Gunsmoke
Matt's Love Story
TV Flash files “Matt's Love Story” as hour 590 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 19, episode 3, aired 1973-09-24, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S19E03: listed hour 590 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 3 of 24 in season 19. It aired 1973-09-24 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Women for Sale (2)” (S19E02). Next is “The Boy and the Sinner” (S19E04). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Matt is shot and abandoned by a fugitive Les Dean, whom he was tracking. Matt's horse finds his way to the farm of young widow named Mike Yardner, who, with the help of her dog, finds Matt and brings him to her farm. Matt is recovering, but he does not remember his past. Love is in the air. Separately, Les Dean makes a contract with Mike Yardner's corrupt neighbor to drive her out due to some water rights. The neighbor's words were "I don't like killings, but I've been around them." Les Dean visits Mike and Matt (who still does not recognize Les), but Les changes his mind about the contract and goes to return the deposit. That's when Matt regains his memory.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Matt's Love Story sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S19E03 is listed hour 590 of 635 — hour 3 of 24 in season 19, season 19 episode 3.
When did Gunsmoke S19E03 air?
Matt's Love Story aired 1973-09-24 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
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- Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen
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