Season 5 on Bonanza premiered on September 22, 1963.
Episodes[]
# | Image | Title | Airdate | |
---|---|---|---|---|
01 | She Walks in Beauty | September 22, 1963 | ||
Hoss falls under the spell of a beautiful shady lady from San Francisco and asks her to be his wife, believing his love can change her even after she tries to seduce his brother Adam. | ||||
02 | A Passion for Justice | September 29, 1963 | ||
Renowned English novelist Charles Dickens comes to Virginia City to protest the city's newspaper serializing his latest novel without his permission. He's arrested and fined for his trouble. The writer refuses to pay the fine or defend himself, so his fans, the Cartwrights, come to his aid. | ||||
03 | Rain from Heaven | October 6, 1963 | ||
Virginia City is parched, but rainmaker Tulsa Weems will only practice his craft when he needs medical care for his daughter, Mary Beth. While Tulsa is cooling his heels in jail after threatening Ben with a gun, Hoss looks after the little girl; he doesn't know that Mary Beth is a carrier of typhoid fever. | ||||
04 | Twilight Town | October 13, 1963 | ||
After having his horse stolen, Joe is left to die in the desert heat. He passes out in a ghost town, but when he comes to, Martinville is full of eerie, ghostly characters who want to make him sheriff. They need him to fight off an outlaw they seem unusually terrified of. Joe agrees because of his affections for a cryptic young woman in the town. | ||||
05 | The Toy Soldier | October 20, 1963 | ||
Though he's a talented painter, James Callahan has problems. He's a drunk, and a social outcast because he's married to a Paiute woman. Adam does his best to get James out of his self-destructive funk and also has to fight off an Indian-hating ne'er-do-well named McDermott. | ||||
06 | A Question of Strength | October 27, 1963 | ||
Hoss shares a stagecoach with two nuns. When theres a hold up, young Sister Mary Kathleen quickly hands over the money they'd collected for a hospital. Older Mother Veronica is displeased and tells the young woman she doesn't have what it takes for the Sisterhood. To prove her wrong, Sister Mary Kathleen goes to get the money back, with Hoss adding protection. | ||||
07 | Calamity Over the Comstock | November 3, 1963 | ||
Trouble with a capital "T" that rhymes with "C" comes to Virginia City when Little Joe brings young Calamity Jane home to the Ponderosa after rescuing her from a deadly prairie raid. | ||||
08 | Journey Remembered | November 10, 1963 | ||
Ben finds an old journal that he kept while traveling in a wagon train from St. Joseph, Missouri westward to Ash Hollow. As he reads, Ben remembers the journey with his second wife, Inger, and his young son Adam. During the trip, Hoss is born. | ||||
09 | The Quality of Mercy | November 17, 1963 | ||
Little Joe struggles with his conscience, trying to believe that his friend, Seth Pruitt, did the right thing after Seth admits to the mercy-killing of his fiancée's father when the man was in agony from a broken back and begging for death. | ||||
10 | The Waiting Game | December 8, 1963 | ||
Laura's husband, Frank, is killed and she decides to keep the news from their young daughter, Peggy. Adam promises not to tell the tot, and, in the meantime, finds himself falling in love with the young widow. | ||||
11 | The Legacy | December 15, 1963 | ||
Adam, Hoss and Joe mistakenly believe their father was murdered. They split into three different directions to confront the supposed killers. In his heart, Ben knows his sons will not act outside the law; but he is not 100% sure that Joe will behave correctly. | ||||
12 | Hoss and the Leprechauns | December 22, 1963 | ||
No one really believes Hoss' fantastic story about the strongbox full of gold he shows up with. He claims it was given to him by leprechauns. Wherever it came from, it's enough to send locals on a wild treasure hunt for more. In a way, Hoss' leprechauns do exist; they're a band of little people from the carnival who have staged a rebellion against their shady boss, Professor McCarthy. | ||||
13 | The Prime of Life | December 29, 1963 | ||
Ben Cartwright doubts his fitness to run the Ponderosa when his impatience results in a logging camp accident that causes serious injury to himself and an old friend's death. | ||||
14 | The Lila Conrad Story | January 5, 1964 | ||
Adam and Little Joe try to find a fair trial for a saloon girl accused of theft and murder, hiding her from a corrupt sheriff's lynch mob after she stows away in the back of their supply wagon, all while escorting a self-righteous, hard-nosed judge to Virginia City. | ||||
15 | Ponderosa Matador | January 12, 1964 | ||
While Adam relies on his charm and guitar to impress a visiting senorita, Hoss and Little Joe scheme to win her heart in a more south-of-the-border way...a bull fight! | ||||
16 | My Son, My Son | January 19, 1964 | ||
Ben's plans to wed widow Katherine Saunders are jeopardized after her son is accused of murder. | ||||
17 | Alias Joe Cartwright | January 26, 1964 | ||
Joe is mistaken for his look-alike Army deserter Angus Borden, and sentenced to face a firing squad. Sgt. O'Rourke knows Joe is innocent but intends to have the execution anyhow. Private Peters is made frantic trying to determine if Joe Cartwright is actually who he claims to be. | ||||
18 | The Gentleman from New Orleans | February 2, 1964 | ||
A Frenchman arrives from New Orleans claiming to the famed pirate and patriot Jean Lafitte. Wandering around Virginia City making his bold claims and generally being a pest, "Lafitte" lands himself in jail. Hoss posts his bail, convinced that the man is who he claims. Serious trouble arises when a man is stabbed to death and the weapon used is "Lafitte's" knife. | ||||
19 | The Cheating Game | February 9, 1964 | ||
Angry with Adam Cartwright for constantly criticizing her decisions and refusing to take the next step in their romance, Laura Dayton becomes easy prey for a handsome grifter. | ||||
20 | Bullet for a Bride | February 16, 1964 | ||
Joe blames himself after a ricocheting bullet from his pistol blinds a young woman and decides that the only way he can atone for the accident is to make her his wife. | ||||
21 | King of the Mountain | February 23, 1964 | ||
Hoss finds himself smack dab in the middle of a mountain family feud when he agrees to be the best man at ornery Big Jim Leyton's wedding. | ||||
22 | Love Me Not | March 1, 1964 | ||
Ben's Pygmalion-like efforts to 'civilize' a young, white woman, raised by a neighboring Paiute Indian tribe, have an unintended result when, instead of choosing a husband from among the eligible young men he has rounded up for her, she falls in love with him. | ||||
23 | The Pure Truth | March 8, 1964 | ||
When Hoss is set up to take the fall for a bank robbery in another town, the help of an eccentric gold prospector appears to be all that stands between him and the real bandit's bullet. | ||||
24 | No Less a Man | March 15, 1964 | ||
Certain that he is too old to stand against a notorious gang of bank robbers when news arrives that Virginia City will soon be next in a long string of successful raids, the terrified townsfolk demand Sheriff Coffee's resignation to make way for a younger lawman. | ||||
25 | Return to Honor | March 22, 1964 | ||
Ben gets word that his nephew Will has been murdered in nearby Pine City. As it turns out, Will has been shot and wounded while on the run from a counterfeiting gang that wants back the engraving plates Will has "appropriated" from them. | ||||
26 | The Saga of Muley Jones | March 29, 1964 | ||
Muley Jones, a Cartwright cousin from Missouri, visits the Ponderosa. He proves a major disruption and headache for his relatives and unintentionally fouls up their negotiations with an Indian tribe. | ||||
27 | The Roper | April 5, 1964 | ||
Will Cartwright is home alone when Army soldiers arrive at the Ponderosa with a prisoner named Hewitt. Not long after, Hewitt's men arrive and ambush the soldiers. When Will realizes the men are waiting for Ben to return so they can get the money from the safe, Will must come up with a plan. | ||||
28 | A Pink Cloud Comes from Old Cathay | April 12, 1964 | ||
A mix-up in his request for mail-order Chinese fireworks brings Hoss instead a feisty mail-order bride whose militant ideas ignite a workers' rebellion and threaten the completion of a Virginia City railroad project. | ||||
29 | The Companeros | April 19, 1964 | ||
Mateo Ybarra travels to the Ponderosa in the hopes he can enlist the aid of his old friend, Will Cartwright. Little do either know that there are those who are after him to take him back to Mexico for trial and others who don't want to wait that long. | ||||
30 | Enter Thomas Bowers | April 26, 1964 | ||
A famous Italian opera singer is invited to sing at the local Virginia City opera house. One snag: he may resemble on paper a runaway slave they were just notified about; and some of the townspeople want him arrested or worse. | ||||
31 | The Dark Past | May 3, 1964 | ||
Dev's line of work seems ordained given his past. When his quarry's wife turns out to be pregnant, he uses that to trap him, even if it might risk Little Joe's life. | ||||
32 | The Pressure Game | May 10, 1964 | ||
Virginia City gossip and meddling Aunt Lil combine with unexpected attention from another Cartwright to complicate Laura Dayton's already fragile romance with Adam, especially when his preoccupation with Ponderosa business appears to be hiding an unwillingness to marry her. | ||||
33 | Triangle | May 17, 1964 | ||
Laura's and Adam's wedding plans begin to derail when another man's kiss puts doubt in Laura's heart and a bad fall from the roof of the house he is secretly building for their new life together lands Adam in a wheelchair. | ||||
34 | Walter and the Outlaws | May 24, 1964 | ||
Hoping the clever canine will lead them to his master's gold, a trio of hapless outlaws plan to dog-nap Walter, Otis the prospector's best friend, after the old man goes on a brief vacation and temporarily leaves the pup with Hoss at the Ponderosa. |
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