Gunsmoke: The Second Season, Vol. 1 DVD: Review By Mushy

Gunsmoke: The Second Season, Vol. 1 gives us the old west the way that many people remember it. We follow the law, which in this case is Marshall Matt Dillon (James Arness), as he deals with the worst sc*mbags the terrain has to offer. Aiding him in his work is Milburn Stone as Doc, Amanda Blake as Kitty and Dennis Weaver as the lovable but dimwitted Chester Goode. (No offense to Weaver but I find myself being a Festus (Ken Curtis) man myself). Together, this crew does anything and everything they can to keep law and order in Dodge City.

Opening this Second Season is "Cow Doctor," which finds Doc facing some unexpected situations when a human patient dies as he's treating a cow. "The Cover Up" sees Matt Dillon trying to figure out the real killer after an altercation finds two men dead. Closing out this 3 disc set is "Gone Straight," which has Dillon waging a battle against a former member of Billy The Kid's gang.

Once again Paramount tries to dupe us with "Sponsor Shots" as promos. I am sorry but as much as I love TV on DVD, giving us television commercials really doesn't qualify as an extra in my book.

Full Screen Format. I was a bit scared when I got this DVD set mainly because it contains 20 episodes on 3 discs. I was afraid that the compression on these episodes might be less than stellar. Also, Paramount has levied this disclaimer on this set: "Some episodes may be edited from their original network versions." Well, I can say that these black and white shows look really good. In fact, on the episodes I was able to watch I didn't notice much compression noise at all.

Dolby Digital: English Mono. The audio on this release was also pretty good. I only had to turn my set a little more than half the way up and I was able to hear everything fine. There is rich, rustic bit of audio to this show. It is a mix of the music, the sound effects and the accents that the characters employ. All of this works hand in hand to make a show that at all times seems as believable as they come.

The front of this amaray case features our main cast in a misleading color picture. Below them is a shot of Dodge City. The back cover gives us a sepia image from this show, as well as three black and white images from various episodes. They also give us a description of this show, a Special Feature listing and technical specs. All three discs are nicely housed inside this case, which gives us episode listings, airdates and descriptions.

Gunsmoke is one of those shows that grows on you. Before I started working on my animated movie (1985-1986), I had never spent so much time with the TV on before. Going back and forth between Boomer TV pipelines like TV Land and KDOC, I found myself watching this show a lot. In fact I also found myself getting into Bonanza, Andy Griffith and just about everything else that came before 1990. Anyway, the more I watched and listened to Gunsmoke the more into the show I got. I was taken by it's stone cold killers and the integrity with which Dillon tried to govern Dodge City. Then I found out that it ran for 20 years and I was even more excited.

While I can understand releasing DVDs in volumes if the show was on for 3 or 4 seasons, but there's something about Gunsmoke: The Second Season, Vol. 1 that seems like it should be a full season unto itself.