The Corvette convertible heads out on the open road, and this iconic series begins, unforgettable to fans and, judging anecdotally by the handful of negative responses on IMDb, pigeon-holed by unforgiving revisionists. Ah, the hindsight of not being around (alive?) when TV history was unfolding in real-time.
Director Philip Leacock uses superb location photography, often with plenty of evidence of his documentary background plus solid casting to present a Southern small town atmosphere in opposition to our City Slicker heroes, and especially telling is the unusual use of smart-alecky hothead personality as star of a mass-audience tv series. Of course the flashy Corvette is a key co-star, as well as the always sympathetic Martin Milner as its owner -it's impossible to imagine MM cast as villain.
The supporting cast is superb: Patty McCormack oozing empathy as a small-town girl who is the only denizen of Garth, Mississippi to give our boys a welcome, Keir Dullea prepping for his "David and Lisa" indie movie breakthrough as the soft, overly sensitive son of meanie Everett Sloane, as well as George Kennedy and Whit Bissell as convincing local types.
It seems strange as a pilot episode to some, but the confrontation depicted here encapsules a backward community, frozen in place with no outside contact with the wanderlust, "searching for America" tale of our heroes & their 'vette. A decade later "Easy Rider" created a movie revolution with a very similar theme, upping the ante with its violent conclusion. The underpinning philosophy embodied in Stirling Silliphant's script harkens back to the Beats and Jack Kerouac's "On the Road", expressed in a well-written monologue by Maharis on "going with the flow" and living life as a search for meaning.
The episode's level of detail is important, such as Tod (Milner) being imprisoned in a stockade used to hold German soldiers as prisoners in World War II, a crucial setup for the flashback that provides the show's climax and reveals the Original Sin of the town of Garth . Plus the supernatural element of the "wolf tree" which grows near the graves mourned over by Dullea, and which stunts the growth of all the surrounding trees (a la Sloane as tyrant Garth).
The many Gothic elements lead to strong melodrama, set against the realistic backdrop. Since this leads up to a near-lynch of M and M it made me wonder if "Route 66" had come along a decade later if it would have had an integrated lead cast, say a Cleavon Little with a Milner in their Dodge Challenger. It's fascinating to see how many subtle as well as sledge-hammer themes are covered in this premiere. Quite an ambitious new show, with more focused stories to come.