Bonanza is a series that ran from 1959 to 1973. It is a westen-style series, mostly focusing on the family Cartwright and their patriarch Benjamin, and his three sons Adam, Hoss and Joseph (little Joe).
There are quite many episodes, 431. I have watched through all of them once, doing it again now. This time, i'm ranking all of the episodes from 1-10, and will upload the rankings here when that is done. Halfway through, may take a month or two still.
The episodes can vary greatly in content, from humoristic, to ordinary, psychological, corny and weird, romantic, thriller, to (actually) downright horror.
I have not seen many different western series, but i rank every episode as i find it, from a holistic viewpoint.
Things i like about the series is first and foremost the still-camera filming. Very rarely is there shaky camera. The sequences are often long and coherent, making the series easy to watch and follow.
More things i like, is the genuinity and clearness of the acting, again, most of the time. It is easy to hear what the actors say, and the dialogue is often easy to follow.
Another thing is the use of horseriding and "real" scenes, outside, takes you back to another time when things were more real. Of course i know that 95% of the scenes are at a stage, but some scenes are outdoors, and this adds a more natural element to the series.
More, the fighting scenes and stunts are quite good. They really throw themselve into it, lol. And that's fun to watch. It is easy to see they are using stunt doubles a lot of times, but one just has to overlook that when watching series like these.
Lastly, some episodes are very well thought out, especially for a series from that era. They touch down on very realistic human psychological struggles, which often is explained quite thoroughly. And those episodes are very much worth watching. I rate them 8-10.
Things i -don't- like about the series, is first and foremost the very varying quality of the episodes. This is a phenomenon i don't think is seen in that many other series. There can be some episodes that are just absolutely rock bottom, from all viewpoints, bad humor, bad acting, misfitting music, shallow dialogue and directing. Then the next episode can be a masterpiece. I truly can't grasp how the quality can vary that much.
Another thing, that is quite unique to the Bonanza series, is that the volume of the music, and the dialoguing, is in 98% of the episodes very ambivalent. As in, when they are talking, the sound is normal. But then the music (trumpets, horns and such) is so loud. This is tiresome to listen to, and i have to turn the volume up and down all the time. Only in some very few episodes is the music well tuned and balanced with the dialogue. So that is a negative point.
The music is also, quite often, very unmelodic .. if that's a word.. In many episodes, it sounds like they're just playing very randomly, lol, as if they just play some very random tunes. Then in other episodes, the music is more fitting and again, balanced.
One last thing i dislike, is that i agree with the actor acting as Adam, Pernell Roberts. He quit the series in about season 6, stating that he didn't like the "conveyer belt method" they made the episodes, focusing on making as many as possible, instead of fewer with quality. And i agree with that. If they had slowed down and made fewer, there would be more episodes with higher quality, and not this extremely varying quality, which one can clearly see is a result of the rushed production. I think that most of the episodes where Adam/Roberts has more major roles, are of higher quality. Not all though. Just stating what i remember.
I think i'll leave it at that. I will upload all of the rankings charts when i am done with them. I actually recommend others to do the same. Write down the season, number and name of the episode, and number 1-10, 1 being absolute rock bottom and 10 is a masterpiece within that genre.