Gunsmoke isn’t just the greatest Western TV show ever made. It’s also the longest-running and most prolific in terms of total episodes. Across 20 seasons, 635 installments of the series were produced in total, earning it the record for any scripted American primetime series, which it held onto for almost half a century.

Among the best Western TV shows of all time, Gunsmoke is singular in being able to deliver high-quality television episode after episode for such a sustained period. Both before and since its historic run, shows in the genre have generally been able to deliver quantity or quality, but not both on a consistent basis.

Gunsmoke’s best episodes are spread across its run, from the early half-hour storylines of the 1950s to the high-budget color productions of the show’s later years. Still, the series unquestionably had a golden age, during which it was untouchable as a small-screen Western drama.

Seasons 7 through 11, in the first half of the 1960s, contain some of the best Western TV show episodes of all time, which may never be topped in the genre. This was the period in which Gunsmoke first switched to a one-hour format, and its production values became comparable to the cinematic Westerns of its day.

10

“The Quest For Asa Janin”

Season 8, Episode 38

Starring Western movie legend Harry Carey Jr., alongside Richard Devon as its titular villain, this golden-age episode is masterfully plotted to ratchet up the tension right up to its climactic conclusion. Despite the raft of major movie and TV stars around him, it’s George Keymas who steals the show as the wrongly convicted Pardee.

As with many of Gunsmoke’s best episodes, Marshal Matt Dillon is forced to fight a lengthy battle to ensure justice can be served, with little more than his own instincts to go on. Few storylines in the history of the show are as suspenseful as Dillon’s quest to save an innocent from certain death at the hands of the law.

9

“Sam McTavish M.D.”

Season 16, Episode 4

Veteran John Wayne collaborator Vera Miles guest stars as the title character in this late-era Gunsmoke classic, about a female doctor who strikes up a rivalry with the show’s fan-favorite, Doc Adams. Highly progressive for a TV Western of its day, the episode allows Miles the space to demonstrate her acting chops with aplomb.

The transformation of McTavish and Adams from competitors to colleagues who share a profound mutual respect highlights a different side to Gunsmoke from the aspects of the series that usually spring to mind. It consistently displays a rare ability to furnish single-appearance supporting characters with genuine depth and nuance.

8

“The Renegades”

Season 8, Episode 18

This thrilling 1963 episode showcases the best of Burt Reynolds’ Gunsmoke character Quint Asper. There may be some controversy around the casting of Reynolds as a character of Native American descent, but there’s no denying his inimitable screen charisma. Here, the actor owns every scene he’s in, as he leads efforts to absolve innocent indigenous tribes of cattle raids.

“The Renegades” culminates in a ferocious battle sequence between Dodge City’s law enforcers and the titular antagonists, which makes the most of Gunsmoke’s impressive ensemble cast. Here we see exactly why the series is compared to the panoramic Westerns of John Ford.

7

“The Widowmaker”

Season 19, Episode 5

Just 18 months before Gunsmoke was canceled without a series finale, this suspenseful episode about a marked man played by Steve Forrest illustrated that TV’s greatest Western had still got it. Forrest’s final appearance in the series is among his best performances, as he embodies the classic Western trope of a former sharpshooter forced to come out of retirement.

Fans of the genre’s movies will recognize the likes of William Munny, Cole Thornton, and J.B. Books in Scott Coltrane’s reluctant return to his gunslinging ways, and this all-time great TV episode deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as these cinematic greats. For many, this episode is Gunsmoke’s best in color.

6

“Mannon”

Season 14, Episode 17

This equally brilliant Steve Forrest episode is the only one capable of taking the color-era crown ahead of “The Widowmaker”, in part thanks to Amanda Blake’s standout performance as Kitty Russell. From her first Gunsmoke appearance, in one of the best character introductions in any TV Western, Blake anchors the show alongside James Arness and Milburn Stone.

Yet, she rarely gets the chance to define an episode. However, Kitty’s resistance to the unwanted advances of Forrest’s titular villain is the pivotal moment that raises the stakes in “Mannon”. Blake’s character ultimately doesn’t usurp Matt Dillon’s position as the central hero of the story, but her actions are arguably the episode’s most heroic.

5

“The Cabin”

Season 3, Episode 24

The best half-hour episode of Gunsmoke is one of the few on this list to feature Dennis Weaver, the actor most famous for playing the truck driver in Duel, Steven Spielberg’s debut feature film with a major studio. But Weaver’s character Chester Goode appears sparingly in “The Cabin”, which instead focuses on a narrow escape for Matt Dillon.

Dillon finds himself stuck in a remote cabin with two bandits and the daughter of the man they’ve killed, after seeking shelter from a snowstorm. If there’s a TV episode capable of invoking cabin fever anytime you watch it, then it’s surely this early Gunsmoke classic, which is as frightening as it is intense.

4

“With a Smile”

Season 8, Episode 29

One of many episodes in the show’s run about the hangman’s noose, “With a Smile” finds Matt Dillon enforcing the full judgment of the law for once, rather than trying to challenge it. An interesting insight into the corruption and inequality rife in the Old West, this story is among Gunsmoke’s shrewdest plotlines.

Punctuated by clever twists and unflinching in its brutal conclusion, the episode also carries more emotional weight than almost any other in the series. James Arness delivers a masterclass as the conflicted Dillon, demonstrating that his acting range was far greater than he was ever given credit for.

3

“Seven Hours To Dawn”

Season 11, Episode 1

Starring John Drew Barrymore as probably the best-ever Western TV villain, Mace Gore, “Seven Hours to Dawn” taps into another trope of classic Westerns by having Gore and his gang lay siege to Dodge City. To elevate the sense of jeopardy in the episode, Gore even disarms Matt Dillon of his famous Colt .45 revolver.

Barrymore’s career may already have been on the wane when he played Gore, but he still manages to deliver a career-best performance as this composed and devilishly cunning villain, who becomes the first – and the last – Gunsmoke antagonist to comprehensively outsmart Dillon. If it weren’t for Doc and Festus, Gore would have robbed Dodge City for all it was worth.

2

“Caleb”

Season 9, Episode 26

The duel at the center of this Gunsmoke episode is nothing like the best showdowns in Western movie history. In fact, the plot twist at the end of the episode entirely subverts the notion of a pre-planned act of gunslinging heroism.

What’s more, Matt Dillon isn’t the hero of this story. It’s the episode’s title character, an aging farmer who’s destitute and seemingly without dignity. What sets Gunsmoke apart from any other classic TV Western is its ability to move us to our core. Nothing in the series moves us more than the profoundly affecting climax of “Caleb”.

1

“The Gallows”

Season 7, Episode 22

The best episode of Gunsmoke season 7 effectively marks the start of the show’s golden age. A thought-provoking meditation on the nature of justice and the value of human life, “The Gallows” could hold its own alongside even the greatest works of prestige TV in the 21st century.

Gunsmoke had plenty of high points after this remarkable episode first aired. But the series never managed to surpass it, as an hour-long masterpiece that transcends the Western genre. With “The Gallows”, Gunsmoke set the benchmark for all primetime television to come.

Release Date

1955 – 1975-00-00

Directors

Andrew V. McLaglen, Harry Harris, Ted Post, Bernard McEveety, Vincent McEveety

Writers

John Meston, Charles Marquis Warren, Paul Savage

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  James Arness

  Marshal Matt Dillon

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