IN: Review: Bonanza had a great cast of wonderful actors. Lorne Greene, Pernell Whitaker, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, and even Guy Williams (as the cousin who was brought in for several episodes during 1964 to replace Adam when he was leaving the series). The cast had chemistry, and they seemed to genuinely like each other. That made many of their weakest stories work a lot better than they should have. It also made many of their best stories into great western drama.

Like any show that was shooting over thirty episodes every season, there are bound to be some weak ones. However, most of the time each episode had an interesting story, some kind of conflict, and a resolution that usually did not include violence. While Bonanza was a western, the gunfighting was never featured as the main attraction. While I am a fan of The Rifleman and Wanted: Dead Or Alive; those shows usually ended with a gunfight. Gunfights were how many westerns resolved every conflict, and Bonanza was very different in trying to seek peaceful resolutions and harmony instead of killing.

In the early years of Bonanza, there are some interesting episodes that do feature a lot of gunfights. Those episodes stand in contrast to the rest of the series, but they are pretty good in and of themselves. In 1964, when Pernell Whitaker wanted to leave the show, Guy Williams was brought in to replace him. Williams was playing the role of a long-lost cousin. Unfortunately, Whitaker decided to stay one more year, and thus Williams was written out of the series when he moved away to marry Adam's old girlfriend. If Williams had stayed on for the duration of Bonanza, one can only wonder how much better the series would have been in the years after 1965, when Pernell Whitaker left the show.

Undoubtedly, once Pernell Whitaker left the series, the stories focused more on comedy and country hijinks. Whitaker had often played the heavy in many episodes, and his absence left a void in the cast. Little Joe always wanted to play the nice kid, and Hoss always wanted to play the good old boy with a heart of gold. Since Ben was the kind and wise patriarch of the family, that did not leave too much room for any gunfights.

At some point they hired a ranch hand called Candy (David Canary) who became their fourth member of the cast, but Candy was never featured in any gunfights, and he was hardly more than an older version of Little Joe. For a year or two they also had Ben take in some other lost cousin (Jamie, played by the forgettable Mitch Vogel) who was a teenager that was usually getting into some kind of trouble with someone.

Apparently by adding the teenager, the studio was looking to attract younger viewers. It also gave the writers a chance to write episodes about teenage problems, alcohol, delinquency, etc. Those kind of preachy episodes were popular in the 1960s as a reaction of the establishment media to the counter-culture movement. Dragnet was probably the most popular source of law and order TV, though Hawaii 5-0, The F.B.I. and many other shows also tried to jump on the bandwagon by doing TV shows that featured irresponsible teenagers causing mischief, mayhem, and crime.

The addition of a teenager to the cast gave the Cartwrights more chances to show up and solve problems, but those episodes feel very contrived and are not very good in general. After Dan Blocker died, the series limped along for another year or so before it was canceled. The last season was pretty bad, as it featured Little Joe tracking down the killers of his wife, and most of the episodes were somewhat depressing because Little Joe was usually drinking or otherwise remembering how much he loved his wife, and how unfair it was that she was killed.

I don't think I have ever seen the last episode of the series, and I wonder if they ever officially wrapped it up in some way. By the last year, there was only Ben (Lorne Greene) actually living on the Ponderosa, as Adam had moved away (and never came back even once as a guest) and Hoss had died and Little Joe had left after his wife (in the series) had been killed by drifters.

Overall, the era from 1959-1965 is the best of this series. Once Adam left, it slowly declined. Most of the shows before 1970 are pretty good too. By 1970, the series was trying to hard to be hip and topical, and it had lost a lot of its western flavor. The addition of Candy and the teenage kid also diluted the general quality of the show, and the death of Hoss (Dan Blocker) was the final nail. Bonanza is probably the best western series ever made, and of the 465 episodes that were produced, at least one hundred of them are excellent western drama! That is a pretty good record. Even the worst of Bonanza is better than a lot of other TV shows.
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OUT: positive

IN: Review: **SPOILERS** Since the disappearance at sea of her favorite niece Phyllis murder mystery writer Abigail Mitchell, Ruth Gordon, has strong suspicions that it was Phyllis' husband Edmund Galvin, Charles Frank, who was responsible for her death. In fact Abigail is convinced that he murdered her and made it look like a tragic accident.

Knowing that there's no evidence to have Edmund arrested for Phyillis' death and deciding to take the law into her own hands Abigail cooks up this elaborate plan to do him in and make it look, like Phyllis' death, a tragic accident. Getting Edmund to secretly come over to her mansion to give him the combination to her walk-in safe, as she's about to leave on vacation for New York City, Abigail tricks him into going inside locking the startled and surprised Edmund in. With the safe being soundproof nobody at the mansion the butler maid and Abigail's personal secretary Veronica, Mariette Hartley, hear him screaming for help and the next day Edmund is found suffocated to death. Veronica discovered Edmund's body as she was about to put away, for safe keeping, Abigail's latest murder mystery manuscript.

Lt. Columbo, Peter Falk, is called on the case involving the strange death of Edmund Garvin to determine if it's a murder or a tragic accident. Going through Edmund's apartment Columbo is puzzled to find out that he doesn't have a single photo of his late wife, who's been missing for just a month! This ties into what Abigail always felt about him in Edmund not being in love with Phyllis and also a suspect in her, in Abigail's mind, murder.

Columbo a big fan, together with his wife, of Abigail's murder mystery novels has a hard time realizing that she in fact was responsible for Edmund's death. All the evidence points to Abigil including a pair of missing car keys that was Edmunds. This all proved that Abgail was in fact in the house, not on her way to the airport, when Edmund was locked inside the walk-in safe.

Going through all the evidence Columbo comes up with this strange conclusion that Edmund must have left some evidence inside the safe in writing to who his killer is. That conclusion is quickly checkmated when it's found out that Edmund didn't even have a pen or pencil as well as light, with the safe light-bulb burned out, on him to write it. There's also something very odd that's inside the safe that has been on Lt. Columbo's mind ever since he came on the case. This has to do with the black paint residue that was found under the dead Edmund's fingernails and on his belt buckle!

It's that evidence, when put together with a number of other items in the safe, that in the end hangs Edmund's murder on the tricky and very cunning mystery writer Abigail Mitchell. Edmund let Abigail unknowingly convict herself in his final attempt as the air in the safe was being used up, by his breathing, in using burnt out matchsticks to write on Abigail last manuscript who murdered him: Abigail Mitchell!
What is this review like?
OUT:
positive