8.3/10272 votes#1 - Perce
Season 7 Episode 1 - Aired 9/30/1961
Ex-con Perce McCall helps to save Matt's life in a shootout, and then falls for a beautiful, but greedy saloon girl who puts him under great pressure to start stealing again.
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: John Meston
8.2/10253 votes#2 - Old Yellow Boots
Season 7 Episode 2 - Aired 10/7/1961
Matt becomes suspicious when drifter Frank Cassidy publicly announces his engagement to spinsterish Beulah Parker immediately after the seemingly unrelated murders of an old prospector and her abusive brother Leroy.
Director: Ted Post
Writer: John Meston
8.1/10260 votes#3 - Miss Kitty
Season 7 Episode 3 - Aired 10/14/1961
Kitty has her friends in Dodge buzzing when she meets the stage in the early hours to pick up a small boy. All wonder, especially his foster parents: could his real mother be Kitty?
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: Kathleen Hite
7.5/10218 votes#4 - Harper's Blood
Season 7 Episode 4 - Aired 10/21/1961
A hard man has given his two sons a hard raising, sure that they inherited their mother's bad blood from their murderous ancestor. The old man may be right: one of his sons may be a murderer. Or is it the other son?
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Writer: John Meston
8.2/10254 votes#5 - All That
Season 7 Episode 5 - Aired 10/28/1961
A man who lost his wife and all he had returns to Dodge from gold prospecting with three bulging bags to deposit in the bank, and all who scorned him before, including his ex-wife, can't do enough for him.
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: John Meston
8.8/10347 votes#6 - Long, Long Trail
Season 7 Episode 6 - Aired 11/4/1961
A headstrong young woman will undertake the long, dangerous journey to her fiancé's fort on her own if she must, so Matt nominates himself to escort her.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Writer: Kathleen Hite
7.9/10236 votes#7 - The Squaw
Season 7 Episode 7 - Aired 11/11/1961
His mother has been dead almost a year, and Cully is troubled by his pa's carousing. When they discuss his getting married again, it seems like a good idea until he returns from a business trip with a new wife, an Arapaho squaw, who he has conflicted emotions about.
Director: Gerald Mayer
Writer: N/A
8.4/10261 votes#8 - Chesterland
Season 7 Episode 8 - Aired 11/18/1961
Chester becomes engaged more or less accidentally, but he takes to heart his obligation to his betrothed, leaving his job with Mr. Dillon to devote himself to homesteading a barren quarter section.
Director: Ted Post
Writer: Kathleen Hite
7.5/10242 votes#9 - Milly
Season 7 Episode 9 - Aired 11/25/1961
The plain but nubile daughter of a hopeless drunkard decides to marry herself off so that she and her little brother might avoid starvation.
Director: Richard Whorf
Writer: N/A
7.6/10214 votes#10 - Indian Ford
Season 7 Episode 10 - Aired 12/2/1961
Matt escorts a captain and his troops to an Indian village, to make an exchange for a white woman captured over a year ago.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Writer: N/A
8.6/10239 votes#11 - Apprentice Doc
Season 7 Episode 11 - Aired 12/9/1961
A young outlaw finds he has a knack for medicine and turns straight, telling Doc he wants to be his pupil.
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: Kathleen Hite
8.4/10272 votes#12 - Nina's Revenge
Season 7 Episode 12 - Aired 12/16/1961
A homesteader hires a man to make the appearance of a scandal with his wife so that he can blackmail his wife's wealthy father.
Director: Tay Garnett
Writer: John Meston
7.8/10248 votes#13 - Marry Me
Season 7 Episode 13 - Aired 12/23/1961
Orkey Cathcart is looking for a wife and sets his sites on Miss Kitty.
Director: Dennis Weaver
Writer: Kathleen Hite
8.1/10243 votes#14 - A Man a Day
Season 7 Episode 14 - Aired 12/30/1961
Outlaws want Matt to leave Dodge so they can steal from the bank or they will kill a man per day.
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: John Meston
7.3/10198 votes#15 - The Do-Badder
Season 7 Episode 15 - Aired 1/6/1962
Prospector Harvey Easter settles in Dodge City after striking it rich in the Colorado Rockies. His heavy handed attempts at philanthropy soon have unintended results.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Writer: John Meston
7.4/10213 votes#16 - Lacey
Season 7 Episode 16 - Aired 1/13/1962
A hired man is sweet on his boss's daughter and disliked by his boss. When the boss is killed, his own daughter claims to have done it, but Matt is suspicious.
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: Kathleen Hite
- 7.7/10202 votes
#17 - Cody's Code
Season 7 Episode 17 - Aired 1/20/1962
Cody is a well-liked citizen of Dodge. He's building a house and getting married. When he befriends a stranger, his perfect life is turned upside down.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Writer: John Meston
8.0/10208 votes#18 - Old Dan
Season 7 Episode 18 - Aired 1/27/1962
Beginning with Doc, who rescues him from a ditch, everyone wants to give amiable drunk Dan a chance, or a job, or both.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Writer: Kathleen Hite
6.5/10228 votes#19 - Catawomper
Season 7 Episode 19 - Aired 2/10/1962
Chester is getting home-cooked meals from, and giving guitar lessons to, a spirited young woman who hopes thereby to make her estranged sweetheart jealous.
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: N/A
7.6/10196 votes#20 - Half Straight
Season 7 Episode 20 - Aired 2/17/1962
A man has been hired to kill Matt, but when he meets and quickly falls in love with a decent girl, he has a change of heart--or does he?
Director: Ted Post
Writer: John Meston
8.3/10246 votes#21 - He Learned About Women
Season 7 Episode 21 - Aired 2/24/1962
Taken prisoner by a band of comancheros, Chester is helped to escape by one of the band's women and flees with another who may or may not be worthy of his trust.
Director: Tay Garnett
Writer: John Meston
9.2/10381 votes#22 - The Gallows
Season 7 Episode 22 - Aired 3/3/1962
While returning suspected killer Pruit Dover to Dodge to stand trial, Matt is shot and badly wounded, and yet Dover stays with him and nurses him back to health.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Writer: John Meston
7.6/10209 votes#23 - Reprisal
Season 7 Episode 23 - Aired 3/10/1962
Oren was a rancher who liked his drink, gambling and women, even though he had a pretty wife at home. Matt is forced to kill him and when he breaks the news to her, all she can see is getting revenge for his death, and Matt is her target.
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: John Meston
8.3/10244 votes#24 - Coventry
Season 7 Episode 24 - Aired 3/17/1962
A speculator in land is already unpopular in Dodge, but when he is acquitted of the murder of a man he killed, he finds himself "sent to Coventry": no one in town, not even Kitty, will buy, sell, or even speak to him.
Director: Christian Nyby
Writer: John Meston
7.7/10220 votes#25 - The Widow
Season 7 Episode 25 - Aired 3/24/1962
A young woman comes to Dodge insisting on an escort to Indian country so that the body of her husband, believed to have been killed fighting the Kiowa, may be recovered.
Director: Ted Post
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Gunsmoke Season 7
Every episode of Gunsmoke Season 7 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Gunsmoke Season 7!
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and...
Genres:WesternAction & AdventureDrama
Network:CBS
Season 7 Ratings Summary
"Perce" is the best rated episode of "Gunsmoke" season 7. It scored 8.3/10 based on 272 votes. Directed by Harry Harris and written by John Meston, it aired on 9/30/1961. This episode is rated 0.1 points higher than the second-best, "Old Yellow Boots".