Starts out with Trampas getting arrested on his birthday while eating cake in the bunkhouse with Betsy and the crew. Everyone knows he is reckless but innocent, the trick is getting it proved. The weight of the law, good friends, good lawyers and straight sheriffs trying to find the truth were brought to bear in this first great legal trial and - what will be typical of most hereafter - their verdict was incorrect and profound.
On eyewitness testimonies and no evidence, Trampas is set to go behind bars for twenty years and the Virginian helpless to do anything about it. The little miscarriage of justice thing would have perhaps been satisfied during appeal but i doubt it. Our fair-haired cowboy was only saved by an unlikely confession, which is also a recurring theme where courtroom trials are involved--it's aggravating and stupid imo because other trials that we don't see are vindicating other innocents or vice versa. If they just wanted to make a point with this show, that would make sense, but it keeps happening all through the series.
"Smile when you say that" is a common phrase in instances when one is speaking truth but it cannot be revealed as such, it has to look like a joke. When the Virginian spoke to Miss Miller and told her he would follow her around, he wasn't kidding and he wasn't going to use his own money to do it. If it also references the book, that's great.
The part Bette Davis played was well written enough that any of a number of guest stars would have done justice to the part; in fact, Bette may have been a little too old since her character lost her mother "as a young girl" and she took care of her father "for twelve years". It was just super cool that she even showed up on tv because movie stars didn't do that at the time. When the Virginian opened her robe to reveal the dress underneath, i was shocked because it was Bette Davis that he was exposing that way--had any of a number of other guest stars played the part, it wouldn't have had the same effect maybe. Same thing when Trampas claps a hand on her mouth!
The best thing, the only thing, the singular mission of this show isn't law or satisfying censors or the great guest stars- it's the relationship between Trampas and the Virginian. It's early in the series but it would have played the same way at the end: "(blank) is Guilty, Trampas is just Stupid!" -solid Virginian and probably cross-stitched on a pillow somewhere. But did you see his face when he walked into his hotel room and there was Trampas? Did you see Trampas' face when the Virginian offered his horse? It's the thing they developed in the first season that turned into real life for them. On the series, as it progressed, they couldn't spend more or less equal time on the same show due to production schedules, so they alternated taking the lead while the other at times leant support. McClure also made movies at Universal for the first several years he was doing the Virginian, so he didn't lead as often either. Echo of Another Day, Riff-Raff and Impasse would be more first season episodes to see.
