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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.
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'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. | |
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'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. | |
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'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. | |
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'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. | |
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'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 hard-edged 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.
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'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.
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