The BEST episodes of Bonanza season 10
Every episode of Bonanza season 10, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Bonanza season 10!
The show chronicles the weekly adventures of the Cartwright family, headed by the thrice-widowed patriarch Ben Cartwright. He had three sons, each by a different wife: the eldest was the urbane architect Adam who built the ranch house; the second was the warm and lovable giant Eric "Hoss"; and the youngest was the hotheaded and impetuous Joseph or "Little Joe". Via exposition and flashback episodes and each wife was accorded a different ethnicity. The family's cook was the Chinese immigrant Hop Sing.
#1 - The Fence
Season 10 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/27/1969
While Ben and Hoss visit an old friend to negotiate the purchase of a mine, former Confederate soldiers arrive wanting to exact revenge on the Cartwrights' friend for starving POWs during the Civil War.
#2 - Emily
Season 10 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/23/1969
Joe is shocked to see his ex-fiancee, Emily Anderson, in Virginia City. He had met her in Monterey five years earlier, and they had planned to get married. But her strict father thought Joe was too wild, and he burned all of Joe's letters before Emily saw them. Emily and Joe are still in love with each other, but Emily conveniently forgets to tell Joe that she is now Emily McPhail, the wife of Deputy Marshal Wade McPhail. Wade is on assignment with Marshal Calhoun to help guard a $90,000 currency shipment. Emily tells Wade they have to leave Virginia City immediately, since Joe's presence might interfere with their marriage, but he refuses to leave. He finds Joe and Emily embracing and engages with Joe in a savage fight, almost killing him at gunpoint. That is the first Joe hears of Emily's marriage. That is by no means the end of her lies, which eventually get Joe shot and nearly framed for murder.
#3 - The Last Vote
Season 10 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/20/1968
Hoss and Joe's bickering leads them into taking opposite sides in the Virginia City mayoral race. Their zealous actions leads into dividing Virginia City's citizens into 2 factions that causes nothing but arguments, fights and havoc in town.
#4 - Salute to Yesterday
Season 10 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/29/1968
When on a cattle drive on Ponderosa land, the Cartwrights and Candy find a dying cavalry officer on the trail. With his last breath, he asks them to go help his commanding officer, Captain Harris. Riding atop a slope, they see Captain Harris and his soldiers fighting off Mexican bandits who are trying to steal the four kegs of gold hidden in the Army ambulance. The Cartwrights and Candy cut right between the soldiers and the Mexican bandits, in a spectacular chase through a little valley and wind up at a high and rocky outcrop, taking cover and assisting the soldiers.
#5 - Mark of Guilt
Season 10 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/15/1968
Hop Sing tells Hoss and Candy they can use the ancient Chinese art of fingerprinting to prove Joe is innocent of murder.
#6 - The Running Man
Season 10 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/30/1969
Joe and Candy travel to Butlerville and learn that one of Ben's closest friends is burning out new settlers, whom he regards as squatters. Candy's old ex-flame is married to Jess Parker, who always saw Candy as a rival in the past, but things have changed with both men and Jess' wife Barbara. Cal Butler is the real problem: he will stop at nothing to keep Parker from testifying alive.
#7 - Little Girl Lost
Season 10 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/3/1968
A bratty 10-year-old girl named Samantha, whose mother is Ben's cousin and is a third cousin of Hoss and Little Joe, comes to the Ponderosa. While she proves to be a handful, Ben (who tracks down the girl's mother) really has his hands full when her grandfather comes to the Ponderosa demanding custody.
#8 - The Lady and the Mountain Lion
Season 10 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/23/1969
A shady magician, with his twin daughters, comes to Virginia City and there is a lot of confusion with the daughters of the magician, twin confusion!
#9 - Catch as Catch Can
Season 10 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/27/1968
The residents of Tin Bucket claim the Cartwrights and Candy are dealing in stolen cattle hides. With most of the town accusing Joe, Hoss and Candy of various crimes, it is Ben who faces the most serious trouble when he determines who is actually responsible for the hide thefts.
#10 - The Passing of a King
Season 10 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/13/1968
The son of a rancher to whom the Cartwrights are selling a prize bull is trying to get his father ruled mentally incompetant, and will let no one stand in his way.
#11 - Queen High
Season 10 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/1/1968
Joe and Candy win a stamping mill in a poker game, but the fact of them not knowing how to run it, is the least of their worries.
#12 - My Friend, My Enemy
Season 10 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/12/1969
Only the testimony of an Indian wanted for horse theft can clear Candy of murder.
#13 - The Real People of Muddy Creek
Season 10 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/6/1968
Ben is in charge of a vicious prisoner and gets virtually no help from the cowardly citizens of the town where he is holding him from the law.
#14 - Mrs. Wharton and the Lesser Breeds
Season 10 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/19/1969
Candy sets out to help a feisty and elderly British woman recover the jewels stolen from her in a stage holdup.
#15 - The Clarion
Season 10 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/9/1969
Ben's friend is struggling to keep her newspaper going in the face of harrassment by the town boss of Gunlock, so without telling her, Ben buys the business.
#16 - The Unwanted
Season 10 - Episode 27 - Aired 4/6/1969
Feeling unloved, a Marshal's daughter runs off with a Ponderosa hand her father thinks may be related to the man that shot him.
#17 - The Survivors
Season 10 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/10/1968
A white woman abducted years before by the Paiutes is reunited with her husband, who is less than pleased to learn she has given birth to an Indian baby.
#18 - A Ride in the Sun
Season 10 - Episode 30 - Aired 5/11/1969
A pair of con artists swindle Ben out of nearly $30,000 after convincing the Cartwright patriarch to enter into a deal to buy his cattle. The brother and sister shoot Ben, rob the Virginia City Bank and go on the run with Little Joe hot on their trail.
#19 - The Sound of Drums
Season 10 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/17/1968
In the third and final installment of the Rossi family, Georgio Rossi doesn't understand why he cannot allow Indians who have left the reservation to live on his land.
#20 - Sweet Annie Laurie
Season 10 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/5/1969
Hoss offers to help Annie Laurie, a beautiful young woman who is running away from her abusive husband, a career criminal who is determined to keep his wife under his control and travel with her throughout the southwest, any which way he can.
#21 - Company of Forgotten Men
Season 10 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/2/1969
A retired Army sergeant, bitter that he never received his pension from the government, kidnaps one-time friend Candy and forces him to go along with a daring plan to blow up the U.S. mint in Carson City and hold the gold and silver for ransom.
#22 - A World Full of Cannibals
Season 10 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/22/1968
Ben agrees to hide a government witness in a land fraud case at the Ponderosa as part of the witness protection program. However, the witness - who along with eight men committed various crimes in connection with the case - is in constant danger, as his co-defendants ruthlessly track him down in an attempt to seal his silence.
#23 - Speak No Evil
Season 10 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/20/1969
Coley Clayborn, who has always thought his mother abandoned him and his father, thinks she is only after the gold mine he inherited when she recently returned to Virginia City.
#24 - Five Candles
Season 10 - Episode 22 - Aired 3/2/1969
The floor of the Virginia City courthouse collapses, trapping Ben in the basement with three other people, one of whom may or may not be guilty of murder.
#25 - The Wish
Season 10 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/9/1969
Hoss spends his two-month vacation helping a black family get their farm in shape, and dealing with racism in the neighboring town.