La grande vallata

''The Big Valley''has been my favorite TV show for over thirty years. Although I had seen it from time to time when it was running in prime time, it was'nt until 1973, when it was shown locally, that I really got into it. Barbara Stanwyck was one of those rare golden age actresses who grew more beautiful with the passage of time. As Victoria Barkley, she was playing a woman close to her heart, and mine. Linda Evans, Richard Long, Peter Breck and Lee Majors were perfect support. And those guest stars! to name a few, Anne Baxter,Julie Adams, Coleen Dewhurst, Bradford Dillman,Susan Strasberg,James Whitmore, Julie Harris, Andrew Duggan, John Anderson, Jeanne Cooper, Diane Baker, James Gregory..... I want so much to have the complete series on DVD. I haven't even seen the episodes in their complete and original form, thanks to the butchering they endured for more commercials. In any form, however, this show is the BEST!

What a great western....know what I missed the most when I was drafted and sent to Vietnam in the summer of 1966, my family of course and my fiancé, but knowing I would not get to see "The Big Valley" for a whole year until I got back!! Great stories and watching the individual personalities of the Barkley's mesh together through all kinds of crises...Jarrod the cool, suave lawyer who used a lot of wisdom, Nick the brawler, ranch boss and tough guy, Heath the level headed version of Nick who used a little common sense when Nick wanted to use his fists, Audra, oh wow, what teenage boy was not in love with her on the show and the classy Barbara Stanwyck, the matriarch and cool head of the Barkley clan who used her wisdom and extraordinary ability to reason out any crisis. What kind of color film did they use in the series? I have been overjoyed to watch the BV on the western channel since it came back on in December 05 and every episode is crystal clear with brilliant color. Every episode has a lot of current and former Hollywood stars like Coleen Dewhurst, Richard Dreyfuss, Adam West, Julie Adams, James Gregory, William Shatner and many others.....the stories were well written and kept the viewers interest throughout the entire episode. Only thing I could not understand is how so many people came walking through the door of the front of the Barkley home without knocking! Also a couple episodes when they entered the side door and just showed up in the house!! Audra always seemed to get smitten with a lot of handsome men on the show who dumped her in the end...or their relationship had too many holes in it to last. Loved the episode when she loved Bradford Dillman and fell off a cliff and was hanging onto the proverbial tree stuck in the side of the mountain! Oh yes, he threw her a rope and all ended well, ha-ha!! Would love to see a BV reunion with Lee Majors, Linda Evans and Peter Breck reprising their roles.

I read all the comments and no one answered the question. I don't remember him doing anything. He just went off to college and never came back. Didn't the actor get drafted? I think someone mentioned that. The Big Valley was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. For me it was Barbara Stanwick, the strong woman and Lee Majors, the odd one out that brought me back. Heath and I had a lot in common and I wanted to grow up to be all that Barbara's character represented, strong, confident, admired and rich didn't hurt. I think I grew up with the characters on TV for my role models sense I found the adults in my world so sadly lacking. If she were alive today I would like to thank her for the strong woman she portrayed. In that time of of upheaval, when a woman's role was changing she showed me a woman could be strong and smart and still have a family to love and nurture. Thank you for Victoria, Jared, Nick and Heath. Thank you for the beautiful innocent Audra, and thank you for the forgotten Eugene. Thank you for Big Valley

I am really greatly relieved to read the previous reviews, knowing that I am not alone in being a huge fan of this great series!! There was just something about this show as a whole which really appealed to me - in a big way. I loved all the Barkley characters. Victoria was played to perfection by Stanwyck. The widow Barkley was a curious but convincing mixture of gracious elegance and guts: her Victoria Barkley is practically a cult figure of female characters of the Western genre. Richard Long was genuinely likeable as the level-headed eldest son, Jarrod, who provided a nice balance between the tough, egotistical Nick and the more sensitive half-brother Heath. Linda Evans was astonishingly beautiful as Audra (she alone kept many male baby boomers tuned in!). But there was so much else "right" with this show - artificial though it may have looked to those critical of Stanwyck being "Ben Cartwright in a skirt". The storylines were well-written & original and the shows were well-directed and well-acted. Most every episode was colourful, tasteful, upright & moral - but rarely dull, somehow: there was a larger-than-life quality to the series which appealed to its particular fans: the colour is beautiful to look at, and the score by George Duning is beautiful to hear. The series boasted many interesting guest stars: Julie Harris, Cloris Leachman, Colleen Dewhurst among many others. An embarrassing confession: as a kid, Heath Barkley was my sole hero: I thought Lee Major's playing of the half-breed illegitimate son of Tom Barkley was really inspired. Majors made Heath a really likeable character. Although Majors did many more successful TV roles, it is for his playing of Heath Barkley that I most fondly identify him with to this day.

I was not a big fan of Westerns, but this one really stands out. I liked it back in the 1970s, and then again lately with its run on the Hallmark Channel.

If this show was not an authentic Western, who cares? The show had enough chutzpah and special qualities to make it so likeable. One episode, "Miranda," which aired 15 January 1968, had one scene that made me take notice. The title character, a Mexican revolutionary played by Barbara Luna, asked Napoleon Whiting, who played the African-American servant Silas, if slavery had been outlawed. The exchange between those two characters was a sort of icebreak, because of the stereotypical roles African-Americans had played in the movies and television for so long. At last, this concept is being questioned! This is the same year that "Julia" (1968) debuted.

The cast is fun. I liked Barbara Stanwyck, and I remember seeing Richard Long in 1970's "Nanny and the Professor." He is definitely missed. Peter Breck is also great, and I also like seeing Lee Majors in this role instead of "The Six Million Dollar Man." It is too bad that the series lasted only four years. It was such a fascinating series!