---

Episode 4 - The Battleground (Pilot)

Sept. 28, 1967

Prod. #0701

 

Telly Savalas (Bear), Warren Oates (Mobeetie), R.G. Armstrong (William Payne), Robert Wilke (Hardy Miller), Hal Needham (Yewcic), Dick Farnsworth (Benefiel), John Hudkins (Chalk), buff Brady (Wallant), Jerry Brown (Lillard), Seymour Cassel (Spock), Natividad Vacio (Clego), Link Wyler (Orderly), Arthur Bernard (Conductor), Zack Banks (First Settler), Robert Folkerson (Second Settler), David Cross (First Farmer), Ross Dollarhide (Second Farmer), Joe Ferrante (First Man), Carol Henry (Second Man), John Milford (Wooley), L.Q. Jones (Barnes), and Andrew Duggan as Major Covington.

 

Director: Don Medford

Writer: Christopher Knopf

Story: This is how the series began. When a potential range war heats up between cattlemen and incoming settlers in the Outlet, Washington sends U.S. Marshal Jim Crown to the Cimarron Territory to quell the dispute. Assigned to Cimarron City, Crown finds that there is no law in the town, and that he will not receive any help from the Army in order to settle the ever increasing problem that brews in the distance. Adding to this, Crown is forced to jail his old buddy "Bear", accompanied by sidekick Mobeetie, and his gang of renegade cowboys, when they go on a free-for-all drunk and terrorize Cimarron. Upon their release from jail, the cowboys discover that their boss, cattleman Hardy Miller, has lost his government land lease, due to the government favoring the movement of the incoming farmers and settlers. When Miller is forced to fire Bear and his group, they promise revenge against the settlers and vow to turn the Cimarron River bloody red. This dramatic struggle climaxes in Crown having to face Bear one-on-one in fight to the death. A great episode with superior performances turned in by Stuart Whitman and Telly Savalas.