Note: I began reviewing "Daniel Boone with Episode 3.5, so if you wish to read in exact order skip ahead and circle back; INSP has now restarted the episode rotation with 1.1)
For young 1960's kids the imagery, if not the plots, of Fess Parker, frontier forts, Redcoat battles and Indian pageantry were seemingly always at the eyes' corner when the living room TV was on, and wrapped up in the package of the "Daniel Boone" TV series. The origin story was simple - Texas college athlete and upcoming Westerns star Fess Parker won global success playing Davy Crockett for Disney; NBC got the rights to Parker but not Crockett, and decided the First Kentuckian would do nicely instead.
Future episode reviews will take sharp note of historical discrepancies, but for the moment Episode 1 is simply a pleasurable nostalgia trip. The 1950's B-movie pacing, singing interludes, and black and white photography of Season 1 let us know we are looking at a period piece deserving of evaluation against the backdrop of its own time.
To get things started down the trail, Dan and (one of many future) sidekick Yadkin (Albert Salmi) are sent by a pre-Revolution George Washington (Stephen Courtleigh) to get a fort and settlement started in Kentucky, the better to forestall a British attack from the west during the upcoming conflict.
Parker slides easily into his new role; it's just switching out coonskin caps. Salmi, a TV Westerns journeyman whose life would end tragically by suicide in 1990, carves out a fairly distinctive sidekick persona. Courtleigh is an adequate GW for this medium; he also played Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee on the small screen. The regular supporting cast is introduced - Ed Ames as Anglo-Cherokee Mingo, Patricia Blair as wife Rebecca Boone, and Darby Hinton and Veronica Cartwright as Boone children Israel and Jemima.
As with all first-time series efforts, one can see the actors struggling to find the right tone, but there is plenty of flintlock action - the series' selling point - to make up for that. Some stock footage is used for the fort battle scenes, possibly from "Drums Along The Mohawk."
Historically, Boone moved into Kentucky to stay in September 1775, but he was representing the interests of North Carolina land speculator Richard Henderson; Revolutionary War grand strategy had little to nothing to do with it. The Kentucky tribes are shown pursuing Boone back to his homestead in the (implied) Yadkin Valley of NC, entirely fabricated. Also shown is Boone's capture, adoption and escape from Shawnee Chief Blackfish (Robert F. Simon), but that did not occur until 1778. (The Shawnee will be the go-to villains for most of the series.)
The series starts off on a high note; for Season 1 simplified plots and heavy doses of action will deliver effective melodrama.