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The Virginian TV Series

         If you were to skim through my things on this website, you would find I have an obsession with this TV show from the 60's, The Virginian. I discovered it about October 2013, and I have watched the reruns faithfully each week. I think I have finally seen all episodes. The show ran for 9 years, but they run several reruns each weekend. So I have caught up.

         For the uninitiated, it's about a ranch called Shiloh outside a real town called Medicine Bow, Wyoming. It's named after the foreman on the ranch, but his top hand Trampas is a regular through the whole nine years. Others come and go. It's based on the book by the same name, written in 1892, but published in 1902. It was the first real western novel, following the dime novels or pulp fiction which built up fictitious western characters. The novel is great and worth a read. (The book is less about the ranch of a different name, and more about the man called The Virginian.) It's been made into a movie 4 times, each interpreted differently.

         The show featured many guest stars, whom we all know from other shows and movies, like Dick Sargent from Bewitched or Mel Torme (young and skinny), Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Jory, John Saxon, Robert Redford, Peter Fuller from Emergency, Cloris Leachman, Joan Collins, Angie Dickinson, Hugh Beaumont, and many more.

         There was one year I didn't like so much. The ranch owner was replaced by some new owner, Bart Starr. His character changed the nature of the story, and it wasn't enjoyable. Then the time with David Hartman wasn't top notch. (I didn't know he was ever an actor.) They made a comedy of the episodes that featured him, and they were just a waste. A 90 minute dumb TV comedy doesn't cut it. Some of my favorite comedy actors were in one episode, and it was just plain stupid. Tom Bosley, Yvonne DiCarlo, Ann Prentiss, and James Brolin are great in normal venues, but this episode took a lot of patience. It got better when David left, and Tim Mattheson came on.

         So it's taken me a year and a half almost, to see all of them. I must have started near the end of 1963, went through to 1969, seeing a few reruns of those, and back to 1962. Today they were all ones I've seen before. I'm kind of sad that there are no new ones left for me, nothing new to discover. But they're good the second time around.

         Today one of my favorite episodes, "Run Quiet", guest starring Clu Gulager, before he was a regular, played again. I had only seen it once. Funny, how your memory plays tricks. I recalled a few things, I thought vividly, but was wrong. It was still a great story, involving good writing, and great acting. I had so much sympathy for the two romantic characters, yet one of them never said a word or made a sound. It was communicated so well. And it ended differently from what I remembered, but it was still happy and romantic and clean. It was fun to watch.

         So, now I'll keep watching and see if the fascination wears off.