Bonanza (TV Series) Dark Star (1960) User Reviews

Were we all watching the same episode?

[cpotato1010 · 6/10 · 12 January 2019]

I did not find the character of Tirza "evil" at all. Just misunderstood :-)

After all, she had been told all her life she was possessed and exiled from her people. That would make anyone behave strangely.

What is not explained is how an exiled young woman supported herself. Where did she live, what did she do for food? And just one dress, not worn to rags?

Also, someone did die in this episode - Spiro, after the fight with Little Joe. Of course, it was a typical Hollywood death, he gets stabbed in the lower abdomen, and instantly falls over dead.

One more episode in what became a pattern for the show - one of the Cartwright men falling in love with a woman, who must leave (or die), because for one of the men to marry (and stay married) would have changed the dynamic of the show too much.

Rated 6 for the acting, not higher because the story was old, even in 1960.

To the Cartwrights a witch

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 12 January 2019]

One of the stranger episodes in Bonanza's history has Michael Landon getting involved with a banished gypsy girl he finds on the Ponderosa. She runs from him when they first meet and trips and hits her head. When she wakes up she declares herself a witch and she's an outcast from her tribe who happen to be squatting on the Ponderosa.

If one is thinking strictly with one's hormones then you can certainly understand Little Joe's interest in Susan Harrison. But even he's not that much a tool of his male member.

Some funny scenes take place between tribe leader Hugo Haas and the Cartwrights when he tries to sell them some inferior horse flesh. Fortunately Lorne Greene and Dan Blocker are up to all his tricks.

I wish the whole episode had been done as light as these scenes were.

Falling for Evil

[mitchrmp · 2/10 · 15 February 2014]

I think this is one of the worst episodes. There's not much good to say about it. Tirza is pure evil. I didn't like the way she thought, the way she spoke, or the way she acted. I understand they had brainwashed her into thinking she was a witch, but by golly she gave me the creeps! Even more creepy was the fact that Little Joe fell for such an evil girl. And even more creepy - his father thought that she was a "nice girl"? I cannot imagine any fathers I know that would allow his son to marry a woman like that - she was just creepy!!!

I'm not sure what the writer's were thinking when they wrote this one. They didn't even change that witchey voice after she was "converted." All I can say is...what were they thinking? Yuck!

Mysterious and bewitching

[kmpres-11214 · 8/10 · 19 March 2015]

With respect to the previous reviewer, I actually liked this episode. Gypsies were and remain a mysterious people, often hated but usually just misunderstood by outsiders for their independent and occasionally lawless lifestyle. This must have been especially so in the mid-19th century when the country was young and wild. This episode was well written and acted, and Susan Harrison, a rare beauty, played her part with starry-eyed detachment that befitted her role as a young woman seemingly "possessed" by evil spirits. It is rare for Hollywood to treat gypsies sympathetically and I was heartened at the end when no one died and the gypsies left the Ponderosa peacefully. Bonanza usually kills off one to four people by the end of each episode so this was a happy ending by comparison.

Another great performance by Hollywood rarity and great beauty Susan Harrison

[bnelso-23793 · 10/10 · 20 September 2018]

Slight spoilers. While hunting Hoss and especially Little Joe come across a beautiful unconscious gypsy girl-supebly played by Miss. Harrison. They take her back to the Ponderosa and discover she is the type who literally bites the hand that feeds her. The Cartwrights learn that she has been insanely rejected by her fellow gypsy people travelling in the area. She believes she is an inhuman animal. She is wild, suicidal and makes a howling call scaring their horses into a frenzy. Eventually Ben meets up with her people and convinces them to slightly give her a chance again. They do and eventually they accept her again and she goes off with them. This ep has less to say about gypsies and more to say about a young lady being rejected and the really horrible feeling rejection can bring upon her. Harrison's character is feeling the tragic sting of rejection no lady should ever know. She only survives because cared for in the meantime. If they had not reconciled her to her people who rejected her in the first place she would have soon died of the very bad internal feeling the gypsies gave her. A true great episode mostly indeed because of the ultra-talented and beautiful Harrison.

Gypsy wagons enter the Ponderosa

[cashbacher · 8/10 · 21 April 2020]

This episode is based on the basic biases that people had against the gypsy people. They were considered a superstitious lot as well as shifty and will steal anything they want. When Hoss and Little Joe find an injured woman on the Ponderosa, they take her back to their house and have her examined by a doctor. She is beautiful and Little Joe is immediately attracted to her, even though she bites his hand. A small gypsy caravan arrives on the Ponderosa and that woman is from that band. She is considered to be possessed by evil; hence she is called Dark Star. She has been rejected by the band and she considers herself an exile from all of humanity as a consequence of what she believes is her possession. Ben tries to convince the leader of the gypsy band to take her back and is amused when the leader invites his family to a pig roast that they are having as long as Ben brings the pig. There is thievery, hints of evil magic, Little Joe falling for Dark Star and one of the gypsy men going into a murderous rage over it. All things that fit into the stereotypes of gypsy people and acceptable in television of the late fifties. The story ends on a down note, yet it was a predictable outcome. There are some amusing scenes where the gypsy leader openly admits to his malfeasance to Ben and succeeds in talking his way out of it.