8.1/1014 votesLoading...#1 - In God's Arms
Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 3/2/1982
The death of an abandoned child drives Father Parker to forsake the priesthood. He moves to Jackson where the only job he can find is cleaning out the saloon. In his secular adventures he finds himself protecting a boy and a pretty saloon singer from an unscrupulous gambler. The self-confidence he gains leads him back to his priestly role, with a little extra convincing from Murphy.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.1/1013 votesLoading...
#2 - Sweet Sixteen
Season 2 Episode 11 - Aired 12/28/1982
A teenaged girl in town becomes pregnant, and after a suicide attempt fails, she's found by the Murphys and brought to Gold Hill. She learns a lesson in living, and the children learn a lesson in tolerance.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.0/109 votesLoading...
#3 - Blood Right
Season 2 Episode 10 - Aired 12/21/1982
An ex-gunfighter gets out of prison and comes to Gold Hill to retrieve his son. He finds his son in love with his dad's old criminal image. Murphy and company must help these two come to an understanding and reconciliation.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/1023 votesLoading...
#4 - By the Bear That Bit Me (1)
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 12/1/1981
A mountain man deposits a young boy at the orphanage. The boy soon turns out to be a young girl, attracting the amorous attentions of young Ephram. When he feels rejected by her, Ephram runs away, is caught, and thrown into a work farm. Will and the girl get arrested in a failed attempt to help Ephram. break out.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/1034 votesLoading...
#5 - Pilot (1)
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 11/3/1981
In the late 1800s, John Murphy wanders into a wild mining town controlled by a local tycoon. Instant enmity is born, but the gritty Murphy joins a local miner and a homeless waif to work a gold claim and fight the tycoon's influence. Murphy's decision to stay is reinforced when the tycoon's heavies kill the parents of neighbor children over control of a gold strike. Together with the local school teacher, Murphy becomes temporary father to the children.
Director: Michael Landon
Writer: Michael Landon
- 7.7/1027 votesLoading...
#6 - A Horse from Heaven
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 11/24/1981
Father Parker mistakenly trades some of the stock for a fast, beautiful horse... that no one can ride. He'd hoped to race it in the territorial fair to win the $1000 purse, but he's injured while trying to break the animal. A little retarded girl at the school proves to be the only one who can tame it, and despite everyone's concern, she indeed rides the horse to victory. In the comic B-story, Rodman tries to indict the school for gambling and horse-playing, but it turns out Rodman's boss likes to play the ponies too ... and wins a bundle on the big race.
Director: William F. Claxton
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/109 votesLoading...
#7 - The Rockets' Red Glare
Season 2 Episode 12 - Aired 6/1/1983
Garrett ruins Gold Hill's benefit Fourth of July show by stealing all the fireworks Murphy has especially ordered and locking them in his saloon safe. A comical old safecracker on the lam befriends Murphy and the kids and liberates the pyrotechnics ... in a most unusual way.
Director: Joseph Pevney
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/1012 votesLoading...
#8 - Laddie
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 3/21/1982
Lizette's heart is broken when Father Parker sells Laddie, an aging horse. When the kids learn the horse is bound for slaughter, Will leads them on an expedition to get her back, not realizing they're up against rustlers. Moses and Murphy race the clock to save the kids, the herd and Laddie.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/1013 votesLoading...
#9 - Matthew & Elizabeth
Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 3/28/1982
Richard Garrett, the infamous twin of the villain from the pilot show, comes to Jackson to take over his late brother's empire. He doesn't reckon on resistance from Murphy when he tries to monopolize the town's freight lines nor on the fact that his young daughter will fall for one of the orphans, Matt.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/1010 votesLoading...
#10 - Happiness Is.....
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 9/28/1982
Mae and Murphy take a well deserved honeymoon in the city, where they meet young Eli Matthews, a streetwise black orphan. They swear they won't get involved, but naturally they end up adopting him and taking him back to Gold Hill.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.4/108 votesLoading...
#11 - The Witness
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 12/14/1982
Young Matt is witness to a bank robbery. One of the robbers is a teenaged friend of Matt's who is the sole support of a sick mother, and Matt must wrestle with his conscience as he decides whether or not to turn in his friend.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.2/1010 votesLoading...
#12 - Graduation
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 1/5/1982
Claiming he's an orphan because his parents are dead, an old man joins the school to achieve a lifelong ambition... to learn to read and write. Comical conflict arises with Rodman and Tuttle, but the old man succeeds... and wins the heart of a ladyfriend.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.2/1012 votesLoading...
#13 - The First Miracle (1)
Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 4/4/1982
When a teenage girl falls in love with Murphy, it forces him to examine his own feelings for Mae and he proposes marriage. At the same time, Father Parker's attempts to build a church in Jackson are thwarted by Garrett ... as a way of wreaking revenge on Murphy.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.2/108 votesLoading...
#14 - Buttons and Beaux
Season 2 Episode 7 - Aired 11/30/1982
Lizette grows up; she begins work as an apprentice seamstress in town and falls in love with a n'er-do-well teenager. She's nearly drawn into his troublesome circle of friends before Mae shows her the error of her ways. The boy eventually reforms and then remain friends. Incidentally, the ongoing romance between Will and Lizette is terminated in this period because he is too short.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.1/1020 votesLoading...
#15 - Pilot (2)
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 11/3/1981
No description available
Director: Michael Landon
Writer: N/A
- 7.0/1017 votesLoading...
#16 - Eggs, Milk and a Dry Bed
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 11/10/1981
A handsome but ineffectual priest joins the school and provides comic opposition to Murphy and a pair of brothers in the orphanage, one of whom has a bed-wetting problem.
Director: Michael Landon
Writer: Michael Landon
- 7.0/1012 votesLoading...
#17 - False Blessings
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 12/15/1981
Falling on hard times again, the school is seduced by an offer of ""state aid"" by a local official. Mae accepts the aid, only to learn that by doing so she has unwittingly agreed to some'terrible conditions ... including the departure of Murphy and Moses and putting the children to work making leather goods. She's finally able to kick out the unscrupulous officials when she discovers them tampering with the money earned by the children's labor.
Director: Leo Penn
Writer: N/A
- 7.0/1011 votesLoading...
#18 - Knights of the White Camelia
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 2/2/1982
A runaway Southern boy, formerly a bugler in the rebel army, comes to the school and has trouble accepting Moses' status there. Simultaneously, undesirables in the area are forming a local K.K.K. chapter. The boy becomes involved with them and the group tries to railroad Moses out of town. Murphy, the Marshall, and the boy's long-lost father join Moses in doing battle with them.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 6.6/1010 votesLoading...
#19 - The Heir Apparent
Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 2/23/1982
A wealthy widow with a railroad fortune comes to Gold Hill hoping to adopt a son to take over the family business. She's very taken with Will, who would rather stay with Murphy, but Murphy is torn between his love for the boy and the advantages of his adoption. The widow finally sees that the bond between Murphy and the boy is something she doesn't want to destroy and she withdraws her adoption bid in a complicated and interesting way.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 6.6/1010 votesLoading...
#20 - The Dream Day
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 3/14/1982
The orphanage stages an Open House for potential adopting parents, and this all-kid show examines the reactions of many of the children to finding new homes. Several of the kids find homes; our regulars are left behind until the next ""dream day.""
Director: N/A
Writer: Michael Landon
- 6.6/107 votesLoading...
#21 - The Father Figure
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 10/5/1982
A mother delivers her son to Gold Hill, saying that he's been incorrigible in school. The real reason is that his father is a child abuser and the mother fears for her son's life. When the father comes after the boy, Murphy intervenes and accidentally kills the man while trying to restrain him. Murphy faces the crisis he's feared all his life—that his great size and strength might kill if unleashed.
Director: Joseph Pevney
Writer: N/A
- 6.6/108 votesLoading...
#22 - John Michael Murphy - R.I.P.
Season 2 Episode 8 - Aired 12/7/1982
Murphy and Moses find trouble on a freight run when an old yarn-spinner convinces a whole town that Murphy is a famous bank robber. The fireworks begin when the real robber shows up.
Director: Joseph Pevney
Writer: N/A
- 6.5/1013 votesLoading...
#23 - The Parable of Amanda
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 2/9/1982
Amanda, a pretty accomplice to a bank robbery, is in a stage wreck near Gold Hill while escaping from her crime. She dons the habit of a nun who died in the wreck to avoid capture, but winds up having to go to the orphanage where the sister was expected. She grows attached to the children, and warm and comic moments ensue before she and Murphy drop pretenses in a touching conclusion.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 6.5/1015 votesLoading...
#24 - The Spy
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 2/16/1982
When Rodman's unruly son is kicked out of boarding school, Rodman enrolls him at Gold Hill making him pose as an orphan in order to spy on the school, and he learns the secret of Murphy's disguise. Murphy, Will and Ephram take the boy on a camping trip to keep him from telling their secret to his father. During the trip the boy comes to feel loved by Murphy and the others, so he agrees to keep their secret to himself.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 6.4/1012 votesLoading...
#25 - Will's Surprise
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 1/12/1982
When Will happens upon a large gold nugget, his drunk father shows up in town and kidnaps him, convinced the boys know where there's more. Will is locked in a dank root cellar and nearly starves when his father is injured without telling the boy's whereabouts. Murphy and his dog, Mine, manage to find and save the boy.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Father Murphy
Every episode of Father Murphy ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Father Murphy!
A good-hearted frontiersman poses as a priest to start an orphanage for a group of kids whose homes have been destroyed by an evil mining...
Genres:WesternDrama
Network:NBC
Best Episodes Summary
"In God's Arms" is the best rated episode of "Father Murphy". It scored 8.1/10 based on 14 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 3/2/1982. This episode scored 0.0 points higher than the second highest rated, "Sweet Sixteen".