Doctor's Wife

This is a really good episode, well-acted and all about one of my favorites, Doc. Milburn Stone is truly a great actor, and curmudgeonly when he needs to be and affable when he feels like it, and pulls them off each time. He needs to be in more episodes, I really respect his talent. I'm of the camp that they need more involved stories for the regulars.

As to this episode - whoo boy, that wife is, as another reviewer called her, shrewish, and spoiled and extremely distasteful, a "sassy wife" andc"she-wolf", as Festus accurately called her, and her husband, a nice enough guy and who gets wrongfully blamed for his wife's bad-doings, deserves a whole lot better. (I know it's just a story but, you can get invested in these stories.) She's really a wretch and a money-grubber, and I've not yet seen the end of the story - I'm currently watching it - but, boy - do I hope she gets hers. Too many of the bad women on this show end up getting away without punishment just because they're women.

But, other than all that, a really good episode. Doc Adams was written as a total class act in this one.

An excellent, detailed review by Irrap that I won't repeat. One of the best episodes I've watched. Try to watch it if you can. Doc at his absolute best.

The story appears to be about spreading vicious rumors and gossip, but it is more than that. In fact, for me the basic theme was the presentation of a totally unredeemed character.

Ms. May was so completely lacking in any form of humility that it is impossible to imagine that with such egomania she could have any genuine virtues. This is not tender concern for her husband, but rather an attempt to aggrandize a possession. Lying, arrogance and deceit come so naturally to her that it is impossible to imagine she showed no signs of this earlier.

Doc Adams takes her with him on house calls, thinking that she may realize that the practice of medicine is not primarily to make money. But this sort of personality disorder is not easily treated and is incurable.

And here I thought this was going to be the standard sort of plot: New Doc and wife arrive in town, start nasty rumors about Doc Adams, stirring up the townsfolk about Doc's outdated methods, Doc's about to "pack it in" until he comes through at the end to show that HIS way is best, and all is forgiven. WRONG!! George Eckstein's teleplay is a multi-layered, insightful study of human nature, in all its good and bad traits.

There are MANY unexpected but welcome elements to the story:

1.) Doc Adams APPRECIATES the competition from the new Doc.

2.) Doc does everything he can to help make the new doc feel welcome.

3.) The new doctor (James Broderick) genuinely likes Doc and appreciates his assistance.

4.) It's the doc's wife Jenny (Phyllis Love) who---sorry, ladies---is an ambitious, dishonest, shrewish and petulant woman who initiates the problems, the last of which BACKFIRES on her.

5.) Except for this last incident, the problems created by Jenny really never amount to much. But Doc Adams rises above it all, and disabuses Jenny of her hope that there's money to be made as a doctor in Dodge City...then actually invites her to accompany him on his local calls so she can see for herself the squalor and poverty in which most of his patients live.

6.) Doc's relationship to his patients in Dodge is very realistic..they are difficult to please, opinionated, and stubborn; it's not all the rosy sort of attitude you'd expect from a standard TV show.

7.) The entire sequence of events at the Boake home (and its aftermath in town) is gritty, intense, and entirely believable. Very dramatic and imaginative writing.

Milburn Stone shines in every one of his big scenes...of which there are many. The TOTAL ACTOR....truthful and convincing in every word, gesture, and expression.

Even the "comic relief" scenes with Festus are expertly integrated into the script...they are hilarious, but TRUTHFUL..like real people would speak to one another. Eg: during a Long Branch discussion on: Why the Haggens All Live So Long.... DOC: "It's because they're too DUMB to know they're dead, that's why."

I watched the episode twice in a row just to see Milburn Stone do his thing. He was the best. LR.

To this point in the series there simply hasn't been a better episode than this one. It features the first classic argument between Doc and Festus, it exhibits Milburn Stone marvelously, and when Stone gets the spotlight he never fails to deliver the goods. It has tragedy, suspense and deliverance. And on top of that it's a tear-jerker in an uplifting way.

What can one say about the eponymous title character? She's a mighty hard lass to bowl out. The way she smiles after taking a bite of Doc's catfish stew makes you think she's an angel. In fact, I almost got the the impression she was sweet on Doc early on. Quite the contrary, alas. Turns out she's a ruthless striver who will happily destroy a good man and hasten another's death all so her hubby's medical practice will flourish post haste. But, just when you think she's Satan's handmaiden, she learns her lesson, expresses shame and becomes a better woman.

And the happy ending is welcome. In the hands of John Meston the young doctor would have died of his gunshot wound and his destitute, desolated wife would have wandered out of Dodge with a fractured psyche. There is absolutely a place for those sorts of tragic endings, but Gunsmoke fans also need to have a song in their heart on occasion. And this episode puts it there.