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Rating:  -
Well, it's an excellent series....but what about the release of Seasons 2 and 3? Do we wait a couple of years for those?
Rating:  -
Was rapped to find this series recieved in good condition and fast service Thanks :-)
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"The Young Riders" lasted three seasons on ABC (1989-92) so it must have connected pretty well with its generally teenage target audience. Created to capitalize on the success of "Young Guns" (1988) it replaced Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lou Diamond Phillips with lower budget young hunks Ty Miller, Stephen Baldwin, and Josh Brolin.
Along with the intelligent scripting of "Bordertown" (another 1989 revisionist Western), "The Young Riders" matched that Canadian series in the production design department. Both are a treat to watch just for the sets and the scenery.
"The Young Riders" is "set in the early days of the Pony Express," just before the Civil War which started in 1861. The Pony Express provided swifter than stagecoach mail service between Missouri and California through a system of single riders rushing between a string of almost 200 relief stations. The idea was to get about 75 miles of riding out of each man, exchanging his horse 5 times during his ride. The concept worked but lasted less than two years before it was replaced by the telegraph.
The series tried to get a boost from historical connections while not allowing historical accuracy to constrain it in any significant way. Rather than have the group of young riders be a bunch of average Joe's they give the viewer a young Buffalo Bill Cody (who actually rode for the Pony Express), Bill Hickok (who did not ride for the Pony Express), and in season two Jesse James (who was only 11 years old and probably didn't know that the Pony Express existed). If this sounds like an extremely lame idea then you are most likely older than Jesse.
Rounding out the hunks is a character named "The Kid" (Miller) who is technically the star judging by the amount of screen time he received. The non-hunks include Lou (Yvonne Suhor) - who is a girl pretending to be a boy, Buck Cross (Gregg Rainwater) - who is an Indian with many wilderness skills; and Ike (Travis Fine) who was kicked in the head by an horse early in the series.
One would expect the life of a pony express rider to be a lonely one but these guys always (insert "every single day and night" here) seem to be just hanging around together, with little attention paid to transporting the mail. The idea of the system was for a rider to travel as light as possible and to avoid any confrontation or complication. Yet on the rare occasions when one of these youngsters actually manages to mount his/her horse with the mail they almost always manage to somehow get entangled in something more urgent than completing their route. Such is the penalty for skimping on imaginative screenwriters.
But if you don't know any better or if you can suspend disbelief many of the episodes can be entertaining. The first season was clearly the best. In large part because it included Melissa Leo, as a kind of den mother to the boys, who becomes a little too fond of young Cody. Leo was already a very polished actress and her scenes were generally the best ones in each episode.
Probably the best scene of the entire series was the first kiss between Miller and Suhor. It has enough charm and surprise to rank it among the top five television kisses of all time.
"The Body Count" issue: as you watch the pilot episode you will think that the violence level of the series is going to be in the style of "The A Team" (mega fighting and shooting but no real casualties). But it's not long before the thing morphs into another "The Rifleman", with the corpses piling up all around the ranch, the town, and the prairie. During its three-year run the young riders manage to kill more people in gunfights than died in all the Indian wars combined. Although the ultra-violence is pretty antiseptic it is often quite lame. When they do attempt a big action sequence it is often so cheaply staged that you will wish it had all happened off screen.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
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I was very happy to find this video and would like to be nottified if there are any more seasons for purchase. I watched this tv show when I was a kid with my Grandfather and we very much injoyed it, I was almost devistated when it was cancelled. At 11 or 12 when you are interested in the old west and buffalo bill, and wild bill are your hero's to have a show like this was wonderful. It is just as good now as it was then.
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When this series came out, I was still overseas-dad was in the military. But when we moved back it was in its rerun stage on The Family channel (now ABC Family). Being from a very strict religious family, this became one of the few shows that we were allowed to watch. I was mesmerized by the gun fights, barroom brawls, and the romance. My sisters and I would spend our afternoons on our bike pretending we were the various characters (I was always "The Kid") adding our own little flavor to the mix. Finding this series and watching these episodes brought back all those memories. But like someone else said I was bummed that there were no bonus features, but it's still great nontheless.
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