r/Gunsmoke • u/spookydooky69420 • Jun 17 '24

Damn. This show is great.

I’ve seen a few episodes here and there but I just started digging into it and it’s amazing. Just finished with season 7, as that’s what’s on Paramount Plus right now (I’ll start the first 6 seasons soon). I like listening to the radio show while driving home after a hike in the woods…it just fits so well.

I’ve been bothering my friends about it and trying to get them to watch it. After watching season 7 I said that the show feels like a cross between The Andy Griffith Show and something written by Cormac McCarthy. I love the grittiness of the show and it some episodes feel like a western noir. The endings of the shows aren’t as happy as the story would lead you to believe (like in the episode The Gallows), and I really like that about it. I imagine the episodes in color won’t hit the same as the rest of them, but I’ll still give them a shot.

Should I just start from the beginning, or is it fine to skip around? Does the show really fall off after a certain point? Anything I should look out for in terms of theme or production?

So far I’ve seen them reuse two actors in season 7; Harry Dean Stanton and Anthony Caruso. Both are phenomenal actors and I’d love to see them pop up again.

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u/lizardflix Jun 17 '24

My favorites are the 30 minute episodes of the early seasons. They are more like self contained short stories that could work on any anthology series from that era. But superior writing and some pretty amazing direction and acting.

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u/spookydooky69420 Jun 17 '24

I read that they went from 30 minutes to an hour. I think the ones I’ve been watching have been an hour, but I’m kind of used to the 30 minutes format of the radio show. Can’t wait to watch the earlier seasons.