The BEST episodes of The Virginian season 5
Every episode of The Virginian season 5, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Virginian season 5!
The Virginian was the very first 90 minute western on prime-time television, and is about a man, only known as "the Virginian" who served as foreman on the Shiloh Ranch (owned in sequence by Judge Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Col. MacKenzie) in 19th century Medicine Bow, Wyoming. James Drury starred as the title character with the likes of Doug McClure, Lee J. Cobb, John McIntire, and Clu Gulager co-starring. It is in these settings that a variety of stories, much more based on character and relationships than the usual westerns, take place.
#1 - Ride to Delphi
Season 5 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/21/1966
On behalf of his father Einar (Harold J. Stone), Lemoine Carlson (Ron Russell) and a drover, Wally Buxton (Warren Oates) deliver 50 cattle to Shiloh. Lemoine unsucessfully tries to get John Grainger to give an extra $60.00 for delivery charges which he and Buxton want to use to have a good time in the town of Clarion. Buxton wonders why Lemoine's father is so tight with his son while lavishing money on Lemoine's youngish stepmother Annie (Angie Dickenson). Buxton convinces Lemoine to turn the other cheek while he rustles and sells five of the cattle and to meet him later in Clarion. The next morning The Virginian finds the cattle missing and sets off on their trail. He eventually finds them in the possession of a black sodbuster, Ransome Kiley (Bernie Hamilton) and his two young twin sons, Elver and Jethro (Byron and Myron Berry). Kiley claims to have paid gold for the cattle and will not give up the animals. The Virginian is skeptical but Kiley tells him to go to nearby Delphi and get
#2 - Jacob Was a Plain Man
Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/12/1966
Jake who can't hear or speak runs after he accidentally kills a man in a bar. He lands at Shiloh where his hard work results in a job. Stacey seeing Jake can't express himself decides to teach him to read and write but puts him in danger.
#3 - Legacy of Hate
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/14/1966
The Virginian and Belden (L. Q. Jones) set off for the train station to meet the new owner of Shiloh. They meet John Grainger and his grandaughter Elizabeth. Trampas is said to be away on business in Cheyenne. John is surprised his grandson Stacey is not there to meet them too but he learns from Sheriff Mark Abbott (Ross Elliott) that Stacey has spent the night in jail over a gambling dispute and so John has to put up bail. As the group returns to Shiloh we learn that Shiloh ranch's government grazing land leases will soon be up for renewal. Also, the entourage is watched by neighbouring rancher Lee Calder (Jo Van Fleet) and her foreman Jim Dawson (Jeremy Slate), the former of whom comments that she has not seen John Grainger in 25 years. At Shiloh John discusses with the Virginian whether or not the Shiloh foreman will stay on and he tells the Virginian that his son was killed in an Indian raid ten years before. Sheriff Abbott and Jim Dawson arrive and the latter says some Calder ran
#4 - The Captive
Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/28/1966
A white girl is caught with her adoptive Arapaho parents stealing Shiloh cattle. She stays at Shiloh while the authorities try to find her white parents. She wants to return to the Arapaho but is forced to learn to live in the white world.
#5 - An Echo of Thunder
Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/5/1966
After helping deliver a herd of horses, Trampas decides to take a few days to visit an old friend nearby but he arrives in time for his friend's funeral. He is bothered by the circumstances of his death, so he decides to investigate.
#6 - High Stakes
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/16/1966
When a friend of The Virginian is killed and the posse won't follow the killer out of the county, The Virginian goes alone. He tracks the killer and a woman involved to a remote outlaw controlled town but can he get them back to the law?
#7 - Beloved Outlaw
Season 5 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/23/1966
A wild white stallion draws the attention of Elizabeth who convinces her grandfather to buy it. Against his wishes, she tames and breaks the stallion when Trampas is unable to. Her and the stallion become inseparable but a problem occurs.
#8 - Linda
Season 5 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/30/1966
In Beauville, Texas the Virginian completes the sale of horses to government agent Fallon for $10,000. Fallon only has cash so the Virginian is forced to take it but just before boarding the stage he goes to the express office to have the money wired to Medicine Bow. Just after he gets a receipt for the money two men hold up the office and steal the funds. The Sheriff (John Pickard) and Express Agent (Joseph Mell) think he is involved in the robbery as a quick way to double his money. He is cleared by Fallon but the Sheriff is still suspicious it was an inside job and also, that it might be connected to a series of other robberies in the area. The stage is delayed waiting for the Virginian, much to its driver's (Frank McGrath) chagrin. On board the Virginian meets two other passengers, the beautiful Linda Vallance (Diane Baker) and apparent gambler Whitey Luder (Bill Fletcher). Arriving at the next town where they are to stop over for the night, the Virginian asks Linda to dinner. The
#9 - The Long Way Home
Season 5 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/14/1966
Jim Boyer Sr. returns to his wife and son living in Medicine Bow and takes a job at Shiloh. Boyer is a very capable but ignores detail in his work as he tries to earn the foreman job at another ranch Grainger is hoping to purchase.
#10 - Vengeance Trail
Season 5 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/4/1967
Stacey is forced to kill a man who tries to rob him. He returns the body to the man's sister who asks Stacey to leave rather than see the Sheriff. She is afraid their younger brother who joins the Shiloh cattle drive will try for revenge.
#11 - Requiem for a Country Doctor
Season 5 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/25/1967
One morning the Virginian arrives in a small town to meet Stacey Grainger and sees a gallows being built. From the owner of the saloon, Clara Plain (Cloris Leachman), he learns Stacey is being held in jail and is scheduled to be hanged the next morning. The Sheriff (Ford Rainey) tells him Stacey lost in a card game watched by the beloved local doctor, John Marsh, and had harsh words with him and that the doctor had a large quantity of money he had collected for the local orphanage. Having no money, Stacey went out of town where he encountered and murdered the Sheriff for the money and was caught by two locals. Stacey claims he came upon the already dead doctor, heard someone running away and fired a waring shot into the dark. Although Stacey did not have the money on him, the Sheriff claims he threw it away when he heard men approaching. In the next cell to Stacey is Randall (Morgan Woodward) who is awaiting transfer to prison. The Virginian learns that Stacey's trial was called hastil
#12 - Lady of the House
Season 5 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/5/1967
John Grainger asks an old friend from Maryland to come to Shiloh to take the rough edges off his grandkids. She does as he asks quite well but is less than popular with the kids and The Virginian. Unknown to them, she has a secret plan.
#13 - Yesterday's Timepiece
Season 5 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/18/1967
Stacey buys a gold watch that may have belonged to his dead dad. It sets him off on a journey to find the truth about his parent's deaths. He meets an orphaned girl who owned the watch and is curious about her parents who she never knew.
#14 - Outcast
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/26/1966
A man wanted for murder and robbery escapes jail and ends up in Medicine Bow where he befriends Stacey in a fight. He goes to work at Shiloh as a ranch hand and Elizabeth takes an interest in him. However, Stacey is less certain about him.
#15 - Trail to Ashley Mountain
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/2/1966
Sheriff Mark Abbott (Ross Elliott) arrives at Ed Wells (Hugh Marlowe) ranch and finds him playing checkers with Trampas and being served lemonade by Ed's wife, Connie (Monica Lewis). The Sheriff finds a horse in the corral missing a shoe and reveals a shoe, along with a piece of fringe from a distinctive shirt Ed owned, were found at the scene of the murder of Cy Bates who had been robbed of $8,000 in gold. The shirt is missing and Ed claims he was home at the time of the robbery, meeting with travelling salesman/tinker Gabe Styles. Marks wants Ed to come to town with him. In private Ed asks his wife where the shirt is and she says she gave it to her brother Willy (Steve Carlson) who lives with them, a fact Ed hides from the Sheriff. After the Sheriff and Ed leave, Willy arrives and admits to his sister that he was at the robbery but claims an accomplice killed Cy Bates and that Ed will get off anyway once Gabe Styles confirms his alibi. However, unknown to all, Gabe has died a natural
#16 - The Challenge
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/19/1966
After a stagecoach holdup and accident, Trampas stumbles into a farm with a concussion and amnesia. The farmer and his two kids tend to Trampas but the white handled gun he is carrying puts him into danger from the law and the outlaws.
#17 - Deadeye Dick
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/9/1966
Lucy Hammond (June Vincent) and her teenage daughter Marjorie (Alice Rawlings) arrive by train in Medicine Bow. Marjorie is enthralled by her first trip west which she imagines to be like the dime novels featuring her hero Deadeye Dick. At Medicine Bow they are met by Lucy's widowed sister Livvy Underhill (Patricia Donahue). While Marjorie is waiting in the buggy for her mother and aunt, a tumbleweed spooks the horse but is calmed down by the Virginian who happens to be nearby and she tells the Virginian that was how the heroine of her novels met Deadeye Dick. Marjorie and Lucy arrive at the Underhill ranch and while out riding Marjorie spies the Virginian rounding up cattle and meets him by pretending her horse is a runaway so he will rescue her. She even pretends to see a snake to see how fast the Virginian is on the draw. The two meet neighbouring farmer Tom Foley (William Schallert) and his teenage son Bob (David Macklin) and the Virginian gets Bob to escort Marjorie home. Bob disc
#18 - The Girl on the Glass Mountain
Season 5 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/28/1966
Cowhand Howie Sheppard (Tom Tryon) participates in his last cattle drive for Shiloh as he is to marry Donna Maguire (Pamela Austin) once the roundup is over and settle down – that is, if Donna's father Jasper (Hugh Beaumont), a well-off store owner, consents to the marriage. He also encounters Rail (Michael Greene), a former co-worker with a larcenous streak and warns him against rustling cattle from the Shiloh herd like he used to do when they worked together at the Connally ranch. At a dance, Donna tells Howie the story of the girl on the glass mountain who would not come down until she met her Prince. After a dance, Howie asks Jasper Maguire for his daughter's hand and although he tells Howie he does not see him as the ideal son-in-law, he consents to the marriage. Howie agrees to buy a store with a living area at the rear where he can set up a saddlery shop. Donna and Howie are married with Stacey and Elizabeth Grainger serving as best man and bridesmaid. The saddlery shop is a suc
#19 - Sue Ann
Season 5 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/11/1967
Sue Ann McCrae (Patty Duke) lives on a small farmstead with her widower father (Edward Binns), her two younger brothers, and hand Joe Stevens (Paul Carr). Joe wants to marry her but she feels trapped and one night runs off. She hails a stage driven by Mr. Tait (Roy Barcroft) and on it meets Trampas and tells him she is going to San Francisco. Arriving in Medicine Bow, Trampas gets her a room at Mrs. Crandall's (Rita Lynn) boarding house. Meanwhile, Joe and Pa McCrae search for Sue Ann and learn from Tait that she went to Medicine Bow and that she was with a Shiloh hand, Trampas. They arrive at Shiloh and Trampas takes them to the boarding house. Sue Ann confesses to them that she wants to see life and live it and do things outside the farm routine and that she is going to get a job to raise money to go to San Francisco. She volunteers to come back to the farm but her father says he will give her a chance to spread her wings but she is always welcome to return. Joe wants to stick around
#20 - The Gauntlet
Season 5 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/8/1967
The Virginian is shot crossing a large Texas ranch. The owner taking him in tries to hire him to be his own foreman. The owner likes to make his own rules putting him at odds with his wife over their son and the running of a gauntlet.
#21 - Nightmare at Fort Killman
Season 5 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/8/1967
Watched by two men, Stacey Grainger buys a train ticket to San Francisco where he is to meet the Virginian. He leaves his bag with the Station Master (Harry Harvey Sr.) but when he returns to the station to catch the train he is waylaid by the men who had been watching him. One of the men, whom it turns out is army Sergeant Tom Beale (Johnny Seven), dresses Stacey in an army uniform, fills him with rotgut and takes him to Fort Killman where he gives the clerk (Wally Strauss) papers saying Stacey is Willard J. Thorne, a new recruit. Beale is surprised to learn, however, that his own army discharge papers have not yet arrived and won't come through for two days. The unconscious Stacey is thrown in the guardhouse where he meets black soldier Billy Martin (Don Mitchell). The top Sergeant, Joe Trapp (James Daly) and commanding officer, Captain MacDowell (Les Crane), return to the fort from a reconnaissance. It is clear the two distrust one another and are not on good terms, with Trapp imply
#22 - Bitter Harvest
Season 5 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/15/1967
The Virginian travels to Winton to buys oats for Shiloh. He finds himself in the middle of a fight between the farmers and ranchers with the owner of the oats at the core of the fight with a rancher who is a close friend of John Grainger.
#23 - Without Mercy
Season 5 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/15/1967
Stacey has developed an interest in a girl but her father doesn't approve of him. After dragging Stacey, the father is found shot in the back. When the $300 he was carrying is found in Stacey's saddle bags, Stacey is charged with murder.
#24 - Melanie
Season 5 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/22/1967
An old and successful friend and his daughter from Chicago visit the Graingers. John is surprised when he learns they want to stay in the area. The high society daughter falls in love with Trampas who doesn't know about her secret illness.
#25 - Doctor Pat
Season 5 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/1/1967
Dr. Spaulding decides to hire another doctor to help share the load but he is unsure whether the attractive female doctor he is sent will work out. The Virginian takes a strong interest in her and her problems as she tries to adapt.