Wanted: Dead or Alive
The Trial
TV Flash files “The Trial” as a desk essential hour — Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958–1961) on CBS, season 3, episode 1, aired 1960-09-21, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S03E01: listed hour 69 of 94 in the Wanted: Dead or Alive guide, first listed hour of season 3. It aired 1960-09-21 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Pay-Off at Pinto” (S02E32). Next is “The Cure” (S03E02).
Essential hour: “The Trial”. The Trial starts the last year as a courtroom title, bounty-hunter cool walking into civic language without dropping the gun.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Daniel Trenner is wanted for court martial because of his cowardice several men is his platoon lost their lives. Josh is after Trenner for other reasons and wants to stop the trial.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Trial sit in the Wanted: Dead or Alive guide?
S03E01 is listed hour 69 of 94 — first listed hour of season 3, season 3 episode 1.
When did Wanted: Dead or Alive S03E01 air?
The Trial aired 1960-09-21 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with McQueen and the Mare's Leg. The bounty-hunter brief and the underplaying are visible immediately.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Wanted: Dead or Alive made Steve McQueen a star with a sawed-off Mare's Leg and quiet bounty-hunter cool. Stylish antihero western in a crowded field. A 2026 viewer watches the proto-cool that movies later sold as McQueen myth — the cut-down Winchester as branding, intensity as the whole performance.
The gun is already the logo. Steve McQueen walks into CBS, 1958, as bounty hunter Josh Randall with a cut-down Winchester carbine — the Mare's Leg — and a volume knob turned so far down the rest of the western field sounds like shouting. Wanted: Dead or Alive is stylish antihero television in a crowded hat market, Four Star Television's three-season star factory, ninety-four half-hours of quiet intensity sold as a brand. The sawed-off is merch and myth in the same prop. Underplaying is the whole performance.…
Filed against
- Steve McQueen as Josh Randall
Steve McQueen made Wanted: Dead or Alive a star vehicle as Josh Randall — sawed-off Mare's Leg, quiet bounty-hunter cool, stylish antihero western in a crowded 1950s field. Intensity as the brand. TV Flash files him as proto-cool the…