Gunsmoke
This Golden Land
TV Flash files “This Golden Land” as the last listed hour of season 18 — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 18, episode 24, aired 1973-03-05, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S18E24: listed hour 587 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, last listed hour of season 18. It aired 1973-03-05 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Talbot” (S18E23). Next is “Women for Sale (1)” (S19E01). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Russian-Jewish farmer Moshe and his family come to Kansas to try to take advantage of the land. However, their traditions are mocked by the cowboys around, notably a neighboring farm family. One night, one of Moshe's sons and the neighbors get into a fight, and the son is found dead of a broken neck soon afterward. Moshe witnessed the start of the fight but not the actual killing. Under the Mosaic law he treasured, he cannot testify and without his word the farm family is set free. Moshe's second son buys a shotgun and threatens the neighbors with it to compel them to confess, but wastes his powder firing at imaginary targets and is run off the farm. The neighbors then invade Moshe's farm in an attempt to drive him off for good.
Viewer FAQ
Where does This Golden Land sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S18E24 is listed hour 587 of 635 — last listed hour of season 18, season 18 episode 24.
When did Gunsmoke S18E24 air?
This Golden Land aired 1973-03-05 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
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- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
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- Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode
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- 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…