Rawhide (TV Series) Incident of the Stargazer (1960) User Reviews

Gaslighting on the lone prairie

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 29 September 2018]

While scouting for the herd, Sheb Woolley spots Dorothy Green alone on the prairie waiting to be picked up by her husband. Being the gentleman he is he offers a lift on his horse and she accepts the ride to her husband's ranch. But when she gets there she does not recognize Richard Webb as her husband and gets a bit hysterical. We learn that her husband was an astronomer and that Green spent some time in an asylum back east.

The movie Gaslight will come to mind when watching this story. Pete Nolan does not like the smell of the whole thing. There is a rather unsuccessful attempt to pass Wishbone off as an astronomer colleague. Still the truth is all sorted out in the end.

This episode will be one of the few times you'll see Buddy Ebsen as a bad guy so you should not miss it.

Serial Killers, Fraud, and the Old West

[Johnny_West · 10/10 · 26 March 2023]

Occasionally some of these shows would touch on the theme of people being robbed, murdered, defrauded, and otherwise victimized in the Old West because they were isolated from civilization. I find these shows extra-creepy, because the fact is that back in that era there were no phones, internet, or other ways to communicate with the police, friends, relatives, or neighbors.

If you and your spouse lived alone, and predatory people showed up, you were in deep trouble. Besides robbing you, they could fake your deeds in order to steal your land, and then kill you. How often did that really happen? Well, consider that if nobody found out, because you and your spouse were buried in the back lot of your land, then the criminals got away with it. I have a sad feeling that it probably happened a lot more than anyone will ever know.

This episode had Dorothy Green as the victim whose husband was murdered by grifters who want to sell her home & land, and steal whatever is in the house. The cast of crooks is a good one, Buddy Ebsen, Richard Webb, and Ted DeCorsia are ready to sell and kill. They have everything ready for the big sale, including a buyer who wants to pay cash because he is getting a good deal, and not asking any questions.

The writers did a great job of laying this out, and it is scary. Only Pete stands in the way of these cut-throat killers. This is a very good episode.