The Big Valley

The Barkleys lead the resistance when the Coastal and Western Railroad hire bully-boys to force farmers to give up their land for a pittance. Meanwhile, a young man appears claiming to be Tom Barkley's bastard son.

Nick's former Civil War commander and idol stirs up trouble among ranch hands dissatisfied with working for Heath, who is having trouble being accepted as a true Barkley.

Victoria starts brooding about how Tom could have truly loved her if he was once unfaithful to her and fathered a bastard child. She journeys to Heath's hometown to try to find the truth about Tom's relationship with Heath's mother.

Audra wants to flirt with Evan Miles, a childhood friend now back from the East. Little does she know that he suffers from a dangerous emotional instability.

Audra is saved from serious injury by a young man who says he is a mustang hunter. She falls in love with him; her brothers find him a suspicious character.

Victoria sells land to an old friend who has deeply sentimental reasons for owning it, despite the fact that her own sons are part of a plan to flood that land with waters from a much-needed dam.

Heath investigates violence during a strike at a Barkley mine. He finds that the miners hate the Barkleys for promises not kept. The family sets out to right things before the Molly Maguires strike again.

A Hispanic family is in a land dispute with the Barkleys. Maria, the young daughter of the family, falls in love with Heath. Her father disapproves of Heath's illegitimate birth, and will use the land crisis as leverage to force Heath and Maria apart.

In an earthquake, a mission church collapses into a forgotten mine which lies under it. Victoria is trapped there with a pregnant Indian woman and a man with a grudge, a ranch hand that Nick recently fired.

Jarrod defends a member of a ne'er-do-well family on a charge of murder, though the main witness against him is Heath.

The only chance Mariano Montoya's herd has to survive anthrax is the newfangled immunization that Eugene learned about at college. Montoya says that if the Barkleys want to prove that the procedure is safe, they must test it on their own prize bull.

Nick is bit by a rabid wolf, a virtual death sentence. Not wanting his family to witness his decline, he leaves, making Heath swear he won't tell the others what has happened. Nick hopes that in his final 60 days he will do something worthwhile; if he fails, at least he will have tried.

The Barkleys learn that the man they have hired to run their logging operations was the commandant of a notorious Civil War prisoner-of-war camp, one in which Heath was a prisoner.

A group of Irish immigrants settles on Barkley land, believing they have bought the land from a reputable agent. Nick thinks of them purely as squatters, while they can't believe that their purchase was illegal.

Jarrod risks inviting his client home for a Christmas visit: a young woman accused of aiding and abetting her boyfriend, an outlaw who has recently escaped from jail.

A gang of rawhiders injure Heath, then take him away to the ranch as a reward, "saving" him from ambush. While there, they realize the rest of the menfolk are away, leaving the ranch vulnerable to their thievery.

Nick brings his bride-to-be back from San Francisco; the family doubts, however, that she's ready to marry anyone.

Jarrod welcomes an old law school friend to the valley, only to find that a Secret Service agent is on his trail. It seems that every place the friend travels, counterfeit money comes into circulation.

Victoria is kidnapped by outlaws who think she's the local schoolteacher. The reason is unusual: the gang leader wants her to teach him how to read.

Jarrod is guilt-ridden because he helped convict Keeno Nash of a crime he now knows Nash did not commit. When he is released, Jarrod offers Nash help, despite the fact that he had threatened Jarrod's life at the trial.

Nick is shanghaied at a saloon by a woman Jarrod once defended for that very crime.

The Barkleys are plagued by neighbors who claim a boundary changed when a stream changed course. Into the picture comes Handy Random, a gunman who once did the Barkleys a great service. Will he escalate the bickering into a violent feud?

Heath's guilt gets the better of him when he blames himself for a friend's injury. He seems oblivious to the fact that his friend is manipulating him.

Gil Anders, once a friend of Heath's, is ambushed by bounty hunters. The Barkleys hide him and Jarrod seeks to discover the truth about the crime of which Anders has been accused, despite the fact that Heath believes Anders deserves death.

Heath's boyhood sweetheart comes to town in a traveling show. Her drunken husband turns up murdered, and Heath is arrested by the new district attorney, who is out to show that the Barkleys can't get away with murder despite their wealth and reputation.