Walker Texas Ranger

Texas Ranger worship is just embarrassing.

It seems like a show about a sixty-year-old who used to be really, really good at karate who gets into fights with much younger men would be pretty good. But there's a channel on TV called Charge! that mostly shows old episodes of Walker Texas Ranger. I've never been able to sit through it, but I somehow managed to watch most of an episode.

Chuck Norris and his friends are on a fishing trip. They're in a lodge with some retirees surrounded by drug traffickers who want to kill them all. Chuck Norris and his friends are out of bullets. They mill around the house and occasionally look out through the curtains or open the door and look around. The criminals don't know they're out of bullets, but they stand around talking without any thought that someone might shoot them.

They stole a scene from the old Technicolor soap opera Violent Saturday (1955, Victor Mature, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine). The criminals set a car on fire and send it racing toward the house.

Later, they stole a gag from Straw Dogs. Criminals climb in the windows. One gets his leg caught in a decorative antique bear trap. Chuck Norris punches him and knocks him out. The other  ranger sprays a criminal with a fire extinguisher which apparently renders him incapable of firing his gun, then knocks him out, too. In both cases, even though they're out of bullets, they walk off without picking up the criminal's gun and simply trust that they won't get up and shoot them.

In conclusion, it wasn't very good.