The Shadow Riders

Even though these brothers don't call themselves Sacketts, the story really seems a prequel to the movie by that name since the brothers are all played by the same people, There names in the story are the same, and much of this story is connected to that story. In the Sacketts it starts out with Orin (Tom Sellick) as either the mayor or running for the job at the same time as getting married. So I found it a bit strange to basically have connecting stories...But different last names.

Unfortunately that was the least of the problems. The Sacketts must have been directed by someone else because that's a for TV movie that looks professional. This one comes across a pretty amateurish. Then again maybe they were working on a very tight budget so they couldn't do a lot of re-shoots or very extensive editing. It was a shame to see such a good cast sometimes come across as rookies. Had they been able to get better directing and editing this too would have been a pretty good western......Oh....And as someone else said...Drop that music that often didn't match the situation. I like the comparison to the Dukes Of Hazard....That's spot on in my opinion.

One last thought. As an old duffer that was around in 1979 when this was released....I remember TV back then, and I really can't be too tough on them because many of the shows were made like this. I think the Sacketts probably got more money because it was a bigger and longer production. Anything over one night kind of went into a Mini Series mode so the productions seemed bigger. Too bad they didn't meld the stories, but I suppose there was a issue if the brothers from Shadow Riders weren't Sacketts. Otherwise putting this as the first night followed by the next two parts would have worked out just fine.