EMPIRE began as an ambitious modern Western set at the 500,000 acre Garret Ranch in Santa Fe (shooting on location), but lackluster ratings resulted in a cast purge that did nothing to improve the show, with Anne Seymour and Terry Moore already gone by this 26th entry, Charles Bronson, Ryan O'Neal and Warren Vanders not returning for a truncated second season, Richard Egan forging ahead as the title character of REDIGO, reduced to a half hour for only a handful of episodes before NBC finally pulled the plug. "Hidden Asset" opens with Jim Redigo contemplating a bank loan requiring the dismissal of personnel not doing their share of the work, in particular rowdy Johnny Howe (Joseph Hoover), just released on a vandalism charge. Ryan O'Neal's Tal Garret (the only Garret left on the series) does a little digging and isn't keen on letting go the men who have been faithfully employed for decades, while Redigo's common sense reply spells out the situation: "if we borrow money to carry people who are a liability, we'll weaken the very thing we're trying to protect." Johnny's foreman father Bart (Lon Chaney) convinces his fellow workers to quit rather than allow themselves to be fired: "let's just let them cut the payroll clear down to the two of them, let them run this ranch alone!" Ambitious lawyer Lawrence Rowan (William Windom) tries to stir up negative publicity for Redigo, which doesn't sit right with Charles Bronson's tough but fair Paul Moreno, but the actions incurred by Johnny manage to bring all the men together in unexpected fashion, proving to the bank that even men who supposedly aren't pulling their weight can be a 'hidden asset' during times of strife. William Windom plays a slimeball legal eagle, Barbara Bain getting in a few jabs, even slapping Bronson! Veteran performers include 72 year old Francis McDonald, the treacherous John Wilkes Booth in John Ford's "The Prisoner of Shark Island," bit player Emory Parnell, and of course Lon Chaney, not a gruff heavy for a change but a hard working machinist willing to stick up for what's right.
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