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Widower Murdoch needs his sons to return home to help him protect the ranch - but he needs detectives to find them! Scott, the elder, is a city boy brought up by his maternal grandpa in refined Boston following the death of his mother in childbirth. Johnny is a gunfighter south of the border, the result of a liaison with a Mexican beauty who hid her son from his father. What will lure them to a different life of cattle ranching in the west? How will these different men get on together? Throw into the mix a pretty young ward and a host of guest appearances and the outcome is a sensational TV western series with great scripts, strong performances and superb plot lines that truly shape out character as well as move the story along.

Just wanted to say, I had the good fortune of being on the Ranch in Carmel, California when they filmed the series. My Uncle was Foreman of the Ranch. I made lifelong friends with several of the cast. Mostly the stuntmen, as that's where my heart lies. We wrote letters for years. Especially Jack Williams. We actually dated, and called each other on the phone. He was an amazing man ! I dated one of the stuntmen named Mike Spencer. I have many pictures of the whole experience. One is a picture of Joe Don Baker standing with me. He had kissed me on the head and bent his head over on top of mine. Swoon ! (Joe Don, or anyone else in the cast, if you read this I'd be happy to send you copies of the pictures). For a teenager this whole thing was so special. Being there while they were filming was such a treat ! I wish everyone could have this experience. Just hanging around the stars, eating with them, being so quiet when they were filming. Nothing like it. Memories I'll never forget. Thanks for letting me share my experience~~~

Lancer has been compared to Bonanza. But I did not find it to be anything like Bonanza. It definitely had its own style and the characters were varied and interesting in their personalities. Lancer was down to earth in its approach to each problem presented in the episodes. Each character was flawed in some way, which made them more interesting. There was humor in the show, but the show was not clownish. There was believable drama, not stereotypical scenarios that were boring and unsatisfying. The father let his sons be themselves and treated them with respect and dignity. The fact that they had not been together as a family for many years was a major factor in a much more interesting interaction between the characters. Each character, whether in a leading role or not, had his own unique style of presenting the role in a believable way. I especially enjoyed Paul Brinegar. It was very disappointing to me when the show went off the air and I am always looking for it to reappear on the channels which feature reruns of older shows.

What about 'Lancer' was not to love, especially for prepubescent elementary school girls? It was a story about a ranch and featured a grumpy patriarch, a cute female 'ward' and two gorgeous, non-threatening young men, one dark, one fair.

Johnny, the son of a Mexican serving-wench, was my favorite.

My friends and I were so crazy about 'Lancer' it was a frequent subject of our conversations for most of the week, and the ONLY topic of conversation on Tuesdays (anticipation of that night's episode) and Wednesdays (the aftermath.) Fancying myself a writer even back then, I would write stories about 'Lancer,' the first of which introduced my pals and I as new 'wards' of the Lancer family. My friend Penny, the artist, illustrated the stories. We made probably the first and only 'Lancer' graphic novel. I'd give anything to have those stories back..... It's nice to visit this page and discover that 'The Lancer-ettes' and I were not the show's only fans.

Lancer is about a man, Murodoch Lancer, who emigrated from Scotland in the mid-1800s, who lives on a 100,000 acre ranch where he raises cattle and horses.

When land pirates kill his foreman and seriously wound him he sends for his two sons whom he has not seen in many years.

Scott,portrayed by Wayne Maunder,is somewhere around 25, and living in Boston where he was raised by his maternal grandfather after the older man took him east when his mother died either from a fever or from childbirth. Scott served in a cavalry unit during the war and rose to the rank of Lieutenant while serving under General Phil Sheridan.

Johnny, portrayed by James Stacy, is a few years younger. Known as Johnny Madrid in certain parts of the country, Johnny's mother was Murdoch's second wife - a Mexican woman named Maria. Johnny, unlike Scott, was born at Lancer and spent approximately the first two years of his life there. For reasons known only to herself Maria deserted her husband and left Lancer with Johnny in the company of "some sort of gambler" according to Murdoch's ward, Teresa O'Brien. Johnny is saved from a firing squad by the Pinkerton agent hired to find him.

The brothers know nothing about each other's existence until they are "introduced" to each other by Teresa when they arrive on the same stage in Morro Coyo - a usually sleepy little village near the ranch.

After a rough start the boys, Murdoch and Teresa eventually become a close-knit family and share the trials and tribulations of cattle ranching and the occasional visitor from the past - be it Johnny's past as a gunfighter, Scott's past as a soldier or scion of Boston society or, occasionally, Murdoch's own past.

It is similar to, but definitely not a clone of, Bonanza. For one thing we have no idea if Murdoch is still married to Maria or if she is dead. Johnny doesn't talk about his mother much outside of the pilot episode and Cut The Wolf Loose.