Stop Hating on Season 5!

So, just for fun, I decided to make a list of my favorite Rifleman episodes. Just for some background, The Rifleman is my favorite Western and my favorite TV show. I watch a lot of other Westerns. Some of the others I really like are Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, Cheyenne, Wyatt Earp, Maverick, Death Valley Days and others.

Anyways, I noticed something when I made my list:

Season 1
The Second Witness
Brother In Law
Home Ranch
The Sharpshooter
The Pet
Blood Brother
The Deadly Wait
The Safe Guard
Gaucho
The Angry Gun
The Marshal

Season 2
The Surveyors
Miss Milly
Ordeal
The Vision
The Visitor
The Spiked Rifle

Season 3
The Wyoming Story Part 1
The Wyoming Story Part 2
Dark Day at North Fork
Dead Cold Cash
Trail of Hate
Closer Than A Brother

Season 4
First Wages
Milly's Brother
The Long Gun From Tucson
The Journey Back

Season 5
Requiem at Mission Springs
Old Tony
Quiet Night, Deadly Night
Squeeze Play
Mark's Rifle
Waste Part 1
Waste Part 2

Unsurprisingly, the season with my most favorite episodes is Season 1. But after looking at the list, I saw that the season with the next highest amount of favorite episodes is actually Season 5. I don't know about you guys but if you go online and even if you read interviews from some of the actors (like Johnny Crawford, who I plan on meeting in July!), there is no love lost for Season 5. People say the plots were uninspired, repetitive and tired by then, the stories were no longer fresh, and basically, that the show was past its' sell by date.

I'm not saying Season 5 wasn't a little bit uneven but, as the saying goes, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Some of the best episodes, in my opinion, were in Season 5. And these are just my absolute favorites. There are plenty of great episodes in Season 5 that aren't on this list (Old Man Running, End of the Hunt, etc.).

I think people should take a second look at Season 5. It had some really great episodes with strong plots. I loved Waste so much because Mark is obviously older but it actually portrays him as an older teen, standing up to Lucas, and shows so much of the dynamic between Mark, Lucas and Micah. Mark is not a child anymore and Lucas is forced to face that in a serious situation. Squeeze Play is one of the best episodes, where Lucas refuses to sell the ranch to a land speculator. I literally get goosebumps at the end of the episode when Mark and Lucas are sitting on the porch and discussing what home means to them. I also like Lucas and Mark's discussion on principle when Mark is questioning whether what Lucas is doing is futile and whether it's principle for principle's sake.

'Old Tony' perfectly wraps the series up and gives the viewer a glimpse of what Lucas' life could be like once Mark moves off the ranch and Micah eventually passes a way. It's a cautionary tale for Lucas not to become a bitter old recluse. And Mark singing "Greensleeves" doesn't hurt ;) 'Quiet Night, Deadly Night' is a very emotional episode where Lucas is quarantined for fear a woman who has arrived on the stagecoach to North Fork may have smallpox. Memories of Mark's mother's illness and death are stirred in the episode and there is a scene where Lucas tells Mark to leave and Mark hesitates for a long time because he doesn't want to go and he doesn't want Lucas to die and there is so much left unsaid. It's one of my favorite scenes. I love 'Mark's Rifle' because I always find it interesting to explore the dynamic when Lucas and Mark are at odds with each other, plus, Mark finally gets his rifle (and I love how it is casually done - "Mark, aren't you forgetting something?").

I think Season 5 is grossly underrated and gets a lot of undeserved hate. The season has some of the best episodes in the series (and yes, the absolute worst - Which Way'd They Go - I did say it was uneven).