Final entry in the ground-breaking Maverick series is a worthy one, involving usual series types like high-powered businessmen, low-down connivers, and a Maverick in the middle. Bart is in the middle of a railroad wager that he'd better win or it's jail time big time. Of no help are those usual scheming associates that pass for friends, this time Modesty Blaine and Doc Holliday. Between them, they keep the money in question revolving around faster than a hooker in a hot-tub, and Bart's chances are looking dimmer and dimmer. The final shot of the three tricksters side-by-side, ambling warily down the tracks makes for an appropriate final frame.
Final season scripts were generally pretty good, sticking with the series strength of rival con- artists in place of rival gunplay and casual wisecracks in place of tiresome bravado. As I see it, the problem lay with the less subtle forms of comedic effect the directors (producers?) were now encouraging . There was simply no replacement for Garner's easy charm and casual humor that had come to define the show, and while the modestly talented Kelly tried gamely, he was simply overused by default during this last period. An even bigger problem was the featured players. In ongoing roles, Peter Breck and Mike Road, for example, do a lot of mugging to show that they're doing comedy, but are much too obvious and a far-cry from earlier adepts like Efrem Zimbalist and Richard Long. In fact, the momentum that carried the series at its peak from humorous asides into clever satire begins to cross the line from satire into plain silliness in too many of the final episodes. Unfortunately, coarse mugging has come to replace the trademark sly effects, even with the drolly amusing Kathleen Crowley. Likely, the series had come to a good stopping point.
Nonetheless, Maverick remains a milestone in the evolution of American TV, showing that even that most somber of genres, the adult Western, could be played cleverly for laughs and that an audience would respond. Just as importantly, the series gave us characters who succeeded through daring enterprise and quick wits instead of being the toughest or fastest guy in town which most of us are not. In fact, it showed there was another side to a 1950's frontier even more familiar than the Old West, the frontier of the lively imagination.