What a shame this show didn't get a better chance at succeeding. Based very loosely on the classic 1960 Western, The Magnificent Seven, starring Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen (which was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai), The Magnificent Seven: The Series (as it was known during its original broadcast), is a crisply entertaining oater in the grand tradition of network TV Westerns -- a positive rarity on late 1990s network scheduling. Saddled with an unfortunate night and timeslot, the 1998 mid-season replacement failed to find an audience, but was brought back for a second time in 1999, with a still deadly position on the schedule, where it promptly failed again. The final thirteen episodes of the series, some of which may not have been broadcast during its final season (I didn't follow the series' second season when it originally aired), are included in MGM/20th Century-Fox's three-disc box set release, The Magnificent Seven: Season Two.

Premiering in January of 1998, The Magnificent Seven briefly occupied the 8:00PM Saturday night slot of CBS's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, before moving up to the 9:00PM slot for February and March. Failing to catch fire in the ratings (it didn't receive a good lead-in from the already faded last season of Dr. Quinn, nor did it receive a bump from upcoming 10:00PM hit, Walker: Texas Ranger, with Chuck Norris), the show returned again in July, playing through September, with no thought on the network's part that it would return. Seeing the above schedule, it's no wonder the show had a difficult time attracting an audience. But viewers loyal to the show lobbied CBS (much like they had for Dr. Quinn) to give the show another chance, and new episodes were ordered for mid-season. The Magnificent Seven showed up again in January of 1999, on another weak night for potential audiences who might have enjoyed the show - Fridays at 9:00PM - where it quickly sank for good by March. It did reappear briefly in July, to burn off the remaining episodes and for reruns.

It's not difficult to figure out what CBS was thinking when it put The Magnificent Seven into production in the first place. Two Westerns had won the Best Picture Oscar in the early 1990s (Dancing With Wolves in 1990, and Unforgiven in 1992), while cable stations were getting big ratings with original Western movies and series; it certainly seemed like the Western was again a viable genre for TV. CBS's Western medical drama Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman had been quite successful with families during its first two seasons, so it's not surprising that CBS would take a chance on revisiting The Magnificent Seven in the hopes of keeping family viewers around who longed for an old-time Western series.

Certainly using the name The Magnificent Seven helped get buzz for the new series, but in the long run, it was probably that instant name recognition that may have contributed to the show's failure. The original The Magnificent Seven film was at one point (and very well may still be) the most frequently broadcast theatrical film in television history (if you grew up during the fledgling days of Ted Turner's TBS network, you remember that the film seemed to be on every other week). With that kind of viewer identification, it would seem a natural for the network to want to cash in by loosely adapting the film's format to a weekly series. But a major problem happens when you update a previous project like 1960's The Magnificent Seven: the audience had better be wowed by the new and improved version, or else. With a title like that, with such strong audience identification with the original material, the new TV series was asking for comparisons it couldn't meet. Equally important was the fact that The Magnificent Seven series was much more violent, more male-oriented, than the family and female-friendly hit, Dr. Quinn. Featuring an all-male ensemble cast (with only one regular supporting female cast member), the heavy gunplay and jocular male bonding antics of the cast quite possibly pushed away female viewers who weren't interested in The Magnificent Seven all-testosterone dynamics. As well, the deadly Friday/Saturday night platforms -- weak nights for ratings anyway -- didn't help establish an already iffy project.

Whatever the reason for The Magnificent Seven's failure, it's too bad it didn't go beyond its twenty-three episode run. I caught one or two episodes of the first season, but with all the jumping around on the schedule, I didn't follow it. And frankly, I didn't even realize that it had come back for a second season. So I was happy to check out the new DVD boxed set, The Magnificent Seven: Season Two. And, I'm happy to say, the shows themselves didn't disappoint. Filmed rather lavishly, with some good approximations of feature-film cinematography and lighting (quite a few episodes have the golden, hazy look of comparable big-screen period pieces from the time, such as Wyatt Earp or Tombstone) and accurate costuming, The Magnificent Seven: Season Two looks solid and convincing. The gunplay is heavy and believable, with large-scale stunts scattered throughout the thirteen episodes of this second season. Flavorful location work reminded me of classic Western series from the 1950s and 1960s, giving The Magnificent Seven: Season Two a nice sense of fresh air and wide open spaces necessary for a Western. The scripts are solid, too. The stories deal with traditional Western subplots such as landowners getting squeezed out by encroaching civilization and business and personal vendettas between gunmen, but they also manage to be socially conscious, as well (just as the great TV Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s, like Gunsmoke and Rawhide were), with stories about female bounty hunters, race relations (one of the new "Seven," Nathan, is an African-American who subs as a doctor for the town of Four Corners), and immigrant laborers' rights. Never preachy, The Magnificent Seven: Season Two may look at the issues relevant to today, but it never forgets its classic Western action roots.

As good as the art direction, cinematography, screenwriting, and directing were, I was most impressed by the ensemble performances in The Magnificent Seven: Season Two. As any movie or TV lover will tell you, chemistry within an ensemble cast makes or breaks such a project. The original 1960 film version of The Magnificent Seven had it to burn among its hot-shot cast, and, somewhat surprisingly, this new TV version made all the right choices when it came to casting the series. The show's lead, Michael Biehn, plays the largely silent, deadly Chris Larabee with just the right amount of big screen charisma that's needed to anchor the show. Biehn, always so close to breaking out as a lead A-list actor, probably is better suited to the small screen, where his laconic underplaying goes over well; he's perfectly cast here. Eric Close, taking on the Steve McQueen role of Vin, has the same sort of scrappy energy and vitality that McQueen possessed. Anthony Starke ("Jimmy" from the classic Seinfeld episode) is really quite good playing the charming gambler Ezra Standish (patterned after the Robert Vaughn role in the film), while Andrew Kavovit (J. D. Dunne), Rick Worthy (Nathan Jackson), and Beauty and the Beast's Ron Perlman (Josiah Sanchez) round out the cast nicely in well-defined, nicely tuned supporting roles. Special mention goes out to Dale Midkiff as humorous wild stud Buck Wilmington. Midkiff, perhaps best remembered portraying Elvis in a TV miniseries, and from Pet Semetary, really lets loose here, giving the series a much welcomed boost of energy anytime he's onscreen. Swaggering around like he owns the show, Midkiff brings a big-screen presence to The Magnificent Seven that's memorable. For a show that absolutely needed actors who could cleanly and clearly delineate their characters for the audience, as well as create a sense of fraternal bond necessary for the backstory to make sense, the actors of The Magnificent Seven do amazingly well.

Here are the 13, one hour episodes of the three-disc box set The Magnificent Seven: Season Two, as described on their slimcases:

DISC ONE

The New Law
At the behest of the railroad, the Seven are forcibly relieved of their duties by a federal marshal, leaving their future -- and that of the town -- uncertain.

Sins of the Past
Vin's past comes back to haunt him when he's arrested and faces hanging for a murder he did not commit. Meanwhile, Ezra invests in a saloon and finds that his stiffest competition is his own mother.

Love and Honor
When a vindictive Mexican landowner arrives looking for Inez, a smitten Buck is challenged to defend her honor -- and her life.

Vendetta
The Seven must protect Chris' former father-in-law from a vengeful matriarch and her brood of deadly gunfighters.

DISC TWO

Wagon Train (Part 1)
Vin falls for a married woman and emotions run high as the Seven escort a group of homesteaders en route to their disputed land.

Wagon Train (Part 2)
As Vin and Charlotte's relationship intensifies, the wagon train is attacked by a greedy squatter who wants the settlers' gold-rich land for himself.

The Trial
When Nathan's long-lost father, a former slave, is accused of murdering a white man, the Seven must protect him from a bloodthirsty mob demanding vengeance.

Chinatown
The Seven are called upon to protect a camp of immigrant laborers from the maltreatment of their unscrupulous foreman, and Ezra purchases a Chinese girl to prevent her from being abused.

DISC THREE

Achilles
J. D. is badly shaken when he accidently kills an innocent bystander while foiling a bank robbery, and Ezra gets down to the nitty-gritty in a high=stakes poker matchup.

Penance
A haunted Josiah is the prime suspect in a string of grisly murders, and Nathan has mixed emotions when Rain announces that she's about to marry.

Lady Killers
Two female bounty hunters, one of whom is a cold-blooded killer, arrive in town and stir up trouble while on the trail of a notorious outlaw.

Serpents
Ezra struggles with temptation -- and Chris -- when a hired assassin is found dead in his hotel room holding $10,000 in cash.

Obsession
Chris must come to grips with his tortured past when he tries to help an old flame and comes face-to-face with his wife's killer.

The DVD:

The Video:
Now, for the bad news. The full screen transfers for The Magnificent Seven: Season Two haven't improved any over Season One's. Still grainy, with a lot of picture noise and compression issues, it's apparent that MGM/Fox just dumped this DVD out to get fans off their backs about releasing the last batch of episodes.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 2.0 stereo mix is adequate, but hardly impressive with all that gunplay. Too bad. There's a Spanish 2.0 mix, as well, with English and Spanish subtitles available, as well as close-captioning.

The Extras:
As further proof that MGM/Fox just dumped this, there are no extras for The Magnificent Seven: Season Two -- not even a measly original network promo.

Final Thoughts:
A real rarity -- a lavish, big-budget network TV Western series from the 1990s -- The Magnificent Seven: Season Two is a treat for Western fans. Good, solid scripting, lush production design, evocative cinematography, tight direction, and a fantastic ensemble cast makes The Magnificent Seven: Season Two a natural for horse opera fans looking to watch something new after the same old Bonanza reruns week in and week out. I recommend The Magnificent Seven: Season Two.