ultimately everyone but Jim gets killed.

This guy below especially gets it.

Jim and Artemus are brought back and, apparently, death there won't kill them.  Alright.

Now that he knows that his powers work on others, he takes all of them back to the Battle of Vicksburg- where he was injured- and he's now restored.

Time to change the War...or it would be if they had more than 5 minutes left in the Episode.

Quick- have a big fist fight, get Montalban injured again and have him send our Heroes back.

The End.

It's an insane, but fun premise.  It is just too bad that the execution is so damn, well, bad.

A story like this is all about priorities.  What do you need to happen?  What don't you need to happen?
For instance, do you need 2 Scenes of the (I think) Wife acting nervous before Montalban reveals his plan?  No. 
Do you *really* need the fist fight West has before he meets Montalban?  Probably not.

As it stands, they set up Montalban for most of the Episode, reveal his Plot and simply leave no time to do it justice.  It's a shame.

In a way, it reminds me of The Final Countdown (The Film, not the Song).  They spend the whole time deciding whether or not to change history...and run out of, well, time.  They were the good guys talking about- in theory- making things better, as opposed to Montalban's plan, of course.

Complaints aside, Montalban is, as always, great.  He gets a great monologue in about his condition and how he blames West for it.  You get to see him restored (again- how that works is anyone's guess) to boot.

The main reason I watched this, however, was because they mostly based the Villain in the 1999 Film off of Montalban here (angry Confederate Commander with no legs and a plan to kill General Grant).  So, in a way, it is his fault that we got this...

I kid, I kid.  We know whose fault this was.

Next time, let's jump back to the Bottom of the Sea for an odd version of a Bottle Episode.  It shows how strange the Show can be without aliens or leprechauns.  See you then...