msn tv4LANDMARK TV WESTERNS
From the moment James Arness ambled across the small screen to the Dodge City graveyard in the opening shots of
"Gunsmoke," the Western found a home on the new frontier of television. It wasn't the first series to tap the frontier
setting and six-gun stories, but its more mature, serious approach started a stampede of shows that dominated
network schedules in the 1950s: "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp," "Have Gun - Will Travel," "Wanted: Dead or
Alive," "Rawhide," "Wagon Train," adult responses to the adolescent adventures
of "The Lone Ranger," "The Cisco Kid" and others.
Like its big-screen parent, the TV Western's popularity waxed and waned over the years.
When Western movies went into box-office hibernation in the late 1970s, the TV Western
feature took off in lean range adventures adapted from the novels of Louis L'Amour. In
1989, the mini-series "Lonesome Dove" captivated huge audiences with its leathery mix
of intimacy and sweeping scope. Arguably the Western's finest hour (or rather,
eight hours) on television, Larry McMurtry's cattle-drive epic spawned sequels, prequels
and adaptations of other McMurtry Westerns in the mini-series format. Amid these
revivals, it found new incarnations in family dramas like "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."
And just when it looked like TV was turning into a Western ghost town once again,
David Milch breathed new life into it with his startling drama of frontier existence in
the real-life gold-rush town of "Deadwood."
The following list may not match your picks for the greatest TV Westerns of all time,
but they are landmarks among the plateaus and grand vistas, and their legacies cast a
long shadow across the television landscape.
'Gunsmoke'
(1955-1975)
The iconic series originated as a hit radio
drama before the strapping James Arness, a
tall, big-shouldered character actor in the John
Wayne stock company, stepped into the boots
of Marshal Matt Dillon with Wayne's blessing
(the Duke was offered and turned down the
role). A television phenomenon was born. Its
20-year run is still a television record for
episodic drama, and Arness was trail boss for
its entire run (plus a series of reunion TV
movies), accompanied by loyal co-stars
Milburn Stone (Doc Adams) and Amanda
Blake (whose Miss Kitty left the show a mere
season short of its run). From its debut season,
the mature writing and psychological depth
(heretofore seen only in the movies) set the
standard for TV Westerns for decades to come,
while the lingering looks and guarded
exchanges between long, tall loner Marshal
Dillon and long-suffering Miss Kitty gave their
undefined relationship a decidedly adult
dimension and suggestion of off-screen heat
and more.
'Davy Crockett'
(1954-1955)
Fess Parker was the King of the Wild Frontier and Buddy Ebsen his loyal sidekick in the frontier
adventures that exploded in Crockett-mania and launched a craze in coonskin caps. Originally
made for the "Frontierland" section of the "Disneyland" TV series, and later edited into a hit
feature, the original trilogy of shows followed the legendary frontiersman from Indian country to
Congress to the Alamo, where his doomed stand against the Mexican army conferred almost
mythological status on the American hero. The astonishing popularity brought Crockett back to
life in a pair of lighthearted "prequel" episodes, "Davy Crockett's Keelboat Race" and "Davy
Crockett and the River Pirates." The practical frontier philosophy of the show still engages after
all these years, thanks largely to Parker's unassuming manner and homespun conviction, and the
gorgeous wilderness settings still cast the spell of yesteryear's untamed frontier. In a mere five
episodes, Disney created a Western TV icon.
'Maverick'
(1957-1962)
The gravity of the TV Western drama got a decidedly unconventional kind of hero when James
Garner's Brett Maverick rode into the Old West. A card shark and con man whose well-honed
instinct for self-preservation was matched only by his knack for hatching schemes that landed
him in the thick of it, Maverick was a pragmatist with a sense of humor in a world that didn't
always get the joke. He was joined by Jack Kelly, as Brett's lady-killing brother, Bart, midway
through the first season (they alternated episodes and periodically teamed up), and Roger Moore
joined the family as British cousin Beauregard in Season 4, but it was Garner who held the
spotlight. Though it spoofed Western conventions, and periodically lampooned rival shows, the
show favored wit over farce, and Garner's dry delivery and twinkle in his eye defined the
irreverent tone. Garner and creator Roy Huggins achieved the impossible when they recreated
that inimitable chemistry for "The Rockford Files" in 1974.
'Wagon Train'
(1957-1965)
Think of it as a "Playhouse 90" on the old frontier. The original road-show Western was guided
by Ward Bond's quietly commanding Major Adams, the paternal wagon master leading
tenderfoot settlers across the unsettled West. But he was also a kind of host to an anthology of
stories that played out in the back wagons every week against the rigors of the trail and the
backdrop of the trail team (including series heartthrob Robert Horton as the trail scout). The high
quality of writing attracted impressive guest stars (among them Bette Davis and John Wayne)
and even corralled John Ford to helm an episode. Bond was replaced by John McIntire after his
death in 1961, and the trek remained unbroken for a strong eight-season run.
'The Rifleman'
(1958-1963)
Chuck Connors played devoted single father Lucas McCain, a hospitable but unbending
homesteader raising his adoring young son (Johnny Crawford) on a hard-scrabble spread on a
still-untamed frontier. Credit the unusual and often dynamic mix of family morality and hardedged conflict to creator Sam Peckinpah, who set the unflinching tone in his gritty early
episodes, and to the veteran Hollywood directors who crafted a dark Western noir style around
the show's edgier episodes. But it was Connors' performance that defined the show, the
protective father whose genial smile is replaced with the fearless will of the resolute gunfighter at
the slightest sign of threat. A former pro baseball player, Connors turned the distinctive pump of
his modified Winchester rifle into the show's trademark with his effortless execution.
'The Westerner'
(1960)
A loping Brian Keith played laconic loner Dave Blasingame, a wandering cowhand drifting
through the Southwest of the 1890s with a dog named Brown and a dream to start his own
spread. The fragility of human life on the frontier hangs over every episode of the short-lived
series created by Peckinpah (pictured left). Although Peckinpah wrote most and directed many of
the episodes, this wasn't a world of gunfighters and murderous villains. While Peckinpah's
reputation might lead one to expect a violent show, he crafted the show as a poetic character
study set against a gritty, unglamorized Old West, where the practical Blasingame, a cowhand
just trying to get by, found himself a reluctant but tenacious champion. It only lasted 13 episodes,
but the soberly realistic and startlingly evocative frontier drama is one of the masterpieces of the
TV Western.
'Kung Fu'
(1972-1975)
Call this offbeat incarnation of the genre a Shaolin Western. David Carradine starred as Kwai Chang Caine, an
orphan born of an American father and a Chinese mother and raised as a Shaolin monk trained in the martial
arts. In the series, he wanders the American Southwest in search of the white half-brother he never knew,
pursued by Chinese assassins and American bounty hunters, and constantly victimized by brutal racists.
His philosophical aphorisms fall on deaf ears, and the pacifist is forced into an inevitable ass-whupping.
Carradine's martial-arts prowess improved noticeably over the series, while his placid performance made the
show's defining irony work even in the face of clumsy fight choreography. The exotic mix of genres, the
evocative photography and the running commentary on intolerance made this quintessentially '70s twist on the
Western an instant cult hit.
'The Sacketts'
(1979)
Louis L'Amour personally introduced this adaptation of two of his novels ("The
Daybreakers" and "Sackett"), and the gentle rhythm of his easy voice set the unhurried tone
and pace of the telefilm. The loping, rambling, tough-minded tale of the Sackett brothers and
their meandering journey across the Midwest (town and territory names flash on screen like
chapter markers along the way) set the standard for the modern TV Western and established
its two great stars. Sam Elliott's gravelly drawl and flashing eyes made him the great
wandering survivor of the Old West, and Tom Selleck displayed a jovial temperament that
hardened into steely intensity at the snap of a spur. Director Robert Totten transformed the
landscape into a character in its own right. The success inspired the pseudo-sequel, "The
Shadow Riders," and launched a renaissance of understated Western features made for TV.
'Lonesome Dove'
(1989)
Larry McMurtry developed his epic tale of aging cowboys who rouse themselves for one
last great adventure -- a 2,500-mile cattle drive from Texas to Montana (with a herd stolen
from a gang of Mexican cattle rustlers) -- as a big-screen last hurrah for John Wayne, James
Stewart and Henry Fonda before finally transforming it into a sprawling Pulitzer Prizewinning novel. The magnificent mini-series brought it full circle and proved to be the ideal
format, preserving the grandly epic feel and visual sweep while capturing an engrossing
intimacy. Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones saddled up with easy authority to take the
reins of this posse of dynamic characters driving through the gorgeous landscape of the
American Southwest. Winner of seven Emmy Awards, "Lonesome Dove" was the TV event
of the year and spawned a cottage industry of sequels and other incarnations of McMurtry's
Old West.
'Deadwood'
(2004-present)
David Milch reinvented the Western for HBO with his defiantly deglamorized and
unpredictable take on the frontier drama, set in the muddy, grubby, lawless gold-rush boom
town of Deadwood. It's a magnificent backdrop to watch the ideals of justice and integrity
battle the forces of greed and corruption to lay claim to the American Dream. Timothy
Olyphant brings a fierceness to former lawman turned hardware-store proprietor Seth
Bullock, roused to take up the badge again when he makes an emotional investment in the
town, while the money-grubbing, foul-mouthed Al Swearengen (a truly mesmerizing Ian
McShane) embodies the values of expediency and underhandedness with an almost
admirable practicality. The rarefied language is an irresistible mix of high-toned diction and
exquisite gutter vulgarities, often in the same sentence (it's the Old West like you've never
heard it before), and the imagery suggests hope and promise in the squalor, like a desert
flower struggling to bloom in the wasteland. Sheer brilliance.
Honorable Mentions
10 more TV Western landmarks worth remembering:
"The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" (1955-1961): Hugh O'Brian is the legendary
marshal in the pioneering adult TV Western structured around the timeline of the real Wyatt
Earp, from Wichita to Dodge City to Tombstone.
"Cheyenne" (1955-1963): Clint Walker drifts through the Old West as an adventurer with a
strong sense of justice and a penchant for action.
"Have Gun - Will Travel" (1957-1963): Richard Boone is Paladin, the suave, ruggedly
charming and classically educated gunfighter who hires out his gun ... but only in a just
cause.
"Wanted: Dead or Alive" (1958-1961): Steve McQueen rides the range with a smile and a
sawed-off shotgun as bounty hunter Josh Randall, a gunman with a heart and a code.
"Rawhide" (1959-1966): Clint Eastwood became a star playing trailhand Rowdy Yates on
the eight-season cattle-drive adventure.
"Bonanza" (1959-1973): Lorne Green is the widowed patriarch of a ranching clan (Michael
Landon, Dan Blocker and Pernell Roberts) in the second-longest-running Western series.
"The Wild, Wild West" (1965-1970): James Bond goes West in this sagebrush espionage
adventure starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin as agents on President Grant's secret
service.
"Centennial" (mini-series, 1978): The sprawling adaptation of James Michener's novel is
the story of how the American West was won in the microcosm of a fictional Colorado town
over 200 years.
"Conagher" (TV movie, 1991): Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross star in this lovely and
laconic character piece set on Louis L'Amour's beautiful and brutal frontier.
"The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." (1993-1994): Bruce Campbell is a bounty hunter
battling villains out of Jules Verne in this short-lived cult Western with a tongue-in-cheek
sensibility.