Bonanza

Portions of David Rose's score would be used again in Michael Landon's subsequent TV series Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven.

For this season, the cast opening comes before the first act. After the first commercial break, the show's title (along with the creator, producer, writer and director credits) are superimposed over live action; the familiar watercolorings previously used for the episode titles and production credits were finally abandoned altogether.

In addition to returning to the original Livingston-Evans Bonanza theme, re-scored faster, there are new opening cast shots. After the familiar burning map, Lorne Greene rides his horse across the meadow before a close-up; Michael Landon rears his steed before a side close-up shot; David Canary rides in bringing an out-of-control buckboard to a stop; and Mitch Vogel rides along a creek before briefing stopping. Starting with the episode, Riot, airing a few weeks later, the fifth credit goes to Tim Matheson; he is shown briefly looking into the camera before scurrying to mount his horse and riding off. (However, in Riot, he's seen in a prison setting.) The guest star credits are shown over stock footage of a stagecoach riding along a dirt road at Solitude Canyon, Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

This episode originally aired as a two hour program. The scenes involving Ben and Clem looking through the burned-out shell of Joe's home and Doc Martin expressing concerns that Joe might try to overdose on medicine are not seen in most syndicated reruns. In re-editing the original episode into two one-hour shows, they were no doubt cut for time. According to the Web site, "Bonanza, Scenery of the Ponderosa," the episode still exists in its original form in the Warner Bros. studio vault and at the Museum of Radio and Television in New York City (as well as possibly some older syndication prints). Republic Pictures excised these scenes in the late 1980s.

This episode was originally written for Dan Blocker and was to be the first filmed for the new season. Because of Blocker's death, Michael Landon was forced to rewrite it for his own character. The delay resulted in it being the third episode filmed for the season, though it aired first.