Spoilers

“Shoot-Out at Land’s End”

Man from Atlantis meets the Old West.

According to IMDB, “While investigating an underwater volcano, Mark is stricken with sudden pain in the shoulder. This is not the first time he’s felt pain for no reason, and his instincts lead him to a deserted beach and, inexplicably, to a frontier town of the old west called Land’s End. There he meets his identical twin, Billy, another water-breather who washed up on a beach with no knowledge of his true identity. Billy takes Mark’s place aboard the Cetacean, leaving the Man from Atlantis to face the villains of Land’s End.”

Mark in a fish-out-of-water story that sees much of the science fiction elements replaced by those of a Western. Science fiction shows like Star Trek have done this type of episode many times, traveling to a different land, specifically a Western motif.

The twin aspect of the show was intriguing. It truly speaks to the mysterious past of Mark Harris. Billy did not have the strength of Mark, nor did Billy have the webbed-fingers. I am not sure why there were the differences. When we first met Billy, I wondered about the webbed-fingers and why people didn’t wonder about them, but the show made a point to show that Billy did not have them. Still, he was a water-breather and got strength from getting wet. I am not sure if the show has an idea of the overall story or if this is just a fun idea that they had, connecting it to a mysterious past that they never intended to flesh out.

Pernell Roberts from Bonanza appeared as the villainous Clint Hollister, the man who hired Billy as a hired gun.

It did seem that Billy made a turn from the bad guy to the heroic character quickly, but there was only a limited amount of time in the episode. This would have been a better story with a two-parter or if this were like one of the TV movies that started the show.

The show did a decent j0b of shooting the two Patrick Duffys during the scenes that Billy and Mark were together. Most of the shots looked really good, but there was one at the sheriff station that was not as strong.

They never even tried to figure out how Mark wound up in the Old West. I can only assume it was the same type of manner in which happened in “Giant.”