Just following this series on Talking Pictures. I did catch it as a child back in the sixties, but only tended to watch it when there was nothing else on. This happened quite a lot in those days since we only had a choice of two TV channels. My main recollection is being rather bored by the episodes featuring Simon and Davey, which always seemed to be so self-righteous, or rather like child development advice. Davey would end the episode having learned a valuable lesson about growing up having observed the idiosyncracys of the guest star, who usually played the villain. Viewing the series now, I still feel the same about these episodes, but I have been struck by the amount of killing which goes on. Most episodes have two or three shootings and some have even more. Both Luke and Simon are trigger happy and I think that the jobs with the shortest life expectancy must be relay station manager or hired hand. The number of those who get murdered by passing bandits is unbelievable. That's apart from Zeke of course, who always manages to survive despite a high turnover of underlings. And, no-one ever seems unduly upset by the deaths. Following the murder and mayhem, just before the closing credits roll, the three main characters usually manage a jokey exchange or ironic comment. All that's missing is the laughing, muted trumpet (wah, wah, w-a-a-h!) Maybe they cancelled the series because they'd run out of extras!
