The Rifleman was an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark McCain. It was set in the 1870s and 1880s in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black and white, in half-hour episodes. The Rifleman aired on ABC from September 30, 1958, to April 8, 1963, as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series on US television to show a single parent raising a child.
The program was titled to reflect McCain's use of a Winchester Model 1892 rifle, customized to allow repeated firing by cycling its lever action. He demonstrated this technique in the opening credits of every episode, as well as a second modification that allowed him to cycle the action with one hand.
The series centers on Lucas McCain, a Union Civil War veteran and widower. Having previously been a homesteader, McCain buys a ranch outside the fictitious town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. He and his son Mark had come from Enid, Oklahoma, following the death of his wife when his son was six years old.
A common thread in the series is that people deserve a second chance.
McCain has human flaws. In "Death Trap", an episode with Philip Carey as former gunman (and old adversary) Simon Battles, he is unwilling to believe the man has changed and become a doctor. It takes a gunfight (with Battles fighting alongside him) to make him admit he is wrong. In "Two Ounces Of Tin", with Sammy Davis Jr. as Tip Corey (a former circus trick-shot artist turned gunman), McCain angrily orders him off the ranch when he finds him demonstrating his skills to Mark. Corey suggests he is a hypocrite, because McCain has an equally deadly reputation in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma, where he first acquired the nickname "the Rifleman".
Congrats to agate mickey for the FTF!