John Ritter is ""The Great Mcdonacle"" in the opening episode of the three-part pilot, a shifty trick-shooter who relies on ""smoke & mirrors"" and a little buckshot to provide a decent show, but once he gets his hands on the Dead Man's Gun he realizes he no longer needs any illusions, he's suddenly a crack shot! And when shootists come gunning for him, he has no problem dealing with them, until the Dead Man's Gun has its way!

A con man finds the Dead Man's Gun and the claim to what he believes is a barren mine, which he sells to a half-wit (Matt Frewer), but soon regrets it when the the half-wit shows up in town with gold nuggets to deposit. He quickly convinces his prey that he needs help to properly run the mine, and agrees to be 50/50 partners so long as they agree that if one dies, the survivor inherits the rest, to protect them against claim-jumpers. Of course, he intends to kill the half-wit and inherit the entire mine back, with the help of his beautiful new girlfriend, and run it with the equipment he plans to purchase using money he has gotten from the local loan-shark. Or course, the town lawyer sees right through the con man's plan and threatens not to endorse the partnership agreement unless he is cut in for a share, but the con man simply kills him. But the tables are turned on the con man when the half-wit disappears with the money intended for the mining equipment, and the loan shark get

When two brothers find the Dead Man's Gun on a skeleton, one of them develops a fascination with it and soon is forced to kill the local shootist in a duel. After this, he takes up with a gold-digging harlot, who, along with her shifty friend, urge the young man to continue on his dangerous path, despite the warnings of his older brother to give up his new way of life, and the Dead Man's Gun, before it's too late. The older brother, Will, wants to leave town, but can't leave his brother, so he gets himself a job at the general store, where he falls in love with the owner's daughter. Outlaws come gunning for his younger brother one after another, and all meet the same fate, until he finally kills a gentleman who is interested in his girlfriend. The gentleman's brothers come to town for revenge, but, since his younger brother is wounded, Will protects him by taking his chances with the Dead Man's Gun.

When Leo Sunshine discovers the Dead Man's Gun and is mistaken for a man to be feared, he decides to play along and enjoy his new-found fame. But Wild Joe knows the truth about Leo and the powers of the Dead Man's Gun, and when he catches up to him, Leo realizes that he may have bit off a lot more than he can chew.

Buryin' Sam (Larry Drake) and his partner (W. Pogue) are two dishonest morticians who steal from the dead. They soon begin to fight over their latest find, the Dead Man's Gun, and the hand of a beautiful widow. When he's found out by a widower, Sam kills him, and then, in a drunken stupor, his partner as well. But his partner swears he'll come back, and Sam starts to hear and see strange things. He can't sleep at night or enjoy sex. Sam thinks he needs only to see the body to realize it's all in his head ... or is it?

When a Highwayman comes across the Dead Man's Gun, his job becomes a lot more difficult than he ever could have imagined. His Highway now leads directly into the fires of hell.

A meek store owner seeks adventure in his life, and, after finding the Dead Man's Gun, aspires to become a bountie hunter, even though his friend the shootist tells him to get rid of the evil weapon. He, of course, does not listen, and just when he thinks he's bagged his first outlaw, he falls prey to the Dead Man's Gun.

A mysterious woman tends to get ahead in life by killing off her husbands and taking their money ... but when she comes across the Dead Man's Gun she just might get a taste of her own ""medicine"".

A faith healer arrives in town and begins bilking the people out of their money. But when he lays his hands on the Dead Man's Gun (having convinced a wife-beating, murdering scoundrel to turn his gun over and begin a new life ... little did he know the cad's REAL reason for giving up the gun!), he strangely begins healing people for real! He gets bolder and bolder, eventually killing one of the town's gentlemen in order to steal his wife, by convincing his faithful, God-fearing retarded assistant that the gentleman was evil; then he turns against his own friend and partner when he suggests they get out of town. This is a big mistake. His ex-partner figures out that the faith healer set up their retarded assistant for the man's murder, so he shows up during the faith healer's next sermon and proves that he was planning on running off with the town's church-building money, and that the retarded guy was tricked into commiting the murder. The town then REALLY turns on him when they re

When a woman doctor arrives she is faced with a serious dilemma. Will she be able to save the small town from a mysterious illness, a shady mayor, and the Dead Man's Gun?

A peace-loving man seeks revenge against the men who killed his family in this episode. But will he himself fall victim to the Dead Man's Gun in the process?

There's nothing quite like a women scorned. Kate Jackson is out for vengeance in this exciting episode, and she just might get it with the help of her new gun ... The Dead Man's Gun!

Aaron Freemont (Meat Loaf) is a lonely and awkward man, but when his mail order bride finally arrives in town he grows much happier with her, and falls in love. But when he comes across the Dead Man's Gun, will he be able to defeat the evil that comes along with it, save his new wife, and convince her to love him in return?

Will the rambling predictions of a mysterious Fortune Teller come to pass, or can a man still save himself from the clutches of the Dead Man's Gun? Of course, when you're dealing with the Dead Man's Gun, it's pretty easy to predict what's going to happen. You'll probably die.

without acknowledgement to Edgar Allen Poe's ""The Facts In The Case of M. Valdemar"", this bizarre tale is of a womanizing hypnotist who falls for the wife of a dying millionare. She persuades the hypnotist to use his talent to ease her husband's suffering. But as hubby sinks deeper and deeper into death, the hypnotist sees an opportunity to achieve fame by keeping conssciousness and motor nerves alive in a corpse, at the same time arresting decay, and creating an immortal dead man! Only after the wife finds out that she can't inherit anything as long as her husband is still considered alive, and the hypnotist finds out he can't remove the hypnotic state do things start to literally fall apart! The twist ending is particularly gruesome and ironically fitting

Marty (JoBeth Williams) is a woman stagecoach robber with a sordid past. When she comes across the Dead Man's Gun she considers using it for the evil purpose of revenge, but will she be able to sort out her past without ruining her future with a new man?

A photographer, seeking fame and fortune, discovers that action follows the Dead Man's Gun and decides to follow it to reap the benefits. But after winning aclaim for capturing an amazing picture of the execution of 14-year old outlaw ""Little Boy Dawkins"", he goes further and crosses the line ... but it's a mistake getting directly involved with the Dead Man's Gun.

Joe Wheeler is a dead man ... or is he? Either he's dead, or he's back and looking for revenge against his enemies. The lines tend to get skewed when you're dealing with the Dead Man's Gun!

When a no-good gambler comes across the Dead Man's Gun, he convinces himself that he just can't lose. But we all know that when you deal with the Dead Man's Gun, you're in for a surprise. In the biggest game of his life, the tables get turned on our gambling friend.

When his cavalry platoon is ambushed by Indians with red bandanas in a corn field, Lt. Matthew Ryan cowardly hides and watches them, including the man who saved his own life, Sgt. O'Connor, get slaughtered. After the bloodbath he picks up the Dead Man's Gun from O'Connors corpse, and heads back to the fort. Asked about what happened, he obviously lies, claiming that he heroically fought the Indians but everyone else was slaughtered despite his actions. He is believed, but when one of the troops believed dead returns to the fort and tries to tell the truth about Lt. Ryan, the commanding officer believes that the soldier himself is the one who ran off and is trying to cover his own behind. Lt. Ryan simply agrees, and watches in silence as the innocent man is hanged. He believes his ordeal is over, but the commander has one more job for him before they move out - to return to the battle site and bury the other men. He reluctantly agrees, and when they arrive and enter the field he s

When the Reverend Jeremiah Early (Tim Matheson) comes to town he plans on taking them for all the money he can and splitting, until he spots a beautiful woman. With the help of the Dead Man's Gun he does way with her man so he can have her for himself, framing his good-natured, religious, retarded assistant for the murder. In the meantime, he discovers that, while in possession of the Dead Man's Gun, he can suddenly perform real miracles and actually heal the people who come to him. But will his other assistant turn back from his evil ways and reveal the Reverend for what he really is before it's too late for the town? Of course he will, with the Dead Man's Gun.

Stuart ""Snake Finger"" Aikens (Matt Craven) is a professional safe-cracker by trade, who's had no use for a weapon until he finds the Dead Man's Gun. The Sheriff hot on his heals has no hope of catching this tricky thief, who is right under his nose, trying to get at the latest ""unbreakable"" safe through the bank owner's disinherited daughter and grandson. Using them, he gets access to the bank, but his trickery backfires when the boy locks himself in the air-tight safe. Only Snakefinger has the ability to break the child out before he suffocates, but will he blow his cover to help another person? If he does, will the Sheriff forgive him?

Joe Dean Bonner (Brian Austin Green) is a professional killer who cares for nothing but himself. After his latest killing, he rides into a strange town populated by only one man, who he obtains the Dead Man's gun from. Soon, Bonner is on trial for his past deeds, with a jury of those he has butchered, and not even the Dead Man's gun can help him against the supernatural. After visits from his dead, disappointed father, a pastor, and the love of his life, who committed suicide after he impregnated then abandoned her, Bonner seems to repent, but is he sincere? The Dead Man's Gun knows! And so do I, he's not sincere at all, so he gets hung.

Blood is thicker than water as two brothers wrestle with each other over what they should do when one of them falls under the spell of The Dead Man's Gun, after finding it on a body. Will his brother be able to save him, and himself, from the fate that awaits them?

The town push-over, a school teacher, turns his life around when he discovers the Dead Man's Gun on a killed outlaw. He no longer puts up with the bullying of his peers, but ends up becoming a bully himself. Can he turn his life back around, though, when the outlaw's partners turn up, looking for the powerful Dead Man's Gun? And can he win the love of the school marm, whom he secretly adores?

An aging manager and his talented pugilist travel town to town, winning money by boxing. They arrive one day in a boxing tycoon's town and quickly make waste of his best boxer; demanding a chance to win back his money, and the Dead Man's Gun, the tycoon brings in a ringer and has his ruffians ambush the boxer one night, forcing him to break his hand on one of their skulls. Meanwhile, the manager has taken in a young boy who years to learn the art of boxing. Faced with the choice of forfeiting, or making his boxer fight with one hand, the manager elects to return to the ring for one lst fight, 14 years after retiring, against one of the best boxers. He is badly beaten for several rounds before taking his own advice from the boy: win with your heart! He uppercuts the boxer, punches out the tycoon, and leaves town with his money, but not the Dead Man's Gun! That's for sure!

Kendall Cross (as Sister Elizabeth) and Susan Hogan (as Sister Katherine) are two criminals making their way west dressed as nuns, robbing bad men on their way to a gold town. When they reach their destination they realize that the town is under the thumb of an evil tyrant. Soon they devise a plan to break into his bank through the wall of his saloon, enlisting the help of the impoverished townfolk to force him to close the saloon on Sundays so they can perform this deed. But should they really steal the money and skip town, or help the poor people there? And can Sister Katherine come to terms with her questionable past? They can indeed, but only with the help of the Dead Man's Gun.

Phineas Newman (Winkler) is a hangman by trade. Ostracized by the rest of society for his work, he takes pride in it, and strives to be the best executioner money can by. He explains to his assistant that he does his job because, as a child, he saw his uncle hung by unprofessionals, and believes that even a condemned man shouldn't suffer. He also becomes fascinated with a gun he picks up from his latest hanging client, the Dead Man's Gun, of course. When he arrives for his next job at another town, he learns that the town, including the mother of the raped and murdered girl, refuses to believe that their Reverend has committed the crime. He goes about his duties of preparation, not caring to hear anything about the crime, and refusing to give mercy to the pleading, condemned Reverend. That night, depressed after being refused service by the town's low-life whore, he tries to kill himself, and realizes that the Dead Man's Gun and he both have the power to choose when to take life

A German collector of antiquities (Michael York) travels to the American west in search of goods to trade for, with the hopes of taking his riches back to Germany. He finds the Dead Man's Gun on a dead body while scavenging for goods, and hires a Mexican to help him on his way. He soon visits an American professor with similar interests, and seeks to trade for part of his valuable collection, i.e. a map rumoured to lead to a dead tribe's treasure cave, but just as a deal is reached, the American backs out, having realized the kind of man von Hubert is after butchering a rare buffalo for its pelt. Furious, von Hubert arranges for a goodbye ride with the professor, ostensibly to leave on good terms, but he instead murders the professor and shoots himself, blaming the deed on the renegade in the area, thus winning the professor's collection and his beautiful wife as well. Soon, however, the wife realizes where von Hubert's love lies, and sabotages him by taking the bullets out of hi

A man with no appreciation for nature begins trapping near the home of old native, Charlie Three Claws (Gordon Tootoosis), and becomes enraged when Charlie begins springing his traps before animals can fall prey to them. The trapper kills another trapper, who he feels is responsible for his lost pelts, and takes his weapon, the Dead Man's Gun. He then comes after Charlie Three Claws, and, after being forced at gunpoint to leave by Charlie's beautiful granddaughter, he returns and rapes her. Charlie can not get justice from the local sheriff, who hates Indians even more than he hates the evil trapper, so he decides to get it on his own by summoning up an old friend, Jimmy the Dead Grizzly Bear.

An English couple flee to America after being caught stealing from their employers, and soon find a new victim in a scatterbrained old Colonel, who enjoys shooting at squirrels with the Dead Man's Gun. They worry that their employer may not have enough money to make the difficult task of caring for him worth-while until they spot him one night, planting money in his garden. They soon become convinced that the locations of all of his hidden treasure chests are hidden in his hidden book, but to get it from his bedside table they have to get the key from around his neck. The butler urges his wife, who the Colonel has become quite fond of, to give him what he wants so that they can get the key, but it isn't as easy as it would seem. In the end, the tables are turned around again and again, and they all get the fate they deserve at the hands of the Dead Man's Gun.

When a wife and mother is murdered, and the local law can not find the killer, her widower calls in expert help in the form of John Eastman (Michael Dorn), a talented Pinkerton investigator. Eastman has troubles during his investigation, primarily because of racism in a small white town, but he will not be turned away. Using the Dead Man's Gun, he solves the evil crime, and justice is doled out to the surprising culprit.

The prodigal son returns to his small-town roots just in time to miss his father's funeral. He inherits half the bank, but he wants responsibility to run it, which has been left to his responsible brother. However, destitute, having blown the substantial amount of money his father gave him when he went to Philadelphia, he is forced to take a position as bank teller and work his way up. Not patient enough for this, however, and needing money to pay off his gambling debts to the local gangster, he gets the vault's combination and starts stealing money, framing the kindly assistant manager, who has been training him, for the crime. He then becomes assistant manager, but when his brother discovers the crime, he murders him with the Dead Man's Gun. Along the way, despising his father's religious instruction, Baldwin strives to get pleasure by breaking all of the seven deadly sins, but will they come back to haunt him via the Dead Man's Gun?

When a bizarre slashing murder takes place in a small western town, an English inspector soon turns up asking questions about the crime. It is soon divulged that he is hot on the trail of Jack the Ripper, and thinks the killer is in the town. Could the murderer be the town's doctor? Or the scarred, malevolent blacksmith? Or even the town's shady Sheriff or the brothel's madam, who the inspector finds himself getting close with? The murders continue until the Ripper is finally flushed out, and brought down by the Dead Man's Gun.

When a Regulator comes across the Dead Man's Gun, he believes he is set for life ... until other Regulators come after HIM!

Patrick Duffy is a Womanizer. When the husband of one of his flings tracks him down, and dies after being thrown off his horse during the chase, the Womanizer loots his wallet, and picks up The Dead Man's Gun. Can he mend his ways, or will he fall prey to the gun's evil powers?

Gruesome, unmotivated killings soon begin to take place in a small town after a man finds the Dead Man's Gun, and soon he become convinced that he is performing the deeds himself while sleepwalking. His wife stays awake to watch him, but falls asleep early and another murder takes place. The man is incredibly guilty for what he's done, turns himself in, and is sentenced to die ... but is he the real culprit? No, he's not. His wife is!

Years after the town hooligan and three of his men murder a young woman's husband simply for beating them at poker, she returns with the Dead Man's Gun, seeking revenge. She leaves an Ace at each dead man's side, and soon a showdown is set up with the hooligan and his son. After being injured she enlists the help of the town's shopkeeper, a victim of the town's gang's treachery for years, and his young daughter. The hooligan waits for her to show up to ambush her, but she cleverly kidnaps his son instead and forces him to come to her, at her old ranch, where her husband had been murdered so long ago. Here he finds his son in an unexpected predicament, and she forces him to face his deepest, darkest fears. Then she goes back to town to marry the shopkeeper and to be the littler girl's mother.

A woman helps carry out an oath she made to her murdered husband ... thanks to the Dead Man's Gun!

Chef Emil (Jay Thomas) gets the cash for his dream of setting up his own high class French restaurant by poisoning his employers, and also inherits the Dead Man's Gun. An ill-tempered man, he treats the people of the town terribly, but is forgiven because of his great food, and the hungry Sheriff is content to simply look the other way. Anyone who disagrees with Emil's cooking is killed by him. The town's other home-cooking restaurant, an Irish mother/son operation, suffers for lack of business at the hands of Chez Emil, with Emil humiliating the man every chance he gets. Soon, the restaurant goes under, and he young man is forced to work for Emil himself. Emil soon covets the man's girlfriend, and drugs her. Luckily, the man discovers Emil's plan and saves the girl, just in time to be shot by Emil who claims he was attacked without provocation. Emil gets his just desserts, though, thanks to the Dead Man's Gun! (He is poisoned and used for meat.)

An Italian immigrant, on his way to California with a grapevine from his family's winery in Italy, comes across a group of murdered people and takes the lone survivor, a Polish woman with nowhere to go, under his wing, and the Dead Man's Gun she has found. They soon run into the culprits, who let him go only after she offers to do whatever they want. He can't just leave her, though, and rescues her when the thieves go off hunting. The two soon fall in love after they reach the next town, and head for California together, but the gang catches up prompting a short gunfight. She saves the vine from the campfire for him, and, after getting a reward for killing the gang leader, they head to California to start a new life together, and a fantastic winery!

Three young boys find the Dead Man's Gun and use it to become tough, and to get money by rolling the town drunk. But one of the boy's, whose mother needs money, considers using it to kill his drunken, abusive father, but he can't bring himself to do it. When the bankrobber returns for his gun, he agrees not to kill the boys in exchange for their help in robbing the town's bank. The abused boy learns that he shares some history with the robber, who ended up killing his own father as a boy, which set him on his evil path. The robbery goes awry when the bank manager recognizes one of the boys, and they have a choice to make: they decide to save the manager and foil the robber's getaway by setting him on fire, but it's too late for the boy's father, who is shot by the robber when he discovers the goings-on and screams for help. In the end, they realize that they don't want the gun any more, and that their small town isn't so bad after all. The grateful manager decides not to press c

C. Thomas Howell is a habberdasher and phrenologist; a city boy who leaps at whatever the latest big-city fad is. He hires a new assistant, who has just witnessed an outlaw being bucked off his horse into quicksand and could not save him, only the Dead Man's Gun, which he carried. The Phrenologist uses the boy to try to win the heart of a beautiful young lady, whose affections he is competing for with a local rancher. She is having great difficulty choosing between them. Meanwhile, the outlaws bank-robbing partners are hot on his (and the stolen money's) trail, and, after being placed under arrest, notice the Phrenologist carrying their old partner's gun. The boy overhears their discussion, and leads the Phrenologist to the swamp where the money must be, while the outlaws escape. They take the phrenologist and the rancher hostage, but are saved by the clever boy, who turns out to be Thomas Edison; the woman uses trickery to discover which man she should give her hand to.

An outlaw (William Forsythe) retrieves the Dead Man's Gun by murdering its latest owners for a mysterious, eccentric, incredibly rich man, known only as Mr. Smith. Upon delivery of the gun, the outlaw is treated to several stories about its eerie past (in the form of flashbacks to previous episodes including The Hangman, The Bounty Hunter, The Photographer, Bad Boys, and The Great Mcdonacle), and cannot leave because of the posse outside. He grows more and more uncomfortable, and feels that, because of the danger of the weapon, he deserves more money for it. His greed is his undoing, as Mr. Smith reveals himself to be the original owner of the cursed weapon, and the outlaw receives his just reward.