3 Wyoming Based TV Shows Have Hit #1 In Ratings

Cowboys are back. 

But these are modern cowboys living in today's world with today's problems. Though they still sport cool cowboy hats and ride horses.

People still love to see cowboys pull a pistol or a Winchester rifle.

The first show on our list is the Outer Range.

It just hit #1 on Amazon Prime after releasing the first two episodes.

After watching the first two episodes the viewer is given a sense of direction for the story while at the same time intentionally left scratching their heads at that hole.

It seems to have something to do with time.

At this point, there is no clue as to how or why the hole is there.

The show Longmire was a series of popular novels before it made it to television.

Warner Horizon Television offered it to other networks and Netflix picked it up, starting with season four. Netflix released the sixth and final season on November 17, 2017.

It was a hit on both networks and is still popular in repeats today.

That show is supposed to take place more in the center of the state-ish, around the Big Horn Mountain area.

Here is another show about a western sheriff, but in modern-day times.

He's not exactly Marshall Dillon from the old Gun Smoke tv series, but Longmire still protects his county in much the same way.

Some will argue with me that the TV show Yellowstone actually takes place in Montana. They would be correct, but only a little bit of Yellowstone is actually in Montana. The vast majority of it is in Wyoming. It's not my fault if the writers picked the wrong state.

Yellowstone soared to the top of the ratings in much the same way the old TV show Dallas did back in the late 1970s.

Much like the other two shows mentioned above Yellowstone has a lot to do with ranching and cowboys dealing with modern-day problems.

BUT HOLD ON! Let's look at some older Wyoming-based TV shows that may not have been #1, but were popular in their time.

C.J. BOX TV series, PICKETT, based on the novel and movie.

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett has now been the protagonist in more than twenty novels, starting with Open Season in 2001.

Over that time, he’s taken on environmental terrorists, rogue federal land managers, animal mutilators, crazed cowboy hitmen, corrupt bureaucrats, homicidal animal rights advocates, and violent dysfunctional families.

Joe has matured, lost some of his innocence and naïveté, and committed acts that continue to haunt him.

But through it all, he has remained true to himself and his family. And even when he knows that pursuing justice will bring the community, state, and his superiors down on his head, well… he just can’t help it.

(CJBOX WEBSITE).

 

HELL ON WHEELS!

Actually a very popular show that ran for many season.

Most episodes were supposed to be based on Cheyenne Wyoming.

The book that became the movie that became the TV series, THE VIRGINIAN. 

That was a big smash his in every venue it was played on.

It made the little town of Medicine Bow Wyoming famous.

Laramie was a Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963.

If you never heard of it you're young.

A Revue Studios production, the program originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, owner of the Sherman Ranch.

Actually, you can still see the sow today. It's on STARZ!'s Westerns Channel and the Grit network began airing the series in July 2015.

The show is also on Youtube where you can watch episodes for free.

Lawman was a Western television series originally telecast on ABC from 1958 to 1962, starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop and Peter Brown as Deputy Marshal Johnny McKay.

Like the show Laramie, the series was set in Laramie, Wyoming, between 1879 and the 1880s. Maybe TV show producers back then just liked the name Laramie.

It had an audience back then but was never #1. There were so many westerns on TV at the time it just blended in.

Then there was that one radio show that took place in Wyoming.

About the time that half the nation had televisions, as a new invention, and half the nation had radios, the radio show Fort Laramie came to the airwaves.

Some of the greatest old radio treasures from way back when would be lost were it not for the internet reviving them.

Audio from an old Western called Fort Laramie, produced by CBS Radio and starring Raymond Burr as Captain Lee Quince is now on YouTube as well as websites that host hold old radio broadcasts. 

The original series aired Sunday afternoons at 5:30 pm ET back in 1956. There are 41 episodes in all on Youtube for your listening pleasure.

Do you think someone will ever make a Wyoming show that is NOT about cowboys and lawmen?