The Loner

Infobox Television
show_name = The Loner


caption =
genre = Western
creator = Rod Serling
writer = Ed Adamson
Les Crutchfield
Milton S. Gelman
Norman Katkov
Robert Lewin
Gerald Sanford
Rod Serling
Andy White
director = Leon Benson
James B. Clark
Tay Garnet
Norman Foster
Paul Henreid
Alex March
Allen H. Miner
Larry Peerce
Joseph Pevney
Allen Reisner
Don Taylor
starring = Lloyd Bridges
country = USA
language = English
num_seasons = 1
num_episodes = 26
list_episodes =
executive_producer = William Dozier
producer = Bruce Lansbury
Andy White
runtime = 30 mins.
channel = CBS
first_aired = September 18, 1965
last_aired = March 12, 1966

"The Loner" is an American western series that ran for less than one season on CBS from 1965 to 1966.

ynopsis

The series was set in the years immediately following the American Civil War. Lloyd Bridges played the title character, William Colton, a former Union cavalry officer who headed to the American west in search of a new life. Each episode dealt with Colton's encounters with various individuals on his trek west.

Rod Serling was the series' creator. Longtime "TV Guide" critic Cleveland Amory wrote that Serling "obviously intended ["The Loner"] to be a realistic, adult Western," but the show's ratings indicated it was "either too real for a public grown used to the unreal Western or too adult for juvenile Easterners."

In one episode titled "The Oath," Barry Sullivan played a surgeon who'd lost the use of his right hand and had to give Colton verbal directions on how to remove a gunfighter's ruptured appendix.

In "The Homecoming of Lemuel Stove," Brock Peters played a black Union soldier returning home to see his father. The soldier made it back to his hometown only to learn his father had been lynched the previous evening by members of a Klan-like group.

"The Loner" aired Saturday nights at 9:30 Eastern. It debuted on September 18, 1965; the final episode aired March 12, 1966.

References

* Amory, C. (1966, January 15-21). "Review: The Loner". TV Guide, p. 2
* Brooks, T. & Marsh, E. (1979). "The Complete Directory To Primetime Network TV Shows". New York: Ballantine Books, p. 357

External links

* [http://www.rodserling.com/TAloner.htm Tony Albarella's article on "The Loner" from Filmfax Magazine]
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