Even before hits like Prime Video’s Outer Range, Josh Brolin has been associated with the Western genre. After the infamous rural purge of the early 1970s that eradicated most horse operas from network TV, it was hard to find television Westerns anywhere for a while. But, in 1989, ABC took a gamble on a show headlined by Brolin, Stephen Baldwin, and Ty Miller that followed a group of young gunslingers as they traveled about the Old West delivering mail. Well, sometimes they delivered mail. If you haven’t heard of The Young Riders before, this is your cue to give this Western series a chance. It certainly deserves it.
‘The Young Riders’ Follows Both Historical and Fictional Characters
The basic premise of The Young Riders revolves around a band of youngsters who are hired as a part of the Pony Express. For the uninitiated, the Pony Express was an express mail service that offered service between California and Missouri. The company would send riders, often younger riders, with letters hoping to get the mail to its destination in record time (over 1,800 miles in only 10 days by horseback). Given that this was before the advent of the telegram, it was the only way to get speedy messages from the East to the West. For only 18 months, the Pony Express served the Old West, only to be rendered obsolete by the telegraph. But The Young Riders was less about delivering mail anyway, though our heroes did that too. No, their occupation was an excuse for adventure, and that’s exactly what they got.
The show was originally set at Sweetwater Station in the Nebraska Territory circa 1860 and followed both original and historical characters. On the historical side, Josh Brolin’s Jimmy Hickok, a figure known best by his name “Wild Bill” Hickok. Alongside him was Stephen Baldwin’s William “Billy” Cody aka the notorious “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who, interestingly enough, was actually a member of the Pony Express according to legend (though the Smithsonian disagrees). In the third season, Christopher Pettiet joins the group as the future outlaw Jesse James but leaves them behind in the end. As The Young Riders continued, the group would meet up with some other Old West figures along the way, though these three were the only main cast based in history.
Joining Jimmy and Cody are the mysterious The Kid (Ty Miller), undercover Louise “Lou” McCloud (Yvonne Suhor), half-Kiowa Buck Cross (Gregg Rainwater), the mute Ike McSwain (Travis Fine), and, added to the group in Season 2, freeborn black man Noah Dixon (Don Franklin). Together, this group spent most of their time fighting for moral causes and battling their inner demons. Everything from fighting for the helpless, aiding runaway slaves, and brokering peace with Native Americans was explored here, which sounds like most horse operas of the 20th century. While the show did fall into a villain-of-the-week trap during the second season, it course-corrected in Season 3 to be more focused on the cast themselves. “The show is about the riders and their relationships,” actor Don Franklin told The Chicago Tribune in 1991 ahead of the third season. “It’s not about, say, Pernell Roberts and Brian Keith. So we’re going to move away from that and focus more on the core actors.”
‘The Young Riders’ Was Nearly Shut Down by ‘Young Guns’
But before The Young Riders even launched, the show was challenged by a similarly titled feature film released only a year prior. You may not know The Young Riders by name, but if you love Westerns, you’ve likely heard of or seen Young Guns. The Billy the Kid adaptation starring Emilio Estevez followed Billy and his band of young outlaws as they’re hired by an older man, Terence Stamp‘s rancher John Tunstall, to join his group of “Regulators.” On The Young Riders, Brolin’s “Wild Bill,” Baldwin’s “Buffalo Bill,” and Miller’s “The Kid” (which is a bit too similar to Billy the Kid) are all hired by an older man named Aloysius “Teaspoon” Hunter (Anthony Zerbe) to work as his Pony Express riders. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Apparently, Morgan Creek Productions, the company behind Young Guns, thought so too.
According to GetTV, Morgan Creek tried to sue ABC for copyright infringement because of The Young Riders. Their similar premises, and use of young versions of historical figures, made the television production feel like a rip-off of the feature film. The fact that both had the word “young” prominently displayed in the title likely didn’t help either. Of course, Young Riders creator Ed Spielman wasn’t new to the Western genre. He had previously developed hits like Kung Fu and would later go on to helm the anthology series, Dead Man’s Gun. Both of these shows are incredibly original in premise, with The Young Riders being the odd one out. But the ABC series wasn’t a rip-off, nor was it inspired by either Young Guns movie (in fact, Young Guns II only hit theaters between the first and second seasons). Instead, the show opted to include the disclaimer, “Not based on Morgan Creek’s films Young Guns and Young Guns II,” going forward.
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“The only history a man knows for certain is that small part he owns for himself.”
‘The Young Riders’ Was a Western Far Ahead of Its 1800s Time
Following the lead of Westerns that were before their time, such as Bonanza, Broken Arrow, Little House on the Prairie (among plenty of others), The Young Riders was a show awfully conscious of the modern world. Despite taking place in the Wild West, around the time of the American Civil War, the series made a point to bring late 20th-century sensibility to the small screen. While the real “Buffalo Bill” made a name for himself by scalping Native Americans (something he would later speak against), the show’s Billy Cody was a lot more widely accepting of Native peoples. Even Brolin’s Jimmy Hickok is a far cry from the “Wild Bill” character of American legend (despite his clear temper), though we might prefer the ABC version. (Brolin himself once told us at Collider that he was “deeply into the local indigenous community” during his time on the show.)
By introducing Noah in the second season, the series was able to deal with issues of racism and discrimination as his fellow riders accepted and defended him as their friend and equal. “The thing that a lot of people don’t know is that there were blacks who lived in the West at that time who were not slaves,” Don Franklin once told The Chicago Tribune. “Since I’ve been added to the cast I’ve suggested that more Blacks be included so that people can see that we were there.” The Young Riders always made an effort to correct some of the misguided ideas and notions that were prominent during the historical time period, and it did so by appealing to the humanity in its characters.
While Josh Brolin’s more recent Western series, Outer Range, ended prematurely on a cliffhanger, this wasn’t the case for The Young Riders. The two-hour series finale, “Til Death Do Us Part,” is a legitimate ending to the Young Riders saga. Though the show could have tried to continue, the narrative had finally caught up with the start of the American Civil War, making this a perfect spot to end the three-season program. With 68 episodes total, The Young Riders is a wild ride worth undertaking. Young Josh Brolin’s Jimmy Hickok is a particular highlight, as he often struggles with the very temper that earned him the “Wild Bill” nickname. His endearing friendship with Baldwin’s Cody and his willingness to put his life on the line for his fellow riders make this one Josh Brolin Western you can’t forget.
The Young Riders is available for streaming on Freevee through Prime Video.
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The Young Riders
- Cast
- Josh Brolin , Yvonne Suhor , Anthony Zerbe , stephen baldwin
- Seasons
- 3
- Release Date
- September 20, 1989
- Main Genre
- Western
