User Reviews

Overall poor dialogue and unbelievably bad accents. Possibly the worst Gunsmoke episode of all.

Despite a strong cast that includes the strong and versitle Harry Morgan, and Jim Bacus, this episode fails badly. This was written to fail, and even if Miss Kitty herself came back it would not have helped. This was just so badly written no amount of acting could have saved it. The plot alone is hard to swallow. Even if someone tried to spoil it in a writtet review, it wouldn't hurt anything. If this episode was erased and burned, it would be a good thing.

The Hockett men are back. Jed Hockett's three sons managed to find women willing to marry them (by abducting them and forcing them to work on their farm). This episode begins where the awful Season 20 episode "The Wiving" ends.

Harry Morgan returns to the role of Jed Hockett, the patriarch of the family. He is no better in the sequel than he was in the earlier episode. The other sons and their prospective wives again include Linda Sublette as Emily, Herman Poppe as Luke, Dennis Redfield as Shep, and Michele Marsh as Sarah. This is the last appearance in the series for each.

Karen Grassle and John Reilly appeared in "The Wiving," but they are replaced in this installment by Amanda McBroom as Fran Carter and David Soul as Ike Hockett. (I like to think Grassle and Reilly read the script and refused to reprise their roles.) McBroom would later find widespread success as a singer and songwriter. Her most famous composition to date is the song "The Rose," which was a huge hit for Bette Midler and the title song for the movie of the same name.

Soul appears here following his memorable performance as a vigilante policeman in the film Magnum Force starring Clint Eastwood. A few years earlier, Soul starred in the wholesome, family-oriented ABC series Here Comes the Brides, which has some high-level similarities to this story. Shortly after his appearance here, he would begin starring as Detective Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson in the series Starsky and Hutch.

Actor Jim Backus makes his sole Gunsmoke appearance in this story as the obnoxious "no-stripe" Reverend Sims. Of course, Backus will always be known for the character Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island and for providing the voice for the cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

Fran Ryan appears for the second time as Hannah Cobb, the owner of the Long Branch Saloon. Clearly the Gunsmoke producers chose to lessen the importance of the Long Branch to the life of Dodge City in Season 20. Where it had been a major focal point of so many stories in the first nineteen seasons, it was relegated to background noise in Season 20. In fact, the Bulls Head Saloon is featured about as prominently as the Long Branch in Season 20.

This is the last episode in the series directed by Victor French. Technically, this was French's last involvement in Gunsmoke, as it was the next-to-last episode filmed. (The last episode filmed was "Hard Labor.") However, French guest starred in the episode "The Sharecroppers," which was the last first-run episode to be broadcast.

Unfortunately, the strong cast cannot save this stinker. This episode is the worst in the entire series. The regular cast is all but completely absent. There is only a brief early scene with Matt Dillon and Festus Haggen in conversation with Miss Hannah in the Long Branch after she receives a letter asking her to be the Maid of Honor at the weddings. (This scene is sometimes cut from the episodes in syndication, which renders the episode free of any of the regular cast members, other than Fran Ryan. Calling her a regular cast member is questionable since this is only her second appearance in the series, and she does not appear in the opening credits.)

Nothing of consequence happens in the story. Most of this mess is boring with an extraordinary amount of talking about nothing. The proceedings are confusing and nonsensical with numerous scenes that serve no purpose other than to fill time.

Reverend Sims is conducting baptisms by the river. The Hockett party happens to find the good Reverend, and he insists on having a "box social" in the afternoon before conducting the weddings in the evening. (We learn this from the shouting confrontation between Jed and the Reverend.) Then a group of cowboy bullies led by Jinx Tobin and his cousins happens to come along to introduce some tension into the proceedings. Preacher Sims decides to conduct an auction with the picnic lunches the betrothed women just happened to bring along. He auctions the picnic baskets, and the companionship of the preparer is included. Meanwhile, Jed complains about the delays and proceeds to get drunk.

(There is even a scene where Jed exclaims, "I have been bored half to cryin' up to now, anyway!" to which the audience may feel compelled to agree.)

Only Gunsmoke completists should bother with this episode. As I said in my review for "The Wiving" it is astounding that anyone associated with the show considered that episode warranted a sequel. It is even more perplexing this waste of screen time was written, and that someone read this script and thought it was worth filming. The episode is a disgrace to the generally excellent body of work that was Gunsmoke, and it is an insult to the devoted fans of the series. I'm with the reviewer that said they would give this a zero rating if they could.

In this episode, which is a sequel to an earlier episode called 'The Wiving', it appears to have been written in fifteen minutes because we get an hour full of a crowded cast that was more in line with the Keystone Cops that a episode from 'Gunsmoke'. With some fine actors in the guest cast it was a pure disappointment to watch them play buffoons characters in a story that was less than interesting.

If you are able to make it through the first five minutes of the show without changing channels or fast forwarding through the twentieth season collection, the story somehow gets better. But odds are against making it past the allotted time.

Jed Hockett (Harry Morgan) has three boys. All three decide to wed three local gals- so Jed plans a wedding where all three will marry. And that about sums up the entire episode. The next 45 minutes are situations that happen the day of the wedding. Some conflict approaches when three cowboys ride in with information about one of the gals Jed's boys are going to marry.

And as you can guess, the conflict does not end until nearly everyone is involved in a comic melee fist-a-cuffs. And only then, if the minister is sober or still around, will the weddings take place.

There was some poor acting in this show. Harry Morgan not only was uninteresting and unfunny but also looked goofy in the costume he was provided. Jim Backus, who played the minister, acting was just as poor and his sideburns looked ridiculous. But on the other side, I did find David Soul and Dennis Redfield work was nicely done.

Matt and Festus make a cameo early in the episode but had no function in the show. This was just poor overall and not a good watch for viewers.

The other reviews here pretty much give you a sense of the worthiness (or lack thereof) of this episode. I'm ranking it the 2nd worst episode in the long, legendary history of the series, just ahead of its pitiful prequel, "The Wiving" (season 20, episode 6).

The only reason why I'm ranking this episode slightly ahead of its prequel is because this episode (if taken as a stand-alone episode) does not condone Stockholm Syndrome as an acceptable premise for the making of a happy ending.

All of us longtime Gunsmoke fans know that Marshall Dillon made, at the very least, a cameo appearance in each of the 635 episodes of the series. I DVR Gunsmoke each day on MeTV. I watch each episode and eventually delete all but a few favorites. MeTV, like most of these oldies networks, tend to delete a scene or two from each episode in order to make time for more commercials. In the case of this episode, MeTV deleted the one requisite scene that had Marshall Dillon (and apparently Festus as well). Therefore, this episode, as it aired today on MeTV, had zero appearances from any of the stars shown in the opening credits (Doc, Festus, Newly, and Matt).

This was the worst idea of an episode. It literally make no sense. It was a sequel to "The Wiving" from a year before. You'd think it being towards the end of the series before being cancelled, the writers would've paid tribute to the cast by honoring them. The actual Gunsmoke cast barely makes it in this episode. This had to be a potential spin-off idea from CBS. The mom & dad who were played by Harry Morgan & Fran Ryan are involved in getting their three sons married off all the same day. Shenanigans ensue with the brothers tusslin' with a group of local ruffians. One of the soon to be brides knew one of the ruffians & the girl keeps it a secret. Jim Backus plays a preacher who'd rather sip on some spirits than lift any for his congregation. Later that same year Harry Morgan would sign to play Col Potter on MASH. David Soul would make a pilot for ABC called "Starsky and Hutch" & it would run 4 seasons from 1975-1979.

The title of this review says it all. It's worth zero! Morgan is a very good actor, though I can't say the same for the others. Did they all need the money? Harry just runs around yelling all the time is this episode. He was pretty good in MASH, but a dud here.

I haven't seen them all, but I'm betting this is one of the worst episodes of Gunsmoke! A close second would be the "The Wiving" also a Gunsmoke episode. Both these turkey's had the same characters but most were played by different actors. Both story lines were very week, the parts were poorly written as well. This left little for the actors to do with these silly characters. Jim Backus and Harry Morgan's characters have facial hair and is some of the worse make up I've seen in a series of this quality. I've seen better beards in high school plays. This was a compete was of time. Good actors like David Soul, and really good actors like Jim Backus are completely wasted on this weak episode. Perhaps because it was nearing the end of the run of great TV series they started having trouble getting good scripts.