User Reviews

On a cattle buying trip Michael Landon runs into an old Ponderosa hand John Saxon who lies sick in a hotel room. He's got a bad fever and the town wants to get well.. But only for the purpose of someone killing him in a gunfight.

Judge Ford Rainey has whipped the town up against Saxon. Rainey's son was killed by Saxon in another gunfight. The only friend he has is Little Joe Cartwright.

Michael Landon as the outsider has a lot of trenchant observations to make. As for Saxon, his portrayal might be compared to Gregory Peck as Jimmy Ringo in The Gunfighter. High class acting from the both of them.

Which makes grim story, one top class episode.

Just as great series occasionally have bad episodes, poor series can, by accident, have good ones. Case in point... "Bonanza", a generally flaccid, sappy program, delivers a decidedly "Gunsmoke"-y story here.

On a cattle-buying trip, Little Joe runs into Steve Friday, an ex-Ponderosa employee, who -- after winning a gunfight he didn't want -- had been forced into the life of a gunfighter. The town's judge has cornered Friday into a legal gunfight, so he can be properly punished for (what he sees as) Friday's murder of his son. Naturally, Little Joe takes Friday's side, simply because he'll be put to death without a trial. The judge points out that fair gunfights are the legal exception.

The story works, because it's more sober and less talky than the average "Bonanza" episode, and there's a fair degree of ambiguity in the characters and their situations (especially the judge's discomfort about what he's doing). The ending is something of a surprise.

This is the Bonanza show?? SPOILERS: NOTHING at all happens! Stupid waste of time. Good acting but the story is hardly worth it at all. End is anti-climactic. Worse of all the stories I've seen in a while.