The Virginian (TV Series DVD)

I thought The Virginian was one of the best TV westerns, at least in the early years. Lee J. Cobb made a great grumpy old judge. They just released the first season on DVD earlier this year.

I just got the 11 DVD Limited Edition set in a tin box. I haven't watched any of the episodes yet. I'm hoping they're as good as I remember.

Did anyone else enjoy The Virginian?

By the way, a couple of years ago I got a fairly complete set of The Rifleman on DVD (66 episodes as I recall). The Rifleman was returns by the time I saw them; they used to show them at that odd half-hour between the news and prime time. I used to take my dinner tray to the living room in order to watch them. Of course, when I got a little older I just had to have a rifle like that, so I bought a Winchester Model 1894. I still have it, although I rarely shoot it.

dpaterso said:

Yeah, The Virginian was a pretty big thing over here 'way back when, the whole family watched it. Gotta admit we wondered sometimes why the series was called The Virginian when, quite often, James Drury didn't seem to feature a lot. That duty seemed to fall to Doug McClure's Trampas or Lee J. Cobb, who were great in their roles. Yup, I could watch it over again. Do tell how you get on.

-Derek

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I watched the TV series when I was a kid. It was years later before I read the book. It came as a surprise to me that in the book Trampas was the bad guy (as I recalled, he's killed at the end by the Virginian).

Of course, you always have to overlook a lot in these old TV shows. I believe Stephen King even mentions it in his book Danse Macabre. He used the example of Bonanza. His comment was something like "When you look at it now, you wonder how you could have ever have watched it and accepted that the set was a real ranch."

Those are sure some clean-shaven, clean-clothed cowboys at Shiloh Ranch for only taking one bath a week and riding in the dust. ;-)