Kioga

I believe this episode has less dialog than any one hour show to date. As we get an Indian that will not talk while the camera follows him around Dodge on his daily hunt. I always thought that less dialog may be better but this is a time where I was proved wrong.

It begins as a man named Jayce McCaw is trading with a family of Indian. McCaw decides to take advantage of the situation and give them less than what is fair. When the father refused, McCaw took it anyway and then shot the father and wounded the Indian son named Kioga. This left the Indian daughter with McCaw as the picture faded to black. Needless to say things did not go well for the daughter.

Now the rest of the show is Kioga hunting down McCaw to make him pay for what he did to his family. He tracks him to Dodge, buys new clothes, cut his hair and tries to blend in with the crowd. All the time putting pressure on McCaw as he attempts to kill him.

This was not really a poor show, it just seemed like Kioga could have killed McCaw at anytime but always seemed to make a mistake. I guess they need to fill the entire hour so they kept making the Indian's attempts fail. It was getting unbelievable especially after Kioga shoots several times at McCaw with a rifle and Marshal Dillon comes up with gun drawn and tells Kioga to drop the gun. Instead Kioga points it right at the Marshal and Matt does nothing but tell him to drop it again. Anytime else Matt would have fired. Anyway the concept of the story was good- it just did not relate to film as it should.

Others have given good reviews of this episode so all I want to add is a few comments.

I did not like this episode at all To me it was the worst episode of Gunsmoke I've ever seen. Watching a young Indian not speak as the whole episode centered on him does not make an enjoyable experience. And Matt kept going out of his way to not do anything to him for trying to kill someone over and over. Absurd episode.

This episode is about justice, and the unwillingness of one culture to trust another's way of dispensing it. And unfortunately, American Indians had a reason for not trusting it.

Yes, Kioga (excellently played by Teno Pollick) doesn't have much dialogue in the show, but in my opinion it is a well-written piece. He is tenacious in his desire to exact justice...and it is justice, even though some may call it vengeance. There may be a fine line, especially when repercussions of wrongdoing are administered by those who suffered from the actions. But when objective parties - those who didn't experience any suffering - want to administer the same justice, a life for a life (as Matt Dillon did), it is justice.

I think it was well-acted by all involved! I've always appreciated the talent Neville Brand had in portraying seedy characters, he was a top-notch actor! His looks and voice helped in that regard.