TV Westerns once ruled the primetime range, inspiring
Jonathan Winters to joke at the time, "I like Westerns, I just don't
like 15 of them in a row." The Big Valley came along near the
end of the trail. Premiering in 1965, it ran for four seasons and
earned an Emmy for "Miss Barbara Stanwyck," who stars as widowed
matriarch Victoria Barkley. Her brood is a breed apart: Jarrod
(Richard Long), the eldest son, who returns to the sprawling Barkley
home in the San Joaquin Valley to practice law; excitable Nick
(Peter Breck), who is in charge of the family enterprises, youngest
son Eugene (Charles Briles), an inconsequential character who would
ride off into the sunset by season two; and "shameful" and "spoiled"
daughter Audra (Linda Evans), who, in the first episode, is a real
kitten with a whip. As a family saga, The Big Valley is more
Bonanza than Dallas with one groundbreaking, soap
opera twist: the arrival of Heath (Lee Majors), the self-proclaimed
"bastard son" of deceased community pillar Tom Barkley. This first
season's most compelling dramatic arc is Heath's struggle to be
accepted by his brothers (particularly the hot-headed Nick) and
determination to stake his claim to "a name, heritage... what's
mine."
The Big Valley rounded up a stable of great
character actors, several at the beginnings of their careers. The
episode "By Force and Violence" alone offers Bruce Dern as an
escaped convict whom Victoria compels at gunpoint to help rescue
Heath, who is trapped under a disabled wagon, and L.Q. Jones and
Harry (Dean) Stanton as the bounty hunters on his trail. Several of
the episodes cover some of the same ground: an old family friend is
revealed to be less than trustworthy; Audra falls for the wrong guy;
someone's got a grudge against the Barkleys. One of the season's
most memorable episodes is a tale of redemption, "The Guilt of Matt
Bentell," in which the man the Barkleys have hired to oversee their
logging operations is the former warden of an apparently Abu Ghraib-like
Civil War prison where Heath was incarcerated. Now that network
television has put Westerns out to pasture, fans of the series and
Western buffs who wouldn't be caught dead in Deadwood can
enjoy The Big Valley's more traditional pleasures, including
breathtaking cinematography (no painted Ponderosa backdrops), great
Western action (the fight scenes pack a real punch), and involving
stories. --Donald Liebenson
