Quite a few folks wrote to remind me that in its second season, Branded took an odd twist, undermining its own premise. Jason McCord was suddenly functioning as a special secret-secret government agent, investigating for and reporting to President Ulysses S. Grant. The opening with him getting kicked out of the army stayed the same but once you got into the episodes, things were different. How did I not recall that? Because I stopped watching the show when they made that switchover. Apparently, a lot of people did.
Several folks also told me that that DVD set contains trimmed (for syndication) prints and not especially good ones. So be wary.