Maverick
Bret and Bart Maverick (and in later seasons, their English cousin, Beauregarde) are well-dressed gamblers who migrate from town to town always looking for a good game. Poker (five-card draw) is their favorite but they've been known to play such odd card games as Three-toed Sloth on occasion. The show would occasionally feature both or all three Mavericks, but usually would rotate the central character from week to week.
- 1957-1962
- 5 seasons
- ABC
- Action & Adventure
- TV-14
Bret and Bart Maverick (and in later seasons, their English cousin, Beauregarde) are well-dressed gamblers who migrate from town to town always looking for a good game. Poker (five-card draw) is their favorite but they've been known to play such odd card games as Three-toed Sloth on occasion. The show would occasionally feature both or all three Mavericks, but usually would rotate the central character from week to week.
Season 3 Episode Guide
26 Episodes 1959 - 1960
Episode 1
Pappy
Sun, Sep 13, 1959 60 mins
Bret and Bart travel to Louisiana when they find out their Pappy is engaged to an 18-year-old girl. Bart is posing as "Dandy Jim" Buckley, the nemesis of the Mavericks. The girl's father wants Pappy to be killed in a duel -- but only after the engagement is announced.
Episode 2
Royal Four Flush
Sun, Sep 20, 1959 60 mins
Bart wedges himself between a scam & a silver baron, to collect a card debt from welsher & conman Capt. Fitzgerald. Central to the dragoon is Countess de la Fontaine, engaged to the mining magnate Placer Jack, and she's far from the plain/fat/50, the Irish rogue describes her as to brush Bart off. Jack's protective children become spykids - because they're equally suspicious of Bart, Fitzgerald and the Countess.
Episode 3
The Sheriff of Duck 'n' Shoot
Sun, Sep 27, 1959 60 mins
Bret gets blackmailed into serving a six-month term as sheriff of Duck 'N Shoot, a wild town that chews up sheriffs. Bret's style is unconventional but, to his chagrin, effective. However, he runs afoul of a larcenous woman and ends up behind the bars of his own jail. Brother Bart arrives to help him out -- for a price.
Episode 4
You Can't Beat the Percentage
Sun, Oct 4, 1959 60 mins
On the road traveling to meet an old girlfriend who wrote him a letter, Bart meets a young cowboy who tells him he's going to kill a man - the man who owns the gambling house where the girl now works. But when the cowboy winds up being the one killed instead, Bart is accused of killing him, and starts to wonder if he's not being played as a pawn in a game.
Episode 5
The Cats of Paradise
Sun, Oct 11, 1959 60 mins
Bret gets involved by financing Modesty Blaine's plan to sell cats to a mining town to control the rat population. But when she leaves him holding an empty bag, Bret must face the wrath of a jealous but superstitious sheriff and a hired killer willing to put cash and duty ahead of friendship.
Episode 6
A Tale of Three Cities
Sun, Oct 18, 1959 60 mins
Being cleaned out by a female bandit, then kicked out of Gold Flats for beating its mayor at poker, forces Bart to nearby town Brotherly where pretending to be a reformed sinner at least cadges a meal as a guest lecturer at a ladies' social. The comely thief is in the audience, but will Bart turn her in, or do a far, far better thing than he's ever done before?
Episode 7
Full House
Sun, Oct 25, 1959 60 mins
Bret, fearless mastermind of super-villain gang Billy the Kid, Belle Starr, Cole Younger etc.? Mistaken for the mysterious dandy, Foxy the Brain, Bret must whip out a fool-proof heist blueprint for this Axis of Evil summit of the West. Luckily, the real Foxy's in jail after a poker dispute with Bret, but what jail can hold the slippery Foxy? At least the amorous Belle Starr's floored by Bret's charm, but the other legendary outlaws put Bret to the test.
Episode 8
The Lass with the Poisonous Air
Sun, Nov 1, 1959 60 mins
While heading to Denver, Bart rescues Linda and falls in love with her. However, Linda has plans of her own for Bart, the man who is trying to blackmail her, and her own scheme to get into the governorship as the wife of a wealthy businessman.
Episode 9
The Ghost Soldiers
Sun, Nov 8, 1959 60 mins
Arriving at an army fort shortly after an Indian massacre, Bret and two soldiers must find a way to survive the gathering Indian war party until reinforcements arrive. Bret's plan involves turning the Indians' superstitions against them.
Episode 10
Easy Mark
Sun, Nov 15, 1959 60 mins
Bart, escaping his last poker game due to sore losers, runs into an heir to a railroad in the middle of the desert who just has two concerns: getting to a meeting by Friday and cross pollinating a delicate and rare cactus.
Episode 11
A Fellow's Brother
Sun, Nov 22, 1959 60 mins
A fellow's got to kill the fellow who kills a fellow's brother. At least, that's the Code of the West. At first mistaken for the fellow who killed a fellow's brother, Bret sends the brother off in search of brother Bart as the alleged killer. When word comes back that Bart has been killed, the locals expect Bret to seek his own revenge. But Bret seems nonchalant about the news and has other plans. If only the idolizing Smoky would stay out of the way.
Episode 12
Trooper Maverick
Sun, Nov 29, 1959 60 mins
Involuntarily enlisted into the army, Bart becomes a spy for the local base commander trying to find out who is selling arms to the local Indians. But when the commander dies and Bart is caught with the arms dealers, he faces a court martial and potential execution for treason.
Episode 13
Maverick Springs
Sun, Dec 6, 1959 60 mins
In an effort to save her brother from the clutches of a scheming Melanie Blake, a wealthy rancher blackmails Bret into playing the role of a wealthy Texan to seduce Melanie into giving up the brother. But the brother has already been cheated out of his share of the ranch, so it is up to Bret with help from brother Bart to regain the asset through a land development ploy.
Episode 14
The Goose-Drownder
Sun, Dec 13, 1959 60 mins
A "goose-drownder" (rainstorm) perilously strands gambling rivals Gentleman Jack and Bart in a tiny roadhouse. A stagecoach has to pull in, too, brimming with suspicious, hostile characters, especially a wounded, notorious highwayman, The Arapaho Kid, and a bedding salesman named Red Herring! The Kid's blonde lady-friend, Stella Legendre (in French, "the sex star") once robbed Bart, but Bart forgives her. Does Bart still have a soft spot for Stella, or is he just trying to discern which ones are The Kid's gang?
Episode 15
A Cure for Johnny Rain
Sun, Dec 20, 1959 60 mins
Johnny Rain, a friend to all and beloved by all, has a problem. He does not particularly like whiskey and it doesn't agree with him, but his girlfriend insists that he should drink. While under the spell of whiskey, Johnny takes to stagecoach holdups. Bret figures out that it is Johnny behind the robberies, but can he figure out where the loot is hidden?
Episode 16
The Marquesa
Sun, Jan 3, 1960 60 mins
Having won a saloon, Bart arrives in town to find it closed because of a competing claim of ownership by the Marquessa, the alleged heir to the land grant on which the saloon and the town sits. Bart suspects that the Marquessa is a fraud, but is she?
Episode 17
Cruise of the Cynthia B.
Sun, Jan 10, 1960 60 mins
Having been tricked into buying a share of a steamboat instead of the whole boat, Bret and his co-owners sail the boat up the Mississippi to an interested purchaser. Along the way, however, the co-owners start dying one by one.
Episode 18
Maverick and Juliet
Sun, Jan 17, 1960 60 mins
Bret and Bart are hired by the feuding Carteret and Montgomery families to settle a longtime dispute by a poker competition. The families are unaware of Bret and Bart's relationship, but when they become suspicious the stakes are considerably raised for the brothers.
Episode 19
The White Widow
Sun, Jan 24, 1960 60 mins
A big winner at poker, Bart puts his winnings in the hotel safe. When he awakes, his cash is gone and the clerk is dead. His only chance for a stake is the bank president, aka the Widow White, whose future is threatened by mysterious notes.
Episode 20
Guatemala City
Sun, Jan 31, 1960 60 mins
Finding himself in love with a woman who disappears, Bret follows her trail to Guatemala City. There he finds her, but she is living under another name. While trying to find out why, Bret must also deal with the adoration and shenanigans of a young street urchin.
Episode 21
The People's Friend
Sun, Feb 7, 1960 60 mins
Bart thwarts an assassination attempt on a local politician. With the wounded man unable to run for election, Bart is drafted to take his place on the ballot as a candidate for the Reform Party, a matter not looked on with favor by the competing politician behind the assassination attempt.
Episode 22
A Flock of Trouble
Sun, Feb 14, 1960 60 mins
Bret accepts a "flock" for a bet in a poker game. But when he arrives to check his winnings, Bret discovers that the flock are sheep, not cows - and they're in the middle of cattle territory. Now Bret has to deal with angry cattlemen who have no love for sheep herders.
Episode 23
Iron Hand
Sun, Feb 21, 1960 60 mins
Losing the last few dollars in a poker game, Bart goes after some seemingly easy money for him and his friends. He thinks he can insure a cattle drive and meets a man who looks familiar but can't place his face - soon he does his hand.
Episode 24
The Resurrection of Joe November
Sun, Feb 28, 1960 60 mins
An impostor woman and a German baron lure a curious Bret to New Orleans, where he gets involved in murder, intrigue, and stolen diamonds. The couple hire him for a job distinterring Joe November's remains, but Joe isn't as dead as everyone thinks.
Episode 25
The Misfortune Teller
Sun, Mar 6, 1960 60 mins
Arriving in a town for the first time, Bret finds himself accused of swindling the town folk and killing its mayor. And his only chance of escaping the noose appears to rest with a scheming Melanie Blake and a superstitious lawyer new to the town.
Episode 26
Greenbacks, Unlimited
Sun, Mar 13, 1960 60 mins
Foursquare Farley has discovered a unique way of obtaining a bank loan - a secret tunnel to the Bank of Denver's vault. But with a safe cracker planning to break into the vault, Foursquare and Bret fear that the tunnel will be discovered and Foursquare blamed for the impending robbery. The result is a cat-and-mouse game of now you see it, now you don't.
