Bonanza 01x09: Mr. Henry Comstock

You know what we haven’t seen enough of on this show? Trespassers. Trespassers and inaccurately represented historical figures. Luckily, this episode will remedy that, and also provide me with even more opportunities to drone on about the history of silver mining in Nevada. Because that’s the part you really come to read about.

Also, for a fun change, we get to watch an episode that's frequently criticized by fans of Bonanza for being boring and terrible. Let’s find out why!

It’s an easy, soft-weathered day along the Ponderosa side of Lake Tahoe. The sun is shining, the birds are fluttering, we’re looking at an actual location shot next to a real lake instead of a painting, and everything is pleasant. The Cartwrights ride up to the scenic vista, in good spirits but tired. Adam lets us know that it’s hot work moving cattle into the high country, and Hoss lets us know he’s super mega thirsty.

They all hop down to the shore and start drinking the nice, clean water. Little Joe almost falls in, but Ben pulls him up in time.

“Careful, Little Joe!” Ben chuckles, “That’s the closest you’ve come to taking a bath in months!”

First of all, that is disgusting. Second of all, if that’s the case then Ben should push Joe in there and not let him come out until he’s clean. Send one of the others home for soap and spare clothes.

Bonanza 01x08: The Philip Deidesheimer Story

Good old Bonanza. Since the last episode started out fun and ending up kind of annoying, the series is going to balance things out with an episode that starts out depressing and ends up even more depressing. Keep some tissues and maybe a bottle of gin handy for this one.

Also, I hope you like learning about structural engineering.

We begin the happy fun-time parade with a beautiful young woman in a fancy pink dress. She’s Helene Holloway, daughter of Andrew Holloway. It’s the night of Helene’s engagement party, but Holloway is more concerned with business matters. He owns the Ophir silver mine, and Helene is engaged to his superintendent. She makes her father promise to have a nice evening with no work-related discussions, just as the doorbell rings.

Wow, a doorbell! This family is really wealthy! (I’m not being sarcastic. Doorbells were not available to common folk in this time and place. The Cartwrights don’t even have one.)

Helene’s fiancé, Gil Fenton, shows up with his old friend and future best man, Adam Cartwright! Of the Ponderosa Cartwrights! Helene says she’s surprised that they were on time, and Gil says it’s all Adam’s fault. Our boy is punctual. And looking pretty chic in his fancy party clothes.

Holloway explains that everybody is under orders not to talk about work, so he’ll make this conversation about work really short. Gil shouldn’t worry about the mine’s output for the evening, because Holloway put the night shift on the third level.

Gil blanches.

“You what?” He gasps, “I told you we couldn’t work the third level without new timbering!”

Bonanza 01x07: The Saga of Annie O’Toole

Ugh. Enough with the tragic ladies, am I right? Between Julia Bulette and Emily Pennington, it seems like the only women the Cartwrights associate with are fading blooms destined to tragically cough and then die. Time for something different in the female character department.

The episode begins with Annie O’Toole talking to her father in their San Francisco kitchen. Annie is played by Ida Lupino, who was one of the most awesome women in the history of television and a trailblazing director. If you don’t know a lot about her, you should change that.

Annie’s father is trying to tell her that she could do a lot worse than marrying a fellow called the Swede. Annie is half-listening while she makes a pot of stew. Apparently, the Swede has been out in Nevada for some time, trying to strike it rich. And, wouldn’t you know it? Just when they’re talking about him, he turns up at the door.

And guess what, guess what? He’s the Skipper! The Skipper from Gilligan’s Island!

The Skipper has a bouquet of flowers for Annie and some great news: he’s had luck out by Virginia City. (He’s doing a Hollywood Swedish accent, but it’s actually not too painful.) He steals some of her stew and shows her and her father the two claims he made. Annie’s happy because now all three of them can go and live in Nevada and breathe in the scent of pine for the rest of their lives. Old Man O’Toole thinks that San Francisco air is just fine, with its constant clouds of tobacco smoke and its stink of dead fish.

But there’s no need to argue. The Skipper is planning to sell his claims and stay in town. The food in Nevada sucks so hard, he refuses to go back. Annie thinks that’s the stupidest reason to give up a silver mine she’s ever heard. And, since she helped fund the Skipper’s trip out there, one of the two claims is rightfully hers. She grabs one of the tickets off the table and stuffs it in her bra because your bra is like a portable safe. It really is the best place to keep valuables and vital documents.

Bonanza 01x06: The Julia Bulette Story

Hey! Want to watch Little Joe fall in love with a manipulative older woman who reminds him of his dead mother? It doesn’t matter how you answered that question because we’re doing it anyway.

This episode begins with Adam and Hoss meeting up with Little Joe, coming in off the San Francisco stagecoach. It’s been two months since they’ve seen him, so Hoss tells him he hasn’t been eating right and Adam says that San Francisco somehow made his face fat. Brothers are like friends you can never get rid of, no matter how hard you try. Little Joe tells them they both suck, and that he sold their cattle for five dollars a head more than Adam got last year. Nobody tells him that markets fluctuate, they just let him have the little victory.

Hoss suggests celebrating in town, and Adam teases that they can take him to a place called Julia’s Palace. Little Joe looks excited, and Hoss is like: “Adam, that’s mean. He thinks you’re serious.”

Since Virginia City is a land of unbelievable coincidences, right after we hear of Julia’s Palace for the first time ever, trouble comes from that direction. Well, actually, the sounds of gunshots and a wounded man come staggering from that direction. The Cartwright boys rush over to investigate, because Adam and Joe are super nosy, and Hoss is some kind of unlicensed veterinarian who sometimes operates on people. The bartender decides to announce to them that it was a fair fight, or at least as fair a fight with the notorious Jean Millain can be.

Adam notices that Millain’s latest victim isn’t dead, and he asks Hoss to help carry him to the doctor’s office. Leaving Little Joe unsupervised in front of Julia’s Palace.

Bonanza 01x05 Enter Mark Twain

I’m tired of dead fiancés and pointless wars on Bonanza! It’s high time we had a fun episode, and a fun episode we shall now have!

For a refreshing change of pace, we start with a man walking down the streets of Virginia City, instead of riding up to a location on a horse. It’s been awhile since our man’s cleaned himself up, but he speaks articulately when he stops to ask the sheriff for directions.

Behind them, laugher echoes from the Bucket of Blood as Little Joe flies backwards through the doors and lands on the street. The mysterious stranger helps Little Joe up, and watches as Joe wordlessly charges back into the saloon to finish whatever fight he was in the middle of. The stranger asks the sheriff if Little Joe might need any help, but the sheriff is like: “Him? No.”

Little Joe gets punched out of the saloon again, but this time the stranger bounces him back in before he can hit the ground. Again, Joe just silently returns to the fray. It sounds like things are starting to get rough.

The stranger asks if the sheriff, as the local avatar of justice, might want to go in there and maybe stop the violence. A familiar figure in a ten gallon hat passes in the background behind them and goes straight into the Bucket of Blood. The sheriff says that these things always have a way of quieting themselves down.

Bonanza 01x04: The Paiute War

If you enjoyed the last episode penned by Gene L. Coon, I have to ask why?

But there’s a chance you’ll also enjoy this one, which is also about strained relations with the Paiute and based off of an actual historical event.

We begin as we always do: with a man riding up on a horse to look at something. This time, the man is Mike Wilson, played by Jack Warden, and the something is a small trading post. Inside, Mike’s brother is negotiating a deal with two Bannock fur traders, who have brought along their wives to pick out fabrics. The Wilson brothers are intensely horrible people, and they decide to take the two women as payment for a bolt of cotton. Naturally, the fur traders object, but they’re severely beaten. And then we go to the title sequence!

It’s always jarring when the teaser is dramatic and, right after, the theme song is so jaunty.

Bonanza 01x03: The Newcomers

This is a great episode if you secretly hate Hoss. I love Hoss, so damn this episode a million times.

We begin with everybody riding up to look at a small camp and complain about a man named Blake McCall, who butchered a prize steer that morning and refuses to leave the Ponderosa even though Ben asked him nicely. Adam, who is still going through his strangely aggressive early episode phase, boils over with rage at the mere mention of McCall and gives his father a rather dramatic I-told-you-so. I grow weary of grim-dark Adam and want regular Adam now. With the random singing and the architecture pencils.

The last time McCall gave them trouble, he was alone, but the camp indicates that he’s now travelling with other people. Little Joe and their foreman, Jose Moreno, think that McCall has gone insane with gold fever and their only option is to ride down to his camp and shoot him. Ben’s says to cool it, and tells Jose that he doesn’t get a vote because he’s not a Cartwright. That’s a totally unnecessary thing to bring up, since it was already three-to-two against Joe’s idea. Ben’s just being petty.

Down at McCall’s camp we see a handful of people hanging around a fire and drinking coffee. One of them is Blake McCall himself, but the one that stands out the most is a delicate blonde woman perched on a rock. A scruffy looking guy in a brown jacket sits next to her. She turns out to be Emily, and he turns out to be her brother John. John is sassing McCall about his troubles with the Cartwrights and seems jumpy about the decision to pass through the Ponderosa. But, in fairness, the Ponderosa is ridiculously big so you can’t really just go around it.

Bonanza 01x02: Death on Sun Mountain (The Sun Mountain Herd)

In the Old West, cows were walking money, and stealing cattle was a pretty serious crime. Especially to the Cartwrights during season one, when they’re disturbingly gritty and confrontational. Episode two opens with Adam bringing Ben, Hoss and Little Joe to hide in the bushes to watch as a mysterious rustler steals three of their steer.

“So that’s what’s been happening to our cattle!” Ben grumbles instead of stopping the thief. His sons all nod angrily, also instead of stopping the thief.

We discover that the thieves are the neighbouring Paiute, after the mysterious rustler returns to a small camp to rendezvous with Chief Winnemucca. Once the mastermind is revealed, the Cartwrights emerge from a nearby hiding place brandishing fire arms. Ben demands the return of their cattle, and the mysterious rustler angrily tempts fate by shouting: “Shoot, Ben Cartwright! Shoot!” And we go to the title sequence.

Bonanza 01x01: A Rose for Lotta

The very first episode of Bonanza opens with Ben Cartwright and his eldest son Adam riding up to some stock footage of a lake and talking about how awesome and heavenly the Ponderosa is. The Ponderosa, for those of you who have never experienced any Bonanza at all, is the enormous swath of land owned by the Cartwrights. It’s full of trees and cattle and alfalfa and lots of moral high ground.

Ben and Adam are speaking strangely, almost entirely in exposition and poetic quotations. Adam stops doing this in a few episodes, but for the next three hundred years of this show’s legendary five hundred season run, this is how Ben talks. It’s cool, though, because he’s Lorne Greene so he can say any ridiculous thing and he sounds as wise as an ancient wizard. (See the original Battlestar Galactica for proof.)

We learn that Adam has high expectations for everyone’s professionalism, especially his brother Little Joe’s. Ben tells Adam that Joe’s biggest problem is being young. Adam seems to think that Joe’s biggest problem is that he’s unreliable and a dumbass. Just to get it out of the way, Ben mentions that there’s a middle brother named Hoss. In case Adam forgot. So now we’re all caught up for how everybody is going to be this episode: Adam is the stern older brother, Hoss is the middle brother who functions as an afterthought, and Joe is the inkblot youngest son who will change depending on the writer. This eventually irons out into the standard Brains, Heart, Courage trio, but we only know that with fifty years of hindsight.