BONANZA: 10 CLASSIC EPISODES
Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker.
Flashback Entertainment, Catalogue No. 12531.
Review by Dominic

The fondly remembered Bonanza continues to elude the DVD format in any season-by-season incarnation; one must be content with one of a number of “best of” editions. Fortunately, if you purchase Flashback’s “10 Classic Episodes” box-set, you probably will be.

The classics here have all been selected from the series’ trail-blazing first and second seasons, concerning, as its fans (and even a good portion of non-fans) would be aware, the adventures of the thrice-widowed Ben Cartwright and his sons, Joe (Landon), Hoss (Blocker) and Adam (Roberts), on their unconscionably massive hunk of land, “The Ponderosa.”

One of the great strengths of this compilation is that with the exception of Hoss (always the jocular giant with a heart of gold) the characters never appear constrained to stock types. On display are several dimensions to the Cartwright patriarch: Ben the sage mentor, the less than perfect role model, the lover, the friend. Young Joe goes from dutiful sweetheart to naïve hothead within the space of just a few episodes. The variety of Flashback’s selection gives the impression of more realistic characters that don’t flatten into caricatures whose reaction to any given scenario we can easily anticipate. Also, worth noting in particular is the presence here of the intense yet wholesome episode “Silent Thunder,” directed by a pre-McCabe and Mrs Miller Robert Altman.

Of course, the sustained viewing experience offered by the box-set package also has a tendency to highlight the repetitive aspects of a conspicuously pre-DVD series like Bonanza. Conflict, we observe, usually enters the idyllic world of the Cartwrights in the form of some fundamentally unreasonable outsider, by turns a fanatic, drunkard, sexual predator, unscrupulous lawman or general lowlife. Whichever it may be, we know we’ll never see them again and, consequently, these extreme characterizations take on an air of disposability after a time.

Overall, though, “10 Classic Episodes” is more than just the rainy day fodder one might expect. It’s a celebration of warm-hearted nostalgia and a pleasing artifact of the golden days of the cowboy drama. What’s more, Flashback’s collection is competitively priced enough to trounce the throng of cheaply produced public domain Bonanza-thons that not only lack the luxury of Dolby Digital sound, but the iconic theme tune that ensured every episode was greeted with a grin.