"Nichols" (1971) TV series 1971-1972

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Creator:

Frank Pierson

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

16 September 1971 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Plot:

In 1914, Nichols, a soldier, sick of killing, returns to his Arizona home town, named after his family...

Plot Keywords:

Sheriff | Arizona | Characters Killed In Final Episode | Modern West | Character Name In Title

Cast

James Garner

...

Nichols (24 episodes, 1971-1972)

Also Known As:

James Garner (Canada: English title)
James Garner as Nichols

Runtime:

60 min (23 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Company:

Cherokee Productions

Movie Connections:

Referenced in You Will Believe: The Cinematic Saga of Superman (2006) (V)

A fine show that should have run longer

This show was a really good one in many ways, although certainly an atypical Western with the hero (?) riding around on a motorcycle rather than a horse, due to the 1914 setting, very "late" for a Western, which tend usually to be set between 1866 and 1890. I remember some controversy about its cancellation at the time but didn't really watch it during its time on NBC. When I came to see it and love it was a decade later when I was in the Army stationed in Germany and it was shown every week from the beginning on Armed Forces Television. By then, Margot Kidder was famous as Lois Lane but I'll also always think of her as Nichols' girlfriend. In a lot of ways, Nichols was a lot like Maverick; both were much more attracted to getting rich with little effort than they were fighting. It was in the little TV magazine that they distributed at the PX (not really an authorized edition of "TV Guide" but made to resemble it as closely as possible without getting into copyright trouble) that I first learned the real story behind the cancellation. I really wonder what the next season with the more violent twin would have been like if they had really made it as planned. Of course, by the time this show was made the "Western era" of TV had been in decline for around a decade; someday I hope to be able to write that the "reality era" has been in decline for that long! While "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza" were still running, they were both nearing their ends and it had been years since a new Western had really caught on; I think that this trend did a lot to hold "Nichols" back, and was the main reason that NBC executives doubted that it would ever find a large audience But to me, a good Western, unlike a show set in contemporary times, is somewhat timeless, as are other "period" shows; changing fashions and the like do nothing to make them look any more "dated" than they were supposed to be, and I think that watching this show, 10 years after it was produced, is really what brought this point home to me. Also, this show is an early pairing of Garner and Stuart Margolin, who is really one of the all-time great sidekicks, and not just in Westerns.