Wonder

In the original episode, Marshall Matt Dylan knew why Jud Pryor called the little boy Wonder. It was because the little boy kept saying the word "wonder". This was the only word the little boy ever said. Marshall Matt Dylan was the one who found out that the word "wonder" means help in the Apache language. So, for Marshall Matt Dylan to ask Jud Pryor why he calls the little boy Wonder, just doesn't make sense. In this episode, the fight scenes were bad, the acting was bad, and the plot was bad. The original black and white episode was much, much better. The characters and plot were much, much likeable and believable.

I swear that I have seen this episode, or one just like it, many seasons ago in the B&W versions of 'Gunsmoke'. I can only hope that the earlier episode was better than this offering.

The story, if you can call it that, is centered around a man named Jud Pryor that has more or less adopted an Indian boy named Wonder. Jud, a drifter, is seeing this young woman, Annie Franklin, which is much to the dislike of her brothers, Deke and Ed. So the brothers make a plan with Bo Warrick to make Pryor leave their sister alone and high-tail it out of the area.

But when one of the brothers has to kill Bo, Deke schemes a story that Jud was the one who killed Bo so that the Marshal can hang him. But even that plan goes awry.

It was never fully explained why the Indian boy was even in the story. The only thing that makes sense is that he was written in to kill time on this uninteresting story. When the best thing about the episode is Festus and Doc talking about crawdads then you know this was not an entertaining show.

"I Call Him Wonder" aired in 1963 (Season 8, Episode 28). It featured Ron Hayes as a very nice guy who took care of an Indian boy he found on the prairie. That was an interesting story and had good acting.

This episode is a sequel to that story, using the same characters but different actors. The role of Jud Sorell was played by Ron Hayes in 1963. The 1967 version has Richard Mulligan playing Jud Pryor as a drunken bum / drifter who happens to care for an Indian boy. Suffice to say that this time around, Wonder is the victim of neglect and bad parenting.

This episode re-writes that three cowboy gamblers are after Jud, into two brothers and a friend want to kill Jud because he is dating their sister. Overall it is a very awful episode. The worst part is Richard Mulligan, who treats the Indian boy like a prop and makes no emotional connection. Thanks to Mulligan, you wonder why the episode is called "Wonder." since the Native American boy is totally ignored.

For anyone that viewed the original "I Call Him Wonder" episode, this is even more disappointing, because Ron Hayes handled the character and his relationship with the child in a very positive, sweet, and uplifting way.

For some reason I guess we'll never know, the writers took an episode from Season 8 (episode 28)and tried to do it again. They used a completely different actor for Jud (Ron Hayes originally) and Wonder (Edmund Vargas originally), and assumed we would all remember them.

It even confused the IMDb writer of the synopsis; that synopsis is actually the plot of the 1963 episode, so even the people reviewing this one don't know it's another episode.

It would be hard to spoil this episode, as you would probably go to sleep reading it. Just suffice to say that the first go-round, "I Call Him Wonder," was much better; actually heart-warming. It happened back when Chester was still with the show, and Leonard Nimoy was a bad guy in the original episode.

Go watch it. There's more to it, even if it is in black and white. This was just a poorly done recycle that never went anywhere.

This is a very strange episode of Gunsmoke. One has to "Wonder" why it was even made.

Season 8, Episode 28 that first aired in 1963 was titled "I Call Him Wonder" about an orphaned Native American boy that is found by a drifter named Jud Pryor. Jud grows attached to the boy, who he calls "Wonder" (hence the title) and they are seen leaving Dodge together at the end of that episode.

This odd episode uses the same characters as the earlier episode--although they are played by different actors--and it even seems to assume some knowledge of the earlier episode. For example, there is never an explanation given for why Jud and the boy named Wonder are together. Everyone in Dodge seems to already know Jud. Apparently he spends a fair amount of time in the Dodge City jail.

On the other hand, Matt doesn't recognize Wonder. Jud introduces them, and there is no indication that Matt remembers the boy.

(The IMDB synopsis for this episode is actually the synopsis for the earlier episode. This episode is not a remake. I suppose it could be sort of a sequel.)

The contrived plot involves Jud, who is now something of a womanizer, and the brothers of one of the women Jud has been seeing. The brothers don't like Jud and want him to leave their sister alone. Just one odd aspect of this episode is that Jud no longer wants to see their sister, either. Yet they continue to look for ways to get rid of Jud.

This is one of the more poorly written, sloppily made episodes of the series. There is very little suspense. The boy doesn't seem to serve much purpose in the story, and the story itself is just a conglomeration of uninteresting events seemingly patched together. The scenes between the Matt Dillon character and the boy are especially awkward. They are made worse by the fact Tony Davis, who plays the boy and understandably had a very short acting career does an astoundingly bad job acting in this story.