Bruce Campbell has brought many characters to life throughout his acting career. Most movie fans know Campbell as Ash Williams, the iconic horror-fighting hero from Sam Raimi‘s Evil Dead trilogy. Others will probably recognize him as Sam Axe, the former Navy SEAL turned con man from Burn Notice. In the 90s, Campbell took on his most underrated role in a series that blended classic Western tropes with sci-fi elements, creating a “weird Western” that beat shows like Firefly to the punch. Sadly, the series lasted only for 27 episodes before it was canceled.
That series is The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. As the title suggests, Campbell plays Brisco County Jr., a lawyer turned bounty hunter who’s hired to track down notorious outlaw John Bly (Billy Drago). Brisco’s travels take him across the West, where he learns about the “Orb”: a mysterious golden globe that was discovered in a mine. Whoever encounters the Orb gains superhuman abilities, so Brisco has to deal with scenarios that feel more like an episode of The Twilight Zone than your standard Western. Yet that’s what makes the series worth watching.
‘The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.’ Was Inspired By an Iconic Movie Series
Brisco County, Jr. (Bruce Campbell) rides a rocket in ‘The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.’Image via FOX
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. owes its wild blend of Western and sci-fi elements to a certain movie series. Fox executive Bob Greenblatt approached creators Jeffrey Boam and Carlton Cuse to develop the series after watching and loving Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; Boam worked on the final version of the script, while Cuse served as a consultant. Greenblatt wanted the duo to develop a television series that, like Indiana Jones, took after movie serials. That led Cuse to come up with Brisco County, Jr.’s winning formula, though he admitted in an interview with Slant Magazine that making movies and making television were two entirely different schools of discipline:
“I was very intrigued by this idea and actually went out and watched a lot of old serials and basically found that the serials fell into one of two categories which were Westerns and science fiction. So basically I had this idea, ‘wouldn’t it be great to combine the two genres.’ None of us had previously done much in the way of television. We approached it from the idea of trying to be incredibly cinematic about it. We wanted to make it more like we were doing a mini movie every week.”
Cuse and Boam managed to keep the same energy of movie serials running through The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., with nearly every episode bearing a catchy title or ending on a cliffhanger—or both. Brisco County Jr. is also hilarious, using Campbell’s natural charisma. A key moment comes in the very first episode, where an outlaw named Pete holds Brisco at gunpoint; Brisco immediately snatches his gun and then hands it back to him, leaving Pete extremely befuddled. The Orb and other sci-fi elements, including an episode where Brisco rides a rocket like a horse, would serve as a basis for Cuse’s work on Lost.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Western Icon Are You Most Like? No Name · Doc Holliday · Wyatt Earp · Mattie Ross
Pick your name, your gun, your horse and how you spend a night in town, and we will tell you which legend of the Old West you would have been. Four icons are waiting at the end of this: the stranger who never gives his name, the gambler who would die for a friend, the lawman who never wanted the badge, and the girl nobody has ever talked out of anything.
🚬No Name(Dollars Trilogy)
🃏Doc Holliday(Tombstone)
⭐Wyatt Earp(Tombstone)
🐎Mattie Ross(True Grit)
01
The town is about to learn your name. What do they call you? In a Western, what people call you is already half the character.
02
What are you carrying? Everything out here is character, right down to what is sitting on your hip.
03
What are you riding? A hero and their horse is one of the oldest relationships in cinema.
04
You have got one evening in town. How does it go? The saloon is where these films quietly tell you who somebody really is.
05
A stranger offers you money for a job that sounds like trouble. Somebody always turns up with a full purse and a bad idea.
06
Somebody is waiting for you in the street. What does the town see? Two people, an empty road, and everybody else watching from behind the shutters.
07
What is the one thing you will not do out here? The code is about the only thing west of the river that actually holds.
08
The job is finished. Where does the story leave you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your icon.
The Dust Has Settled Your Western Icon Is…
Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble.
This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.
The Dollars Trilogy · 1964–1966
The Man With No Name
You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to,
because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room
without you ever having to mention it.
Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the
backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left.
You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you
have never felt any real need to fix it for them.
The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the
moment he is not, and he never explains that part either.
You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.
Doc Holliday · Tombstone · 1993
Doc Holliday
You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal
person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two
things were in any tension.
Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it,
which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything.
You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the
handful of people you actually care about.
Val Kilmer’s performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep
getting sharper as the situation gets worse.
You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.
Wyatt Earp · Tombstone · 1993
Wyatt Earp
You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the
alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most
Western reason there has ever been.
Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left
alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it.
You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who
is exposed rather than who is to blame.
These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the
person holding the line almost never gets thanked.
You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.
Mattie Ross · True Grit · 1969 & 2010
Mattie Ross
Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had
already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.
Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through
argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw.
You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you
turn up exactly when you said you would.
True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen
and every adult around her has to catch up.
You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of
you.
Bruce Campbell Wants to Bring Back Brisco County Jr.
While The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. was a critical darling and scored high ratings when it first premiered, it suffered the same fate as other sci-fi series on Fox and was canceled after a single season. Yet that didn’t stop it from becoming a cult classic, or one of its stars from wanting to reboot the series. In an interview with Collider, Bruce Campbell said he’d play Brisco County Jr. again if he got the chance, adding that he has a lot of ideas, including exploring an older, more grizzled Brisco who hung up his guns and returned to lawyering.
Genre mashups are a dime a dozen on television nowadays, but The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. is one of the first to stand out. It mashed up the pleasures of a Western with the intrigue of a science fiction show, creating a hilarious, action-packed show that deserved far better than it got.
Leave a Reply