"Passage to Fort Doom"
Just watched "Fort Doom" (for the first time in ages, and possibly ever). Am I missing some unifying element, or is this really a pretty pointless episode, just a collection of three sub-plots, without much involvement by Bart (the Maverick of the week), filmed (as usual) in the cheapest way possible?
Bart is on his way to [place], but has no money, so he hires on as guide for a wagon train in order to earn some cash on the way. He discovers that Cindy Lou Brown (last seen in "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres") is a member of the train. Another young woman is traveling west with her elderly parents in order to meet up with her fiance, who's in the cavalry. There's also a middle-aged couple and of course the wagon master. A man on horseback joins the train, and the audience learns that he and the middle-aged woman have been planning to hook up as soon as he kills her husband (who has lots of money), but now she's having second thoughts. OK, there are only four wagons, but that's not too bad as a set-up.
When they camp the first night, Cindy's evil ex-boyfriend sends two of his goons to retrieve a large sum of cash that he had hidden in her belongings. They think they've found it, but it turns out they didn't, so the second night he comes in person and there's a shoot-out, and apparently Cindy's ex-boyfriend is killed. It turns out she had discovered the cash and buried it at the previous night's camp. The potentially-unfaithful wife bandages the shoulder of her husband, who had been injured in the gunfight. She's clearly impressed by his bravery, especially compared to her boyfriend, who ran away and hid during the shoot-out. They all move on toward their destination, and the buried cash is never mentioned again.
The wagon train is set upon by Indians, but is able to make it to a fort -- which turns out to be deserted, with the gates conveniently left open. Once the wagon train is safely inside, the Indians leave, but later return and attack the fort with guns. During the ensuing fight, the wife tells her conspiring boyfriend that she has definitely changed her mind. but he threatens to kill her husband anyhow. She shoots him, but before he dies he shoots her. They are later assumed to have died from shots fired by the Indians.
The Indians disperse when the cavalry inexplicably comes over the hill. The young woman spots her fiancee among them, but tells her mother she has decided to go back East instead of marrying him. They all decide to turn around and go back to where they started.
Virtually the entire episode is filmed either on a sound stage with the usual shrubbery, or in front of a rear-projection screen, or in an empty fort apparently left over from some movie -- or else consists of stock footage of Indians, cavalry, etc. We never even meet the young woman's cavalry ex-fiance. Similar money-saving techniques are used in most episodes, but are generally more forgivable due to there being an actual overall story-line which significantly involves one or more Mavericks.