This first season episode of Bonanza entitled "San Francisco" is the most entertaining I have ever seen. After transporting some cattle to the city the Cartwrights & two of their cowhands go for a few drinks in the notorious "Barbary Coast" district. The year is 1861 & at that time San Francisco's Barbary Coast had a terrible reputation. A contemporary journalist described it as, "The haunt of the low & vile of every kind. Petty thieves, house burglars, tramps, whore-mongers, lewd women, cutthroats & murderers are all found here". Anyway, two of Ben Cartwright's best hands get Shanghaied & the story revolves around Ben (Lorne Greene) and his sons Hoss (Dan Blocker) & Little Joe (Michael Landon) trying to find them. Ben first goes to the police but the desk sergeant tells him he doesn't have the manpower to go looking for a couple of men in a city where men come & go all the time. When Ben Cartwright stumbles into the bar from where his two hands were waylaid the same thing happens to him. The proprietor of this establishment is one Alexander Pendleton (Shanghai Pete) played by David White. He is a smooth-talking conman & David White plays him really well. When the boys find their father has gone missing they too eventually stumble into this dodgy bar. Big Hoss is by now in a very angry, aggressive mood & threatens to bang a few heads together if he doesn't get any answers as to the whereabouts of his father. Also co-starring in this episode is Kathleen Crowley playing an Irish tart-with-a-heart waitress called Quick-Buck-Kate, (implying she's also a prostitute), who helps to get the men out of trouble. Great stuff & well worth watching!.