Probably too downbeat and "adult" for its times, the series soon vanished from network screens. At the age of eleven, having been beguiled by advance advertising of the series, I was bewildered when it disappeared before I could locate it on the schedule. In retrospect it seems like the ideal vehicle to make Brian Keith a top star-something that never quite happened.
It seems a brilliant touch of writing to make Dave Blassengame (what a name for a hero) an illiterate, itinerant cowpoke with the soul of a knight errant. He is Palidan without the cultural overlay. Guest appearances by distinguished journeyman actors like Slim Pickens, Michael Ansara, Robert Culp and others too numerous to include in this space make "the Westerner" a treat for me-especially when I had to wait forty-five years for it to appear on cable T.V. .
It seems a brilliant touch of writing to make Dave Blassengame (what a name for a hero) an illiterate, itinerant cowpoke with the soul of a knight errant. He is Palidan without the cultural overlay. Guest appearances by distinguished journeyman actors like Slim Pickens, Michael Ansara, Robert Culp and others too numerous to include in this space make "the Westerner" a treat for me-especially when I had to wait forty-five years for it to appear on cable T.V. .