The BEST episodes written by Dick Nelson (I)
#2 - Funeral at Fifty-Mile
Murder, She Wrote - Season 1 - Episode 22
A Wyoming rancher leaves all to an ill-fated stranger, to the disgust of his disinherited daughter.
#3 - Murder in the Electric Cathedral
Murder, She Wrote - Season 2 - Episode 16
Jessica must find the murderer of her close friend whose will is in contention between family and a popular evangelist.
#4 - Gallagher's Sons
Bonanza - Season 4 - Episode 11
Hoss helps Charlie and Will (Charlotte and Willomina), two young girls who just lost their father. They go on a journey to find their only nearby relative, Aunt Cloe. Charlie takes with her a stolen sack of money that her father gave her and tries her best to lose Hoss. Four bandits show up looking for the loot Charlie has. In the end, Hoss finds out about the stolen money and talks the girls into giving it back. He puts them in dresses and sends them off to Boston on a stage, telling them they did the right thing and will probably get the money back as a reward for helping capture the bandits!
#5 - The Lawmaker
Bonanza - Season 3 - Episode 25
Ben supports the appointment of Asa Moran as Virginia City's temporary sheriff, but Moran goes overboard with his authority, jailing Adam in the process and pistol-whipping a Ponderosa hand.
#6 - Showdown in Saskatchewan
Murder, She Wrote - Season 4 - Episode 20
Arson is intended to remove the Rodeo doctor and his patient permanently. Jessica jumps through hoops to find the travelling rodeo's killer.
#7 - The $100,000 Nickel
Hawaii Five-O - Season 6 - Episode 14
A thief known for using sleight-of-hand is hired to steal a valuable nickel, but the coin ends up on a journey across many miles and through many hands.
#8 - Nan Allen
The Virginian - Season 9 - Episode 14
Upon arriving for a business appointment with a friend, MacKenzie learns that the man was killed by the brother of Nan Allen, a young woman he was in the act of assaulting. He finds this hard to believe, but upon getting to know Nan, he takes a strong liking to her. When her brother Bobby is injured from an avalanche, MacKenzie brings both him and Nan to Shiloh while he recuperates. As he and Nan begin to fall in love, MacKenzie starts to wonder why more than one man in her past has died violently, and if Bobby's strangely possessive attitude has something to do with it.
#10 - The Schoolmarm
Gunsmoke - Season 19 - Episode 20
After being raped, Dodge City school teacher Sarah Merkle struggles with the implications of being an unwed mother.
#11 - A Taste of Ashes
Ironside - Season 7 - Episode 19
A girl thought to have died years previously turns up at the home of her mother just as her brother is found murdered. Clearly somebody is trying to kill the family off, but is it connected to the girl, and is she really who she says she is?
#12 - The Brothers
The Virginian - Season 4 - Episode 1
Matt Denning (Robert Lansing), a good friend of Emmett Ryker's, believes his younger brother Will (Andrew Prine) innocent of a crime and breaks him out of a military jail where he is awaiting execution, accidentally killing a guard in the process. Along with Matt's wife (Jan Shepard) and son (Kurt Russell), they escape into an area where many Sioux Indians are out for blood, and are trailed by Ryker, army Sgt. Cohane (Myron Healey) and three soldiers. They find the escapees but the party is attacked by the Sioux. Will is killed, confessing as he dies that he was guilty as charged and leading Matt to realize all has been for nothing. Despite the fact the guard's death was clearly an accident, and the fact Emmett and Cohane testify on his behalf, Matt is found guilty and Emmett is forced to uphold the law and turn Matt over to the Sheriff who will escort him to prison.
#13 - Incident of the Peyote Cup
Rawhide - Season 6 - Episode 31
Hey Soos is captured by a small secretive tribe of Indians, and forced to drink peyote liquid. An indian girl helps him escape. The new drover, Mister Brothers was a missionary and tried to convert this tribe. They came to believe if they crucified white men they dead ancestors would come back to life.