I put on Gunsmoke every now and then and kind of leave as background noise and sometimes get into it. It's a good show obviously. But then one day I watched a whole episode before realizing it was Bonanza not Gunsmoke. Now if I play close enough attention I would have noticed they are clearly two different shows, both of which would keep my interest if I didn't distract myself with my phone or computer.
So which is the which is the better show?
Well, whichever whichever one you think is best.
You don't want to hear what I think of Bonanza (and its offspring, The High Chaparral).
Lotsa fans for Bonanza, and a lot of the episodes were truly great. Although for me it's a bit too "studio", and the actors seemed to be really clean for an era when bathing wasn't a high priority.
One of the things about Bonanza was the series' use of formulaic plots over the seasons. These things seemed to happen a lot throughout the years.
For example:
- one of the 3 sons is accused of murder, robbery, or whatever
- the Cartwrights help a wounded man who's either a criminal, is wanted for something, or has a lynch mob after them
- Hoss befriends a runaway, or an orphan, or a single mother and child
- Little Joe spurns the advances of a woman, who proceeds to accuse him of something in retaliation...molestation, breach of promise, rape, etc, (They *really* liked having women accuse Little Joe of something)
- Little Joe finally finds a woman to marry but she gets killed, or something happens or is discovered that prevents them from wedding
- Hoss falls for a woman who doesn't feel the same
Or they would repeat these plots using Candy Canaday.
You ain't wrong. lol (Ben)
shareI like them both so far. I think Gunsmoke may be the better of the two though.
shareGunsmoke, of course, but as Grizzled said, to each his own. (Fawkes)
shareMy personal opinion, the early episodes of Gunsmoke far exceeded any Bonanza episodes..better scripts, better plots, more realistic- enough said:)!
sharepeterdsmith00 is basically correct. Let's go into more detail, by examining two really good Westerns (Have Gun-Will Travel and Wanted Dead or Alive), and contrasting them with Bonanza and The High Chaparral.
One of the things that makes stories interesting is complexity -- complex characters, complex situations, unexpected (but dramatically plausible) twists and turns.
Have Gun-Will Travel leans toward complex and unusual plotting/characterization (sometimes to the point of near-incomprehensibility), while Wanted Dead or Alive) almost always bases its stories on a dramatic situation that goes beyond Josh simply collecting and delivering a prisoner. Death is common, and neither show is afraid of unhappy or ambiguous endings.
Bonanza and The High Chaparral (both from David Dortort) are largely the opposite. Both are built around family interactions. * Though there might be quarrels and even fighting, you can be certain that by the closing credits, everyone will kiss and make up. Nor is there as much or as extreme violence as there is in Have Gun or Wanted. Yes, there are bad hombres, but rarely the kind of psychos that Gunsmoke is notorious for.
Bonanza and The High Chaparral consequently tell blander and less-disturbing stories. They tend to present human existence in a positive light, with almost all problems having more-or-less happy resolutions. (Exception... Females who might disrupt the family are usually eliminated, often by death.)
If Have Gun and Wanted portray the world as almost uncontrollably violent, Bonanza and Chaparral present a "Life's great if we just stick together" attitude. Both views are inaccurate and incomplete, but the Dortort series (especially Bonanza) come across as "sitcoms with horses". Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe rarely seem to have anything to do other than go off on some adventure. And what about those underpaid workers who helped the Cartwrights amass their bonanza? They're rarely seen. **
Gunsmoke and Wanted at least give an illusion of reality. Bonanza and Chaparral rarely do, showing little regard for dramatic plausibility. Though all these series have bad episodes, Bonanza's are the pits -- in one case, literally. The Virginia City courthouse sits over a working mine (!!!), and when the mine starts caving in, hilarity ensues. For the first 20 minutes, you'll be howling with laughter.
One might argue that there are better things to do with one's time than watching TV drama. But Dortort's drivel is aimed at the lowest level of entertainment.
* Gunsmoke has these, but the family members (Matt, Kitty, Doc, and Chester/Festus aren't biologically related. *
** On at least one occasion, The Big Valley acknowledged this exploitation. By the way, Dortort supposedly wanted the Cartwrights to be arrogant and not well-liked, but Lorne Greene talked him out of it. That might very well have saved the series.
Your points are good ones. However, sometimes I want to spend an hour in a gritty, edgy, violent world where things don't always come out happy, but sometimes living in the real world makes me want to spend an hour in a brighter place where family members take care of each other and things come out right in the end. It's a matter of mood, and I think there's room for both kinds of shows.
shareThat's because the early episodes, many of which were filmed versions of the early radio series' scripts, could be pretty hard bitten, and endings weren't always happy. There was more drama. By the show's later seasons, the FCC was clamping down hard on TV violence, which LBJ (who was at that very moment sending young men to Vietnam to fight and die) thought violence on television was a serious contributing factor to violence in society. As a result, Gunsmoke actually suffered from violence quotas that made it difficult or impossible to write good scripts. The early seasons didn't suffer from that, and when you combine that with better writing and creative direction, made for a far superior show. I've always liked Gunsmoke. I never really cared for Bonanza.
shareI am a big fan of Gunsmoke. Like you, I kind of stumbled upon it but now I'm hooked! I've watched several episodes of Bonanza thinking I would enjoy it too but it's too predictable and staged for me. I have my DVR set up to record Gunsmoke and it's a great show to watch when I run out of others or to binge watch on a nasty weather day. I hope you find yourself enjoying it too.
Have a great rest of your weekend!
I enjoy a lot of Bonanza episodes but it is a bit predictable and many plots seem rehashes from other series. Gunsmoke acting, writing, directing, sets were far better. It had a gritty realism. But Bonanza had some great episodes like "Quality of Mercy", "Twilight Town", etc.
shareGunsmoke. Grittier than Bonanza, which had very little in the way of grit, and in its black and white days especially, it was darker and more dramatic. To me, as a child, Bonanza felt more like a family show more or less in the Disney vein. It wasn't Disney but it played by the same "rules".
Also, Bonanza was a more of what we'd now call, thanks to Arnold, a "girlie" show. I was aware of this from the first time I watched it, and this didn't appeal to me; and this "girl averse" attitude of mine was quite common back in the day when these shows were first broadcast.
Boys were more fond of westerns of the Cheyenne-Have Gun Will Travel-Wanted: Dead Or Alive sort. The Rifleman was the ultimate boy's western, about a father and his son. Girls went more for shows that featured animals (Lassie, My Friend Flicka, National Velvet, Rin Tin-Tin) and more family friendly series like Bonanza, The Virginian and The Big Valley.
But these are just my observations, though I think that most people would agree that there was a good deal of "crossover", with both boys and girls fond of shows like The Lone Ranger and Wagon Train. But back to Bonanza: it did have something for the boys. They liked Hoss, for his big heart, Adam for his no-nonsense braininess. I found little Joe hard to warm up to. Ben felt too generically right all the time.
I'm going with Gunsmoke. The funny thing is we never watched it growing up, while I do recall seeing some Bonanza post-Pernell. Of course, everyone was familiar with Matt, Doc and Miss Kitty, but I don't remember ever watching any episodes.
So now as an adult, I get to watch Gunsmoke with a completely open mind, and it's really gritty. I don't blame my Mom if she felt it wasn't appropriate for her children, as the show features a lot of dirty and flat-out mean people. Sure, Matt and crew always prevail in the end, but it regularly shows the ugly side of humanity very openly.
That might sound depressing, but I really enjoy the various story lines, and each player is very believable, and there's a whole lotta episodes for me to see for the first time.
Bonanza, for me, is contrived and somewhat mawkish. Plus, they were filthy rich, as were the Barkleys on The Big Valley, but BV kept with the adventures and perils, while Bonanza so often wandered into emo-territory with Hoss and Joe getting their hearts broken. And the brothers angle was silly.
So it's Gunsmoke all the way for me.
Bonanza was not properly cared for after it's cancellation. They lost episodes. They found lost episodes. Some episodes remain lost. They changed the title to "The Ponderosa" on some cable outlets. It's a putrid mess. And I was shocked and remain shocked that this series was not coveted and cared for. You can purchase DVD's in junk stores with gaudy covers. 20 episodes + BONUS! 2 episodes of some garbage television show. It's vulgar to package this series in that manner. There's no honor.
Contrast that with the care that's been taken with "Gunsmoke."
Night & day.
Bonanza really looks like crap. I always wondered if they shot it on video and not film. The eps they air today are so blurry. Gunsmoke his crisp and gorgeous however, just wonderful to watch.
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