Here Come The Brides: The Complete Second Season

It might be a bit of a cliché to say that they were different times, but after watching just one episode of Here Comes The Brides, it's very apparent that they were. The show, which was inspired by the hit musical Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, ran for a couple of seasons at the end of the '60s. It represents the kind of wholesome family entertainment that couldn't possibly offend anyone, thanks to its blend of gentle humour and non-challenging drama. Set in Seattle, circa 1860, it tells the tale of the three Bolt brothers: Jason (played by Robert Brown), Jeremy (teen pop idol Bobby Sherman) and Joshua (a pre-Starsky & Hutch David Soul). They run a logging company that's losing lumberjacks because of the lack of female companionship, so they decide to convince 100 eligible women to relocate from the East coast to help boost the population. And that's pretty much all the plot any show needed back then. There's an evil mill owner to oppose the brothers, but "evil" is a relative term; he's not much of a villain. This is very innocuous stuff, although it somehow manages to stop short of being terribly insipid. There's also some rather unexpected storylines along the way, including Bigfoot sightings and sniper attacks, but most of it is run-of-the-mill frontier town stuff where cowboy-esque things transpire, bad stuff happens to bad people and everyone learns something by the time the show is over. There are 26 episodes spread over six DVDs and they look remarkably clean and colourful despite their age. The only extras are brief introductions to some episodes by Jonathan Etter, the author of a book celebrating the show, but they're nothing to write home about. Anyone with the vaguest memory of Here Comes The Brides will be surprised that it's exactly how they remembered it: the epitome of warm and fuzzy television.