Three TV Westerns for Three Different Moods

Pick Gunsmoke for a steady lawman and the pleasure of returning to Dodge City. Pick Bonanza for a ranch family whose troubles keep coming home with them. Pick Justified for the tension of a Kentucky crime drama where two men with a shared past find themselves on opposite sides of the law.

Gunsmoke ran from 1955 to 1975. Bonanza ran for fourteen seasons from 1959 to 1973, and Justified has six seasons. The first two give you somewhere to drop in for a night. With Justified, part of the pleasure is knowing there is a last chapter to work toward.

Gunsmoke: Start with Matt Dillon

The Television Academy's archive records it as a CBS series that ran from 1955 to 1975, with James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon in Dodge City. The same archive traces the show to a radio drama. Its length changed during the run: the Encyclopedia of Television lists half-hour episodes and says the program moved to an hour in 1961. That gives you a practical choice if all you have tonight is half an hour.

Dillon is the character I would follow first. Try an episode and notice whether the scene holds before the action starts. Do you want to spend time with the people who bring him a problem, or are you waiting for him to solve it? Treat how long you stay curious about the people as a better test than how much action there is.

Pick it when you want a setting you can return to and a familiar face to guide you around it. Twenty years is a long run, so give yourself permission to sample it instead of deciding tonight whether to finish it. If you watch an episode and want to see what Dillon has to deal with next, that is a better reason to keep watching than any episode count. If you are deciding what to watch with someone else, a single episode also gives you a fair test of whether Dillon is a character both of you want to see again.

Bonanza: for a family and its land

Bonanza changes the question from who keeps the peace to who lives on the land. PBS's Pioneers of Television profiles the Cartwright family and the Ponderosa, and it contrasts this family-centered Western with the genre's conventional lone lawman. That contrast is the main reason to choose it.

The 1962 photograph gives you four faces to keep straight: Ben Cartwright and his sons, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe. The costumes make the group look like it belongs together. When you watch, notice which of the four you want to hear from first. If your answer changes during an episode, that can tell you whose side of the story you care most about.

In Bonanza the Ponderosa matters enough that the producers treated the ranch as a fifth character, according to the Television Academy. To see why that matters, try following a decision after one Cartwright makes it. The others have to live with it, and they still have to go on being a family when the immediate trouble is over. That gives you something different to watch for than Dillon’s use of his badge.

Bonanza aired on NBC from 1959 to 1973. The Museum of Broadcast Communications’ Encyclopedia of Television says it began on Saturday nights and later moved to Sunday. The entry places the ranch near Virginia City, Nevada, and describes disputes over land and mining. Knowing that helps me decide when to put it on. I would pick a night when a dispute over what happens to a piece of land sounds like a story I want to follow.

Justified: for a marshal story with an ending

FX's official page identifies Timothy Olyphant as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. He returns to his home state of Kentucky in the series, which takes its premise from Elmore Leonard’s Fire in the Hole. It runs for six seasons, with Walton Goggins playing Boyd Crowder. The sixth and final season builds on the long conflict between Raylan and Boyd.

Raylan and Boyd dug coal together in Harlan when they were young. Years later they face each other on opposite sides of the law. That history is the reason to pay attention to how familiar the two sound when they talk. A threat can also be a reminder that one man knows exactly where the other came from. By the final season, their conflict has had years to build.

Pick it if the long conflict between Raylan and Boyd is what gets you interested. Sony describes Raylan as a present-day lawman with a style that belongs to an earlier era. That is why I would put Justified on a Western list even though its setting is Kentucky. What I would watch for is how much of his authority comes from the job and how much comes from the way Olyphant carries the badge.

When to pick a different one

Skip Gunsmoke for now if you want to finish a series from start to end. Its CBS run stretches from 1955 to 1975, and that is more television than I would want to take on as a project. I would sample Dodge City for one night and see whether I feel like going back.

Skip Bonanza for now if you want a story carried by a lone lawman. The Cartwrights and the Ponderosa are the reason PBS sets it apart from that kind of Western. I would leave it for an evening when I want to follow what a family makes of the trouble around it.

Skip Justified for now if a Kentucky crime drama is too far from the kind of Western you want tonight. Raylan has the badge, but the setting is not Dodge City or a ranch near Virginia City, Nevada. Save it for a night when you are curious how much of a Western can travel with the lawman.

Give your pick one episode

Give the show you picked one episode. If you chose Justified, begin with the first one so you can meet Raylan as he returns to Kentucky. At the end, decide whether you want to know what he does next. For either of the older shows, ask instead whether you would like another evening in the same place. That is enough of a test for tonight.