Gunsmoke
Abelia
TV Flash files “Abelia” as hour 471 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 14, episode 8, aired 1968-11-18, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S14E08: listed hour 471 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 8 of 26 in season 14. It aired 1968-11-18 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “9:12 to Dodge” (S14E07). Next is “Railroad!” (S14E09). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
The Ward gang is on the run after a bank robbery. The gang loses one of the Ward brothers, shot in the stomach, while Abelia and another gang member go to Dodge for a painkiller. While in town Festus and Newly have a run-in with the pair. Festus has a tracking job which leads him to Abelia's home where the gang has already taken off south bound. One of Abelia's children is bitten by a snake and Festus stays on to help heal the girl.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Abelia sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S14E08 is listed hour 471 of 635 — hour 8 of 26 in season 14, season 14 episode 8.
When did Gunsmoke S14E08 air?
Abelia aired 1968-11-18 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with the 1955 opener, where the marshal is not invincible. Then sample a later guest-star hour rather than marching through hundreds of titles in order.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Twenty seasons of Dodge as a civic appointment: a marshal who can lose, a chorus instead of gadgets, and adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Longevity here was weather, not catalog padding — weekly public work with dust still on the boots.
September 1955, CBS: a marshal takes a bullet in the first hour and the adult western stops being a kid’s hat commercial. Gunsmoke had already lived on radio, with a different voice in the badge. Television wanted a face the lens could trust. The lore still pours like bar whiskey — John Wayne pointing at James Arness, William Conrad left on the airwaves, a casting fight that was really a medium fight. Radio-to-TV is never a reprint. It is a negotiation about whose body gets to mean the law.
Filed against
- James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon
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- Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell
Amanda Blake’s Miss Kitty Russell ran Dodge City’s Long Branch with red-haired steel on Gunsmoke — saloon diplomacy as weekly moral court. Longevity made her western TV’s most reliable soft power. TV Flash files her as the original…
- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
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- Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode
Dennis Weaver’s Chester Goode was Gunsmoke’s limp and loyalty — chorus, not gadget, in Dodge City’s weekly moral court. Twenty seasons of adult western that treated a gunfight as a verdict, James Arness as a marshal the camera could…
- Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen
Ken Curtis’s Festus Haggen is Gunsmoke’s later chorus — Dodge City as a weekly moral court, a marshal who can lose, adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Twenty seasons of civic work with dust on the boots. On TV Flash…