Following a Series for Years and Then the Ending….

Packerjohn said:
Well, I am a long haul sort of guy. I have bought from Amazon all 20 years of "Gunsmoke." I have watched all 19 years and about a week ago I started the 20th and final year. Unfortunately, Kitty, the Saloon owner is gone but Fetus, Doc and Marshall Dillon are still providing law and order in Dodge City. It will be awful sad for me when I finish the last show of this 20th year.

My humble option is that "Gunsmoke" was the best TV western series ever made. I base this on having seen all the years and all the shows of "Have Gun Will Travel", "Johnny Yuma", "Bat Matterson", "The Rifle Man," "Wanted Dead or Alive", "Raw Hide" and some of "Cheyenne" and "Wagon Train".
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You are right, Gunsmoke is the best on TV ever..of course Amanda Blake tired of the role and left but the show rolled on.
 

Murrmurr said:
The final episode of Game of Thrones made me want to whack my TV with a sagaris.
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So I've heard. I lost interest about season 3 and didn't watch any more, but I kept thinking something was wrong with me, because no one else could stop talking about it until the last season, and as a story, the thing just seemed to collapse or something.
 
Seinfeld might be the best sitcom ever with a last season that slowed down in a hurry to the last episode, which was nothing but a sputter of edited flashbacks. It's puzzling how something so good could end that way.
 

JustDave said:
So I've heard. I lost interest about season 3 and didn't watch any more, but I kept thinking something was wrong with me, because no one else could stop talking about it until the last season, and as a story, the thing just seemed to collapse or something.
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I assume most of the people who couldn't stop talking about it didn't read the novels. Or maybe some who did actually liked the plot changes and character misrepresentations, or at least found them intriguing.

If I remember correctly, it was in season 3 when the series veered most acutely from the books, and that's probably why it seemed to collapse. You could sense the weaknesses and inconsistencies even if you didn't read the novels.
 
Lilac said:
Deadwood that was on HBO than ran from 2004 to 2006. They should have had a final season, but decided to finally do a movie in 2019 to finish it.
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MarkinPhx said:
Deadwood really did screw over their fans. I guess there was a rift between Milch and HBO and as a result we got John From Cincinnati instead of a proper final season of Deadwood. :rolleyes:

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You said it! 🤨
 
Packerjohn said:
My humble option is that "Gunsmoke" was the best TV western series ever made. I base this on having seen all the years and all the shows of "Have Gun Will Travel", "Johnny Yuma", "Bat Matterson", "The Rifle Man," "Wanted Dead or Alive", "Raw Hide" and some of "Cheyenne" and "Wagon Train".
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I don't know how many people know that Gunsmoke started as a popular radio Drama that was particularly known for authentic background sounds like Coyotes howling and crackling campfires. Weekend Radio entered my consciousness when I was old enough to relate to radio stories and I would set aside Saturday afternoons to lie on my bed listening to broadcasts after broadcasts of drama, mystery, and comedy. This was before our family had television. My father introduced me to Gunsmoke, by reading a raving review of the series, so I started paying attention to it. When we finally got a TV, Gunsmoke was there waiting for us. It was shockingly different than radio, but I managed to adjust to it, anyway.

And a note on the series Wagon Train that I also remember from my childhood: Many years after it was long gone and as an adult, I met Wagon Train's Wagon Master, John McIntire and his wife Jeanette Nolan in Montana, and my ex and I spent an afternoon way beyond the electrical power grid at their isolated ranch and cabin visiting and drinking martinis. I tried to act normal, but inside I was falling all over myself feeling like a star struck fan of them both. Jeanette Nolan also starred in a short lived western called Dirty Sally, as an old tobacca' chewin' dame that got herself in all sorts of situations.
 
JustDave said:
I don't know how many people know that Gunsmoke started as a popular radio Drama that was particularly known for authentic background sounds like Coyotes howling and crackling campfires. Weekend Radio entered my consciousness when I was old enough to relate to radio stories and I would set aside Saturday afternoons to lie on my bed listening to broadcasts after broadcasts of drama, mystery, and comedy. This was before our family had television. My father introduced me to Gunsmoke, by reading a raving review of the series, so I started paying attention to it. When we finally got a TV, Gunsmoke was there waiting for us. It was shockingly different than radio, but I managed to adjust to it, anyway.

And a note on the series Wagon Train that I also remember from my childhood: Many years after it was long gone and as an adult, I met Wagon Train's Wagon Master, John McIntire and his wife Jeanette Nolan in Montana, and my ex and I spent an afternoon way beyond the electrical power grid at their isolated ranch and cabin visiting and drinking martinis. I tried to act normal, but inside I was falling all over myself feeling like a star struck fan of them both. Jeanette Nolan also starred in a short lived western called Dirty Sally, as an old tobacca' chewin' dame that got herself in all sorts of situations.
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I just looked. You can get Gun smoke on radio on Youtube!
 
Isn't the man on the left Floyd the barber??
This is off internet. YouTube's start with Billy the Kid. Not sure which is original or they are the same in different order.
Confused. I like the YouTube one I found better.
 
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I listened to the first episode of the antique looking one above. I can't remember any of the episodes of the radio Gunsmoke, but Matt Dillon comes across much tougher on the radio than he did on TV. I think making the adjustment from Radio to TV was hard for me because I had no conception that characters could be played by different actors.
 
We recently got Netflix and after bingeing a few series and being bummed with the endings (or should I say "non-endings"), I do my research to see what people are saying.

One series had two seasonss and was pretty good. The second season, of course, ended with a cliff-hanger and then the third season was canceled. NOOOOOOOOOO!!
 
jujube said:
One series had two seasonss and was pretty good. The second season, of course, ended with a cliff-hanger and then the third season was canceled. NOOOOOOOOOO!!
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That really peeves me too.
 

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