Cheyenne

Time Magazine once joked that Clint Walker's contract must call for him to remove his shirt at least once in every episode of "Cheyenne." This episode is no exception and, perhaps more than any other, it exemplifies how Walker's "beefcake" appeal could be accentuated by placing him -- like a blinded Samson -- into situations in which he suffered various forms of abuse. Here, for example, we see him stripped to the waist and chained at the ankles, every muscle of his massive physique sweating and straining as he's forced at gunpoint to push a mine-car filled with a heavy load of ore. At one point he's shown with his wrists cuffed together behind his back. All this bondage, rather than diminishing his strength, seemed to call attention to it while, at the same time, giving him a vulnerability which audiences found appealing. (Incidentally, the plot of "The Trap," in which the hero rides into a strange town and finds himself sentenced to hard labor on trumped-up charges, worked so well in "Cheyenne" that it popped up, in various forms, on a number of other western TV series.)