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24 Episodes 1974 - 1975
Episode 1
Mon, Sep 9, 197460 mins
Matt is trapped at a mountain cabin occupied by murderous Abraham Wakefield and his sons. The embittered Wakefield detests lawmen because of his wife's killing years earlier, and he decides that it would be sporting for him, his sons, and their vicious dog to hunt the Marshal like an animal in the bitter cold.
Episode 2
Mon, Sep 16, 197460 mins
Five ex-Confederate soldiers have robbed the bank in Dodge City and are on the run through Indian territory, followed by Matt Dillon. The outlaws find abandoned Union military uniforms and disguise themselves as Union soldiers. At the next town, they declare martial law under the guise of an Indian uprising. The outlaws, disguised as Union Soldiers, talk the town's sheriff into getting the townspeople to load all their valuables into the safe at the town bank, which they are secretly planning to rob. When Matt catches up to the outlaws, things come to a head.
Episode 3
Mon, Sep 23, 197460 mins
At Cibola Blanca, a hideout for ex-Confederate soldiers and Comancheros, Evans steals jewels and seriously wounds Ben Shindrow, son of Colonel Lucius Shindrow, leader of the outlaws. Major Coltrain sends a search party, led by Ivors, to capture and return Evans. Doc Adams and his medical colleague, Lyla, on their way home to Dodge City from a convention in San Francisco. The outlaws kidnap them and take them to Santa Fe, because they need a doctor. At Cibola Blanca, Doc encounters Dr. Rhodes, a junkie who has addicted the paralyzed Ben to laudanum. Doc takes over Ben's treatment. Ivors attacks Lyla, and Doc swears vengeance. Meantime, Matt Dillon, Festus Haggen and Newly O'Brien, alarmed by Doc's late arrival, set out to find them, and disguise themselves as gun runners, to infiltrate the Comancheros.
Episode 4
Mon, Sep 30, 197460 mins
Continuation of Episode #20.3. Dr. Rhodes dies and Doc Adams takes over treatment. Ben Shindrow is in such misery he wishes to die. Matt Dillon pretends not to know Lyla, but takes her away from Ivers, leading to a nasty knife fight. As Ivers is about to plunge his knife into Matt, Doc kills him with a rifle shot. Matt has a daring plan of escape, which Ben overhears. He tries to bargain with Doc to trade a lethal dose of laudanum for his silence. Doc is conflicted but refuses. The climax reveals unexpected character development.
Episode 5
Mon, Oct 7, 197460 mins
The coming of the railroads vastly altered the cattle business, soon rendering cross-country trail drives unnecessary. Three cowboys, led by Will Parmalee, find the new West inhospitable to itinerant cattle drovers. Trouble seeks them out, and Matt Dillon finds himself on the opposite side of the law from his longtime friend Will.
Episode 6
Mon, Oct 14, 197460 mins
A seriocomic (and uneasy) episode where a overmodulated farmer (Harry Morgan with a huge fake beard) decides his three sons all need wives. So he orders them to go get some, and bring one back for himself. The boys swing on down into Dodge City to find women -- and stop at the Long Branch. Not only do they "rustle" three saloon girls (including one right out of bed in long-john underwear), but they take the Long Branch's new owner, Hannah Cobb (Fran Ryan in her first appearance) with them. Then the boys (and the man, who's Hannah's age) try to "court" their unwilling guests. This was the second episode filmed for the final season and was meant as a stand-alone, but drew so much fan mail that a sequel, "Brides and Grooms" (with Morgan and Ryan returning but a different group of young men and women in the younger roles) was commissioned and filmed as the next-to-last episode of the season.
Episode 7
Mon, Oct 21, 197460 mins
Ex-lawman Chauncey Demon, an old friend of Matt Dillon, has fallen on hard times. He has become an alcoholic who can no longer ride or shoot the way he once did. He renews his acquaintance with the widow and son of another lawman who was a close friend, Kathy and Johnny Carter. Demon runs afoul of wealthy cattle baron Carl Ryker and must face Ryker's gunslinger Kane, as well as deal with his feelings for Kathy and Johnny. Matt comes to the rescue at the crucial moment.
Episode 8
Mon, Nov 4, 197460 mins
Late one night, a man (seen only from the shoulders down or in silhouette) enters the Dodge House Hotel, swipes a room key, lets himself into the room and goes back to return the key. A few minutes later, the room's occupant comes in. As he shuts the door, he looks up and sees the silhouette -- pointing a rifle at him. The slug drills him through the heart, but there is no sound of the shot and he's not discovered until the next morning. Newly thinks that someone could fashion a device to silence muzzle blasts. Matt sends word throughout Dodge and the nearby communities to form a street police force. But the killer strikes again the next night, and the next. Matt's now convinced that the serial killer is choosing his victims for a specific purpose -- most likely because they served on a jury. Matt questions Doc, who's lived in Dodge the longest, about the juries he remembers serving on and whether he remembered the men who served with them and who they judged. From Doc's information, Matt figures that Doc himself is the next on the list. But when the chief suspect is reported already dead, Matt must try to find the killer all over again.
Episode 9
Mon, Nov 11, 197460 mins
Matt captures a small-time fugitive and returns him to the town where he escaped. There, Matt meets the sheriff, an old acquaintance of his who used to play draw-and-shoot games with him. But the town seems profoundly uneasy even at a casual glance. Matt stays around to inquire, and learns that the sheriff has become a power-mad tyrant, viciously abusing even the slightest lawbreakers (including an old lady and a young boy, just for openers) and gunning down any serious challengers. Matt convinces the town council to depose the sheriff, but when Matt leaves the sheriff comes back, worse than ever (he stares down his own deputy and kills him). Matt is frantically summoned back and starts a cat-and-mouse game with the sheriff in a High Noon showdown that everyone is convinced Matt will lose.
Episode 10
Mon, Nov 18, 197460 mins
An elderly circuit judge comes to Dodge to take care of its court docket, only to run into a group of old enemies -- outlaws who rob and kill people in their paths. No one has ever lived to give eyewitness testimony against the family. The judge soon learns that he himself is near death from a heart condition. When the gang goes free after still another set of murders, the judge contrives an ironclad way to get the entire group hanged.
Episode 11
Mon, Dec 2, 197460 mins
Matt and Festus bring a particularly notorious killer into a town on the edge of a desert, where the sheriff cheerfully informs the killer that "tomorrow we start working on the gallows." The sheriff spoke too soon: the killer gets the drop on him, murders him and flees into the desert. Festus, who stayed behind to borrow a new mule, goes in pursuit but is bushwhacked in his own right. Festus, however, is rescued by Ben Snow, a hermit who was a gold miner many years earlier -- only to be shot in the leg and left for dead by his partner. Snow is half-crazed ("I'd even make friends with a snake!") -- but he actually found his gold mine, a spring which provides him with water and shelter and food from desert animals. He's panned the spring incessantly and racked up a huge cache of gold dust. Snow might be able to get out of the desert (he's tried before and left water caches as far as he could walk), but he's so bent out of shape that he refuses to go without the gold -- many dozen pounds of it. So he steals Festus's weapons and handcuffs, turns them against them and makes Festus into his "pack mule." When Festus asks why, Snow explains that he will buy up the town where his ex-partner fled and make life a living hell for the man. He also warns Festus that if he collapses, "I'll shoot you like a mule gone lame!" With all the cards stacked against him, Festus sets out carrying the huge sacks of gold, while Snow follows in his tracks under the blazing sun.
Episode 12
Mon, Dec 9, 197460 mins
Festus is forced to pack gold dust across the desert, hoping to get to a town on the other end before his and Ben Snow's water supply runs out. Matt and Newly, having been alerted by telegram, try to catch up to them. When Festus spots the tracks of the killer who also wounded him, he simply turns around and goes after the killer. Snow has a Hobson's choice of shooting Festus and trying to make it out alone (which he knows he can't do) or go along and pick up the convict. They find him, strap half the gold to his back, and force him to come along to face a noose at the end of the journey. A series of double-crosses follow, leaving Festus and Snow in the direst of straits.
Episode 13
Mon, Dec 16, 197460 mins
Colonel Josiah Johnson, the town drunk, promises to watch Carl's general store while the young man goes to fetch his bride-to-be, Anne Johnson. Unknown to Carl, the young lady is the Colonel's estranged daughter. Through the Colonel's careless oversight, Carl's store is badly damaged by fire. The old man decides to leave Dodge City before his daughter's wedding, so her true identity may remain secret. The Colonel overhears a plot to rob the local bank and shoot up the town, and proves to be a true hero.
Episode 14
Mon, Jan 6, 197560 mins
Matt, in pursuit of three bank robbers, inadvertently catches a fourth one -- their bagman, who swiped the loot and took off. The thieves learn what's happened and go in pursuit of both Matt and the thief. While stopped at a water hole, Matt and the thief meet a group of Indians who are about to leave a squaw in the desert to die. The startled thief asks why and is told the woman is a bad-luck omen, having outlived both of her husbands. To his own surprise, the thief bargains to take the squaw with him and Matt. He doesn't have any regard for the woman, but she proves startlingly helpful when the bank robbers catch up with the group and lay siege to their cabin.
Episode 15
Mon, Jan 13, 197560 mins
When a young teenager from a group of squatters decides he can do better than stealing, he changes his ways. But the leader of the squatters will try to manipulate the young man with the people that has treated him the best.
Episode 16
Mon, Jan 20, 197560 mins
Gunfighter Clay Larkin is wanted dead or alive with a reward of $5,000. He kills a bounty hunter and takes off. Newly O'Brien, on his way to Dodge City, stops at a restaurant where Larkin is having lunch. Bounty hunter Lon Toomes and two henchmen spot Larkin and try to capture him, but the outlaw is rescued by Newly, who takes him into custody. Newly, seriously wounded, struggles to reach Dodge City with his prisoner while the three bounty hunters are hot on their trail.
Episode 17
Mon, Jan 27, 197560 mins
One of the series' most honored episodes centers on whether youngsters have the right -- and the duty -- to get a free public education. A teenage farm boy is holed up in the corncrib reading a borrowed copy of "The Iliad" when a fox gets into the henhouse, killing three chickens. The boy's father gives him a whipping to remember and considers taking him out of school. The middle-aged schoolteacher (Allen Garfield in a prototype of his "Teachers" movie role) figures out what happened and continues to encourage the student, giving him a copy of "The Odyssey" next. The father finds the book and burns it. Then he physically hauls the son out of school, bowling over the teacher in the process. The teacher goes to Matt and swears out a warrant for the father's arrest on assault charges. In the ensuing courtroom trial, Doc (in Milburn Stone's last major role on the series) is called on to testify about the value of a public education, while the teacher drills his own student on the knowledge he has picked up and how much use it could be.
Episode 18
Mon, Feb 3, 197560 mins
In the next-to-last episode where Matt Dillon is the lead ("Hard Labor" aired three weeks later), Matt comes upon the site where thieves ambushed a wagon train and killed everyone on board except for one little girl. The girl is able to point Matt to the home of an aunt who lives nearby, but the aunt -- who fell out with her family long ago -- refuses to take her in. Matt persuades the aunt to at least put them up for a few days, but her "husband" (actually one of the robber-killers) has different ideas and tries to kill Matt when he becomes suspicious.
Episode 19
Mon, Feb 10, 197560 mins
The sons of a loony farmer have all finally found women willing to marry them (the farmer makes a play for Hannah Cobb, in her second appearance, and is turned down again). But finding wives was easy by comparison to actually marrying them.
Episode 20
Mon, Feb 24, 197560 mins
Dillon is sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor by Judge Flood, who uses an illegally constituted court to staff his private silver mine.
Episode 21
Mon, Mar 3, 197560 mins
Festus, out on patrol meets an aging traveling preacher who wants to build a church for Indians on their small reserve. The whites in the nearby town are furious and torch the building (Festus fires two shots from a revolver at the escaping arsonists). The preacher vows to try again and again - despite a heart condition that is about to kill him.
Episode 22
Mon, Mar 10, 197560 mins
Harve tries to ride a wild horse until it settles down but instead it throws him and kicks him in the head. He seems to be okay and he and his partner go to Dodge to seek help in getting paid for the attempt. But Harve starts having dizzy spells, and the partner takes him to Doc Adams for evaluation. Doc tells the partner that he has a "subdural hemotoma," - uncontrollable bleeding into the brain and will die soon. The partner keeps this a secret and invites Harve to go celebrate them finally getting their wages, after which they will get on a train to Montana. Complications arise when both men fall for a saloon girl, and Harve also has a surprise return meeting with the horse that kicked him.
Episode 23
Mon, Mar 17, 197560 mins
The sons of a Basque sheep herder who's part of a community near Dodge are faced with a manhood ritual. A Basque boy must defeat his father in a fist fight. The older son had beaten a schoolyard rival to death in a fight while a boy in the old country, and wants nothing to do with the ritual. The younger son has no such qualms, and wins the fight with his father in a surprise (inadvertently ramming the old man's head into a huge cast-iron water jug). This leads to the ostracizing of Manolo, made worse when he doesn't spot a wolf attacking the herd and loses sheep and a dog in the process. Manolo goes to work sweeping up at the Long Branch, while his younger brother follows and tries to persuade him that he can fight this.
Episode 24
Mon, Mar 31, 1975
When Festus accidentally shoots a man in the leg, he takes the man back to his farm only to be used by members of the family.