YMMV / The Wild Wild West

• Awesome Music: Besides the show's theme music, there's Dave Grusin's score for "The Night of the Puppeteer" (in particular Vivid's dance music — which, tellingly, was never tracked into any other episodes) and Richard Shores's cue for the fight between Jim and Titan in "The Night of the Eccentrics" (used in assorted season two episodes and a trailer for the series itself). Shores also composed a propulsive score for "The Night of the Firebrand" (with a variation of Artie's Leitmotif so beloved by the music editors that it was tracked into "The Night of the Bubbling Death", which actually aired before the episode it was written for). The finale of "The Night of Jack O'Diamonds" sees off El Sordo and the episode with an exuberant flourish. Some fans have seen it as composer Richard Markowitz "riding off into the sunset" (he launched the series musically, and this was last score for the series).
• Complete Monster: James West and Artemus Gordon have faced many killers, supervillains and criminal masterminds in their career in the secret service, these are the very worst:
  • "The Night of the Double-Edged Knife": Major General Ball is a treacherous former member of the US Army, angry at not getting the recognition he feels entitled to. Ball decides to rob the railroads and government, murdering five workers daily and framing the nearby Natives to inspire a ransom and let the Army wipe the Natives out. Upon Jim West investigating, Ball tries for a massacre to keep his cover while robbing a train and attempting to murder all aboard it.
  • "The Night of the Howling Light": Doctor Arcularis is a deranged psychologist who, fascinated by the discovery of conditional reflexes in animals, transfers the process onto humans. Through a combination of sensory torture and clear instructions, he develops a brainwashing procedure. For one victim, Arcularis imprisons him in a cage depriving him of water for several days, having conditioned him to throw away any he's given. Having already performed his cruel process upon five innocent people, Arcularis turns them into his mindless slaves who he regularly abuses, even breaking one victim's arm for a deception. Arcularis is contacted by Ahkeema, who wants him to brainwash Jim into killing Chief Ho-Tami, wrecking the peace negotiations. Uncaring about the brutal war this will cause, Arcularis is thrilled to further his experiments. Kidnapping Jim, he tortures him for over an entire week, attempting to break him. Capturing Artemus as well, Arcularis brainwashes him to murder Jim to clean up loose ends. Quick-witted and haughty, driven by a combination of scientific curiosity and sadism, Doctor Arcularis was easily one of the worst men the duo ever encountered.
  • "The Night of the Druid's Blood": Doctor Tristam and his associate Astarte are responsible, with the help of the magician the Great Asmodeus, for orchestrating the deaths of nine of the nation's greatest scientists and scholars, including Jim's friend and former teacher Professor Robey. Astarte seduces the men, until they are wrapped around her finger, enjoying using and killing them, while Tristam is the hidden mastermind. Astarte marries Senator Waterford so they can exploit his connections. When it becomes apparent Jim won't stop his investigations, using an elaborate con they make it appear he has gone insane. Initially suspecting a kidnapping ring, the truth is much more horrible. Doctor Tristam has discovered the secret of how to keep the brain alive without a body, leaving the geniuses constantly conscious but trapped, granting him the combined intelligence of the Nation's greatest minds. If any prove unwilling to answer his demands, he simply electrocutes them into compliance. No longer needing Waterford they attempt to burn him alive. Following Jim foiling the plan, Astarte attempts to trick the senator into killing him.
  • "The Night of the Brain": Braine, despite his cheerful good humor and pretense of good intentions, is a megalomaniac with a god complex. Unhappy with how "discorded" the world is, Braine plans to kill the five major heads of state and replace them with his disguised followers, then plunge the entire world into chaos—having the Spanish loot Africa, the American's attack South America, the Russians loot India, etc.—until the entire world is at war, so that Braine can take over whatever survives. Fearing the existence of a security measure that will ruin his plan, Braine implements an unnecessary cruel plot to lure James West to him, sending them newspapers predicting their friends' deaths, then implementing the predictions, blowing up beloved entertainer Almeric and arranging for Jim's former commander to fatally shoot himself; in both cases ensuring Jim could only watch helplessly. No longer needing the printer, Braine has him stabbed to death. Finally capturing Jim, Braine executes a loyal follower for missing a button from his uniform, then engages in another pointless test involving the life of his loyal assistant Voulee. In the end, Braine decides to simply hurt Jim until he tells him what he wants to know.
  • "The Night of the Undead": Doctor Articulus is a callous, self-serving chemist. Eighteen years prior to the episode, his experiments on special mold sample resulted in multiple deaths. Following his colleagues, doctors Armbruster and Dr. Paul Eddington, alerting the authorities, Articulus missed his wedding, with his bride eventually marrying Armbruster. Retreating to the Bayou, Articulus discovered using the mold he could create a mind-control potion. Using to turn numerous people, including Armbruster, into his zombie slaves, he forced them to work nonstop refining the mold, with two goons whipping to work faster, right up until they collapsed from exhaustion, Articulus dismissing a man drowning with "many more will take his place", and with the implication his victims were fully aware the entire time. To scare off anyone who might discover his operation, Articulus staged voodoo ceremonies, one of which led to the death of John Little. Having Eddington's teenage daughter Mariah drugged, Articulus planned to forcibly marry her to right "the wrong which was done to me", then send Mariah back to murder her father. Angered by their interference, Articulus attempts to murder Jim and Artie with Ammonia gas. Defeated, he attempted to strangle Jim.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Loveless's accomplices Antoinette the songstress and Voltaire the strongman (played by Richard Kiel, who would later famously play Jaws in two James Bond films — The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker). Many fans like to theorize that Antoinette is the mother of one of Loveless's children from the first reunion movie.
• Escapist Character: Jim and Artie both qualify.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans prefer to ignore the existence, canonically at least, of the made-for-TV reunion movies.
• Genius Bonus: Near the beginning of "The Night of the Diva" Artie is shown reading William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Those familiar with the play will find some interesting parallels between it and the episode's subplot involving Rosa Montebello.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Having Ross Martin and Robert Conrad as the two noble heroes of the series can be pretty funny when you know they would both later play killers on Columbo. And two particularly loathsome killers, at that.
• Narm:
  • "The Night of the Dancing Death". Especially for anyone who knows anything about the real Camorra.
  • The way Jim's amnesia is cured in "The Night of the Amnesiac" also falls into this category for some fans.
• Nightmare Fuel: Try and not feel creeped out about your house after a viewing of "The Night of the Man-eating House".
• Older Than They Think: The similarities between the plots of "The Night of the Pelican" and The Rock are amazing.
• Padding: "The Night of the Running Death" seems to have two tag scenes instead of one.
• Replacement Scrappy: Jeremy Pike, for some fans.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • "The Night of the Wolf" has several shots of a more-than-obviously-stuffed canine.
  • The tank in "The Night of the Juggernaut" was called out by some press sources at the time of the episode's original airing for being rather poorly done; the tank is indeed embarrassing, both in its design (late 1960s racing stripes?! seriously?) and in it being so slow Ironside could have outrun it. Without his wheelchair. (The tank in "The Night of the Freebooters," on the other hand, is far more convincing. And that was in season one, while the Juggernaut was for season four.)
  • In the robbery scene of "The Night of the Burning Diamond", some of the people "frozen" in time are more frozen than others, to put it politely.
  • The freeze-frames for "The Night of the Flaming Ghost" are uncharacteristically sloppy — the one for Act II (where an enemy knocks Jim out and sends him falling off a ledge) has a lag of a couple of seconds rather than have the section being filled in appearing immediately upon freezing, and the final pullback to show the complete collage is repeated (for the only time in the series) behind the end credits.
  • In "The Night of the Raven", Jim stabs Loveless' cat in the front paw closest to the camera, making said feline lick it in pain before leaping out of the tiny arena Jim's trapped in; the cat runs to another part of the room and resumes licking the injured paw, which as mentioned is the one closest to the camera... except now the cat's facing in another direction.
  • More of a lack of effects, but Victor Buono's character in "The Night of the Inferno" is supposed to be Mexican (or rather, Chinese passing for Mexican). Some brown contact lenses for Buono's light blue eyes might've helped.
• Tear Jerker: Artie's anguished reaction to apparently killing Jim in "The Night of the Death Masks."
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some fans think the Switch to Color was detrimental. Also, there are some who consider the nine Ross Martin-less episodes in season four to be hardly worth watching. The decision to have the end credits for the final season's shows run over a standard collage rather than an episode-specific one (see the illustrations on the recap pages) also doesn't appeal to some viewers.
• Values Dissonance:
  • More than once, a villainness is given much a lighter punishment than her male counterparts such as Morn in "The Night of the Flying Pie Plate", who gets a lighter sentence than her other conspirators — including her two sisters, who significantly didn't have Girl of the Week status, or even allowed to walk away scot-free, apparently simply because she is a beautiful woman. This is compounded at the end of "The Night of the Red-Eyed Madmen", when Sgt. Musk gives a rather insightful, moving speech about how she'd only wanted to be seen as more than "just a woman." This small step forward is promptly ignored in favor of having her and another woman fawn over a new dress and begin discussing how to look their best when the train pulls into Carson City.
  • The entire last scene of "The Night of the Firebrand" just drips with misogyny, as West and Gordon decide that the punishment for Vixen O'Shaughnessy (Lana Wood) — for helping mastermind an attempted massacre at a military fort and a coup against Canada — is to be "forced to return to the feminine fold" so that she will "leave the fighting to us," by which they mean they're just going to make her return to the ladies' finishing school she escaped from. When she objects and goes into a Character Filibuster about all the wrongs that still need fighting against in the world, West basically gives her a Vulcan nerve pinch (a Running Gag in this episode) and reflects that he'd better tell the school's headmistress how to do it.
  • "The Night of the Tycoons" romps home with the gold in Misogynistic Episode Writing; other episodes have female villains, but there's an unpleasant tone throughout the episode suggesting women have no business being in charge of huge corporations, capped off by its tag scene with Lionel's fiancée Kyra booted off to the kitchen and Jim telling him he's got to keep these women in their place.
  • All that said, there are exceptions: Lady Beatrice in "The Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo", Posey in "The Night of the Poisonous Posey" (although captured offscreen), Laurette in "The Night of the Winged Terror, Part 2" and most notably Astarte in "The Night of the Druid's Blood" — Jim makes it very clear to Astarte that she'll hang for her crimes (including helping to murder a beloved professor of his) and he won't mourn her.

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