The BEST episodes of The Big Valley
Every episode of The Big Valley ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Big Valley!
Setting is the 1870's in California's gorgeous San Joaquin Valley, The Big Valley is the story of Stockton's richest and most powerful family, the Barkleys. Lead by the family matriarch Victoria Barkley, widow of Tom Barkley, they live on the Barkley Ranch managing their cattle herd, mines, citrus groves and logging camps. Victoria's family consists of her two sons Jarrod and Nick, daughter Audra and Tom Barkley's son Heath. Jarrod, a prominent lawyer, handles legal issues for the family and manages his two law offices in Stockton and San Francisco. Nick, a rancher, physically manages the family's holdings. Nick is aggressive, out-spoken and at times hot-headed. Victoria's youngest child is her beautiful daughter Audra. Audra is protected by all of the family members. Audra is very sensitive, caring, loves horses, and is a very talented rider. Heath, Tom Barkley's son, helps Nick manage the family ranch.
#1 - Joaquin
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/11/1967
A man is hired at the ranch who is believed to be a Mexican outlaw thought long dead.
#2 - Ambush
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/18/1967
Victoria helps three indian women at a desert mission.
#3 - Under a Dark Star
Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/9/1966
A guilt ridden Jarrod offers to help a man that he helped to convict of a crime that Jarrod now knows that he did not commit.
#4 - Four Days to Furnace Hill
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/4/1967
Victoria is captured by crooked prison guards, who plan to substitute her for a convict they murdered.
#5 - The Devil's Masquerade
Season 3 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/4/1968
A friend of Heath's has been carrying on a correspondence courtship with a woman who is to be his mail-order bride.
#6 - Night of the Executioner
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/11/1967
While traveling through a strange town, a murder occurs and an innocent man is accused of it. Heath saw the man who really committed the crime, a fact which gets him more trouble than he bargained for.
#7 - Journey into Violence
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/18/1967
A community of mountain dwellers, who live by their own laws, captures Heath and forces him into slavery for killing one of their own in self defense.
#8 - The Buffalo Man
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/25/1967
The Barkleys hire convicts to help with their crops as part of a parole system, but a sadistic guard is determined to make his charges miserable.
#9 - The Good Thieves
Season 3 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/1/1968
On the trail of the two thieving brothers who shot Jarrod during a robbery, Nick and Heath find them in a town where they are not only considered the leading citizens, but also practically saints.
#10 - Days of Wrath
Season 3 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/8/1968
Wracked with grief when his new bride is murdered, an enraged Jarrod relentlessly hunts down her killer.
#11 - Miranda
Season 3 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/15/1968
A wealthy Mexican visits the Barkleys, asking for help and bringing a valuable necklace with him.
#12 - Shadow of a Giant
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/29/1968
Nick and Heath join a posse led by a legendary marshal, but the marshal is no longer the same man they knew in the past.
#13 - Fall of a Hero
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/5/1968
Jarod defends Heath in court when he is accused of murder.
#14 - The Emperor of Rice
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/12/1968
A couple kidnap Victoria in an attempt to corner the rice market.
#15 - Rimfire
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/19/1968
When Jarod goes to Rimfire to conclude a merge of two mines, trouble starts.
#16 - Bounty on a Barkley
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/26/1968
Nick falls for newcomer Layle Johnson, who is slow to respond to his attentions.
#17 - Showdown in Limbo
Season 2 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/27/1967
Heath helps an old friend and lawman transport a wanted outlaw to Stockton, with the outlaw's gang in hot pursuit.
#18 - Explosion! (pt. 2)
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/27/1967
Jarrod, Nick and Heath volunteer to take the nitroglycerin to the fire.
#19 - Explosion! (pt. 1)
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/20/1967
A forest fire rages, drawing closer to Stockton. The only solution is a firebreak created by a nitroglycerin explosion.
#20 - A Noose is Waiting
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/13/1967
Victoria and Audra become acquainted with the new town doctor, unaware that he is a psychotic killer out to avenge his father's suicide by hanging those he holds responsible, and Victoria is one of his targets.
#21 - The Disappearance
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/6/1967
A frantic Victoria searches for Audra, who has disappeared from a hotel and who no one claims to have seen.
#22 - Guilty
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/30/1967
A client of Jarrod's escapes and takes over the schoolhouse where Audra is the substitute teacher.
#23 - Ladykiller
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/16/1967
Nick and Heath stop at an inn where guests are killed for their money.
#24 - Night in a Small Town
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/9/1967
Traveling on a stage, Heath, Victoria, Audra, and a wayward saloon girl, stop in a small town for the night, where the town marshal turns out to be an old friend of Heath's. The man, though, is clearly not the man Heath remembers.
#25 - The Time after Midnight
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/2/1967
Jarrod agrees to prosecute a land grabber, but his determination to see justice served is severely tested when he is blinded in an explosion.