NBC's 4-Part Forgotten Western Series Went Where 'Bonanza' Never Could
Michael John Petty is a Senior Author for Collider who spends his days writing, in fellowship with his local church, and enjoying each new day with his wife and daughters. At Collider, he writes features, reviews, recaps, and conducts interviews. In addition to writing about stories, Michael has told a few of his own. His novella, The Beast of Bear-tooth Mountain, was released in 2023. His Western short story, The Devil's Left Hand, received the Spur Award for "Best Western Short Fiction" from the Western Writers of America in 2025. Michael currently resides in North Idaho with his growing family.
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Everybody who knows anything about the Western genre knows Bonanza. Whether you remember that famous theme tune or recall Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker, and Michael Landon leading cattle to and fro, the impressive 14-season series was the second most popular Old West series, just behind Gunsmoke. But Bonanza's success didn't stop creator David Dortort from moving on, and in 1967, he developed The High Chaparral for NBC. For four seasons and nearly 100 episodes, Dortort's newest Western aired on the network, and though it eventually fell prey to the infamous rural purge, it's notable for doing a few things that Bonanza just never could. If you've never heard of this one before, it may be worth giving a shot now.
What Is 'The High Chaparral' About?
While Bonanza centers around Ben Cartwright (Greene) and his three boys as they helm the Ponderosa Ranch in northern Nevada, The High Chaparral is a bit different from the get-go. In the 1870s Arizona Territory, determined patriarch "Big John" Cannon (Leif Erickson), his brother Buck (Cameron Mitchell), and son Billy Blue (Mark Slade) defend their ranch from encroaching hostiles. The High Chaparral Ranch was named by John's wife, Annalee (Joan Caulfield), who is instantly captivated by the Arizona scenery around them. Believing this to be a brand-new start for their family, she's eager to get the ranch up and running. Unfortunately, the Chaparral isn't safe, and after the Cannon's land is raided, Annalee is killed quickly in the very first episode after she's hit by an arrow. Talk about a shocking way to open up a series.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Western Icon Are You Most Like? No Name · Doc Holliday · Wyatt Earp · Mattie Ross
Pick your name, your gun, your horse and how you spend a night in town, and we will tell you which legend of the Old West you would have been. Four icons are waiting at the end of this: the stranger who never gives his name, the gambler who would die for a friend, the lawman who never wanted the badge, and the girl nobody has ever talked out of anything.
🚬No Name(Dollars Trilogy)
🃏Doc Holliday(Tombstone)
⭐Wyatt Earp(Tombstone)
🐎Mattie Ross(True Grit)
01
The town is about to learn your name. What do they call you? In a Western, what people call you is already half the character.
02
What are you carrying? Everything out here is character, right down to what is sitting on your hip.
03
What are you riding? A hero and their horse is one of the oldest relationships in cinema.
04
You have got one evening in town. How does it go? The saloon is where these films quietly tell you who somebody really is.
05
A stranger offers you money for a job that sounds like trouble. Somebody always turns up with a full purse and a bad idea.
06
Somebody is waiting for you in the street. What does the town see? Two people, an empty road, and everybody else watching from behind the shutters.
07
What is the one thing you will not do out here? The code is about the only thing west of the river that actually holds.
08
The job is finished. Where does the story leave you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your icon.
The Dust Has Settled Your Western Icon Is…
Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble. This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.
The Man With No Name
You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to, because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room without you ever having to mention it.
- Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left.
- You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you have never felt any real need to fix it for them.
- The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the moment he is not, and he never explains that part either.
- You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.
Doc Holliday
You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two things were in any tension.
- Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it, which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything.
- You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the handful of people you actually care about.
- Val Kilmer's performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep getting sharper as the situation gets worse.
- You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.
Wyatt Earp
You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most Western reason there has ever been.
- Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it.
- You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who is exposed rather than who is to blame.
- These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the person holding the line almost never gets thanked.
- You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.
Mattie Ross
Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.
- Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw.
- You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you turn up exactly when you said you would.
- True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen and every adult around her has to catch up.
- You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of you.
What's perhaps even more shocking is that the very next episode marries John Cannon off again to his neighbor's daughter, Victoria (Linda Cristal). After the attack, the Cannons visit their neighbors, the Montoyas, seeking to make friends against the raiders. Don Sebastian Montoya (Frank Silvera) agrees to aid the Cannons provided John marries his daughter. Despite their massive three-decade age difference, and Big John's own feelings (as well as the feelings of his son) about the matter, the two are wed. Soon after, Victoria and her brother Manolito (Henry Darrow) move to the High Chaparral. From there, the two families become one and learn to live alongside each other, not just to avoid certain death from their enemies, but to thrive as a cohesive unit working side-by-side. Naturally, it takes a lot of time and even more effort, as both Big John and Don Sebastian are ambitious and aggressive men. But that's part of the show's main draw.
Unlike Bonanza, which focused entirely on the Cartwright family, The High Chaparral blended two families and two cultures. Another major difference between the two was that while Bonanza could be serious with its subject matter, it could also be somewhat comedic, with Hoss (Blocker) and Little Joe (Landon) often making jokes. It was generally very romantic in its portrayal of Western living and the family unit. The High Chaparral, on the other hand, was considered an adult Western in every sense of the word. While comic relief was occasionally necessary, it was never the focus. The show wasn't afraid to talk politics either. Big John had bravely fought for the Union during the American Civil War, while his brother Buck fought for the Confederacy. The two were separated during the war, but have since come back together. Nevertheless, their opposing sides make for some fascinating character drama ("The Badge" being possibly the best example).
'The High Chaparral' Had More Mature Themes Than 'Bonanza'
Aside from being a more serious Western, The High Chaparral also tackled themes that Bonanza just didn't take the time to unravel. For instance, on Bonanza, Ben Cartwright was revealed to have been married three different times to three different women, each marriage resulting in a new son: Adam (Pernell Roberts), Hoss, and Little Joe. Rarely are their mothers ever mentioned, and it's not often that we see the Cartwright patriarch meditating on his deceased brides. In contrast, with The High Chaparral, Dortort was able to observe Big John's grief properly (note the series' third episode, "The Ghost of the Chaparral"). From the show's very beginning, it's made clear that part of the reason he's so distant from Victoria is because of his dead wife's memory. He doesn't just move on overnight.
Along the same lines, Bonanza didn't just ignore the respective mothers of Cartwright's three sons; any love interest that he had ended up dead or written off the show in order to maintain the fragile status quo. For the most part, Bonanza didn't feel the need to grow, develop, or mature with the audience. Instead, the show was happy doing the same thing over and over. While we love Bonanza for its charming characters and timeless material, revisiting the same threads with no continual growth was something The High Chaparral aimed not to repeat. This series wasn't afraid to introduce recurring and new characters, up-play the importance of supporting characters, and try new things. In only four seasons, it felt like the show had really matured from its beginnings.
Of course, that's not all. Bonanza star Pernell Roberts is famous for having left the show after its sixth season. The star thought from the get-go that Bonanza was going to be more "sophisticated" in nature, but when it wasn't, he felt duped. This ultimately led to his departure once his contract was up (via MeTV). But if The High Chaparral was anything, it was "sophisticated." The strained relationships between fathers and sons (namely Big John & Billy Blue, and Don Sebastian & Manolito) were part of what made The High Chaparral so relatable. So too was the uniqueness of Victoria's place within the Cannon family. There was a complexity and fragility in these familial bonds that, while strong, occasionally wavered. Rarely did we ever see anything like that on the Ponderosa. With complex character motivations, genuinely good writing, and realistic family dynamics, the Cannon and Montoya families always had the best material to work with. If only the show had been greenlit a decade prior...
Creator David Dortort Returned to 'Bonanza' After 'The High Chaparral'
Though The High Chaparral's cancellation was nothing short of a Western tragedy, it also wasn't surprising. The Western had fallen out of favor with Hollywood television networks and American audiences were craving more modern material. As a result, this series was axed during the first wave of the 1971 rural purge, which also cancelled shows like Mayberry R.F.D. and The Johnny Cash Show. Only two years later, Bonanza (the second longest-running Western on television) was cancelled as well. But this didn't stop Dortort from continually trying to bring the genre back to television. In 1974, he produced a television continuation of John Wayne's The Cowboys, with certain members of the film's cast returning. When that was cancelled, he pivoted to The Chisholms, which started out as a miniseries before being renewed for a single season. Soon, that ended too.
In 1988, two decades after he left Bonanza to head up The High Chaparral, Dortort returned to his long-running Western for the made-for-TV film, Bonanza: The Next Generation. Yes, it's exactly what you'd expect, complete with the children of Michael Landon, Lorne Greene, and Dan Blocker all in tow. This sparked two more television movies that eventually concluded the Bonanza saga, and while Dortort didn't pen those himself, he is credited as an executive producer. In his final Hollywood work, Dortort returned to the Ponderosa Ranch for one more ride with the prequel series Ponderosa. Though it only lasted a single season, it proved that no matter how much he tried to escape it, Bonanza would always catch up to him. Dortort retired from the business afterward.
It's a shame that The High Chaparral isn't more well-known among Western enthusiasts. Though it isn't an obscure production by any means, it's often overshadowed by the likes of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and their contemporaries, which ran longer and garnered more critical acclaim. Nevertheless, The High Chaparral (though not perfect, the fourth and final season is a bit rough) remains a strong example of how well-produced television Westerns could be. It's dynamic, complex, and brings enough Wild West flavor with it to enhance your appreciation for the genre and its place on television.
The High Chaparral
- Release Date
- 1967 - 1971-00-00
- Network
- NBC
- Directors
- Joseph Pevney, Harry Harris, William F. Claxton, Leon Benson, William Wiard, William Witney, Richard Benedict, Herschel Daugherty, James B. Clark, Seymour Robbie, Arthur H. Nadel, Ralph Senensky, Paul Stanley, Robert Gist, Richard Sale, Corey Allen, Leonard Horn, Jus Addiss, John Florea
- Writers
- Michael Fessier, Denne Bart Petitclerc, David Duncan, Francis M. Cockrell, Ken Pettus, William Blinn
-
Alejandro Rey
Diego de la Paula
-
Argentina Brunetti
Duena Lopez
-
Cameron Mitchell
Buck Cannon
-
Carlos Romero
Sargente
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