5. Night Incident

Night Incident, October 29, 1955 - Written and Directed by Charles Marquis Warren, Guest Cast: Peter Votrian, Jeanne Bates. Little Timmy Wyatt witnesses a series of bizarre murders. He has a habit of telling tall tales, so no one will believe him.

Charles Marquis Warren was hired as director to make the transition of radio's Gunsmoke to television. He wrote Night Incident. Warren clearly did not capture the essence of what made early Gunsmoke's great. The result was a plot you might see on a kiddy western like the Lone Ranger. The episode does not have the grittiness of the Gunsmoke created by the master script writer John Meston. In Night Incident, a mother asks Matt Dillon to talk to her little boy who she says is a liar. Matt investigates and finds a weird family with a weird background. Matt straightens them out with an end so sickingly sweet it makes your teeth hurt.