Payment in Full

Very good first episode of RIVERBOAT, a series that foreshadowed THE LOVE BOAT by centering on various eclectic passengers on a vessel while the main characters who work on the boat deal with these people and their situations...

So it's almost like an anthology show but with the main cast and vehicle remaining the same while the guests and their stories change...

It's now mostly famous for being Burt Reynold's big break, and of course, he hated working on the show so much he left a little more than halfway through the first season... he's in 21 of 31 first season episodes...

Then again, Reynolds hated pretty much everything he did until Deliverance... He hated playing detectives for both his detective shows, Hawk and Dan August; he hated his Spaghetti Western Navajo Joe because it wasn't the right Sergio directing; he hated being second or third banana to anything or anyone, which is probably why, many decades later, he didn't ride the Boogie Nights comeback since... he would then, once again, not be the main star...

He's good here, but rather monotone... a sort of strong silent type, a style he'd continue until loosening up doing Johnny Carson... and then taking his new persona, which was still tough but also sarcastic, into movies starting from Deliverance and then, of course, turn to comedy...

He and Darren McGavin have comfortable chemistry here, and this episode stars a great underrated actor in Aldo Ray, hiding aboard the boat with girlfriend Barbara BelGeddes.... he's a kind of dumb oafy sweetheart of a lug and she's got heart but is actually tougher than he is... he's in a bind and she's trying to help him, while bad guys are after both...

Not a bad start here on a series that's better than you'd think, as in, the stories are always interesting, the actors/actresses always good...

One of those kind of dandy dressed-up westerns as opposed to the roughshod stuff we're more used to... like the other show Burt would leave, Gunsmoke.