-Except if you lived in 1880-ish San Francisco, you wouldn’t be traveling too extensively for your gunfighting-skills to be useful in a relevant time-frame. A setting in Denver would be perfect. In 1850-ish San Francisco, there’d be a lot jobs relating-to quelling claim-jumping disputes at the height of the Gold Rush. Local rurales would be swamped with ‘calls’ in-addition to solving regular crimes.
The concept of ‘Palladin’ is brilliant… a sort of ‘super Maverick-clan’ all rolled-up into one character. Richard Boone is superb. A Shakespeare-quoting, lightning-draw, no-nonsense ladies’ man. -Living in a high-society San Francisco hotel-suite. A few of the episodes take-place in SF, but not many. California (SF) wasn’t ‘the wild west’, because it was civilized from-the-coast-inward via wealthy Easterners and shipping-barons. Yet most of Palladin’s adventures occur on the other side of the Rockies. -So if a rancher, or town is being harrassed, the viewer is implored to believe that Palladin’s skills are worth waiting months for; good weather not withstanding.
The episodes themselves were 30-minutes, which just isn’t long-enough. -Another reason why it should’ve been a San Francisco-detective show. For example, Yancy Derringer’s adventures all took-place in New Orleans and riverboats. There was no need for him (Jock Mahoney) to venture ‘out west’ for the purpose of script-inspired derringer-sequences.
That all said, I liked HG,WT a lot, primarily because of Boone. I was a kid when it first came-on, and I wasn’t allowed to watch it because it aired too late at night. My parents loved it, though I remember my mom saying that Richard Boone “might scare me”, lol. In fact, I originally thought Boone’s name was ‘Will Travel’ and the show was called: Half-gun Will Travel… as his nickname. -Like Bronco/Sugarfoot/Cheyenne, etc.
wire Palladin, San Francisco