The first season of Gunsmoke closes with an episode highlighting the perils of homesteading in the immediate post-Civil War Midwest. Matt Dillon and Chester Goode are on horseback away from Dodge City. The find an encampment of people that have been killed by marauding Kiowa. While they survey the situation, a U. S. Calvary unit rides onto the scene. The Lieutenant of the unit tells Matt and Chester they are looking for the Kiowa, and they will take care of burying the dead.
Matt and Chester ride on and soon encounter a homestead in a beautiful valley. The people there - the Fraser family - are packing a wagon preparing to leave. The patriarch of the family died recently, and the oldest son, Tad, has decided to move the family to California. He fears trying to survive in a remote area and thinks they can find a better life farther west.
Ma Fraser, Tad's mother, is still grieving the loss of her husband after forty years of marriage. She is openly skeptical of Tad's plans to move away from the place her husband named "Peaceful Valley." To further complicate the situation, Tad's wife, Alice, is very pregnant.
Marshal Dillon tries to convince Tad to stay in the valley. He argues the Frasers are not likely to find a better place, and if they try to traverse the open country between Kansas and California, they are likely to encounter more danger.
The cast of this episode contains several actors known for minor roles. Helen Wallace makes the second of her four Gunsmoke appearances in this story. She portrays Ma Fraser in this story. She had previously appeared as the vengeance-seeking woman that puts a bounty on Matt's head after he kills her husband in self-defense in the episode "Reward for Matt."
Lew Brown makes the first of twenty-one appearances in the series. He plays the Tad Fraser character. Brown often appeared in dramas during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. He frequently played policemen.
This is the third of four appearances in the series for Dorothy Schuyler. In the previous roles, she played one of the women that work in the Long Branch Saloon with Kitty Russell. She portrays Alice Fraser in this story.
Dan Blocker appears for the first time in the series as the Calvary Lieutenant. He would appear one more time in Season 4. In a couple of years, Blocker would become famous for playing Eric "Hoss" Cartwright on Bonanza.
Writer John Dunkel delivers a fairly standard western script with this story. It provides a look into the challenges faced by homesteaders of the time, but it uses the "cowboys versus Indians" trope without providing any kind of insight into why the renegades are attacking. This isn't a bad episode, but it hardly ranks among the better series installments.
Matt and Chester ride on and soon encounter a homestead in a beautiful valley. The people there - the Fraser family - are packing a wagon preparing to leave. The patriarch of the family died recently, and the oldest son, Tad, has decided to move the family to California. He fears trying to survive in a remote area and thinks they can find a better life farther west.
Ma Fraser, Tad's mother, is still grieving the loss of her husband after forty years of marriage. She is openly skeptical of Tad's plans to move away from the place her husband named "Peaceful Valley." To further complicate the situation, Tad's wife, Alice, is very pregnant.
Marshal Dillon tries to convince Tad to stay in the valley. He argues the Frasers are not likely to find a better place, and if they try to traverse the open country between Kansas and California, they are likely to encounter more danger.
The cast of this episode contains several actors known for minor roles. Helen Wallace makes the second of her four Gunsmoke appearances in this story. She portrays Ma Fraser in this story. She had previously appeared as the vengeance-seeking woman that puts a bounty on Matt's head after he kills her husband in self-defense in the episode "Reward for Matt."
Lew Brown makes the first of twenty-one appearances in the series. He plays the Tad Fraser character. Brown often appeared in dramas during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. He frequently played policemen.
This is the third of four appearances in the series for Dorothy Schuyler. In the previous roles, she played one of the women that work in the Long Branch Saloon with Kitty Russell. She portrays Alice Fraser in this story.
Dan Blocker appears for the first time in the series as the Calvary Lieutenant. He would appear one more time in Season 4. In a couple of years, Blocker would become famous for playing Eric "Hoss" Cartwright on Bonanza.
Writer John Dunkel delivers a fairly standard western script with this story. It provides a look into the challenges faced by homesteaders of the time, but it uses the "cowboys versus Indians" trope without providing any kind of insight into why the renegades are attacking. This isn't a bad episode, but it hardly ranks among the better series installments.
