FEBRUARY 2025

ROD SERLING AT 100 

"The Loner"

A Very Special Tribute

By Rev Protodeacon George A. Haloulakos

In this month's Blog, we belatedly pay tribute to Rod Serling (December 25, 1924 - June 28, 1975) in honor of recently marking the centennial of his birth.  As many Galaxy Nostalgia Network audience members already know, Mr. Serling has not only been the subject of several monthly GNN Blog columns over the years, but also several GNN podcasts including two dedicated specifically to his classic TV show The Twilight Zone.  In this Blog, we are paying special tribute with a Serling-like twist: instead of focusing on the popular, time honored classics associated with the man, we honor Rod Serling by showcasing an underrated and perhaps largely forgotten TV Western series he created that aired one season (September 1965 - March 1966) with 26 half-hour episodes on the CBS network every Saturday night.  It was the one of the last CBS series broadcast in Black-and-White and had alternating sponsorship by Phillip Morris and Procter & Gamble.

Nearly fifty years after his passing, Serling is renowned if not legendary for his award winning TV programs (Patterns, The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery) and critically acclaimed full-length movies (Requiem For a Heavyweight, Seven Days in May, Planet of the Apes, A Storm in Summer and The Man).  A deconstruction of any of these aforementioned TV shows and movies would demonstrate Serling's mastery as a storyteller noted for clarity, concision and penetrating insights into the human condition.  Ironically, these unique skills, while on full display in The Loner, did not translate into commercial success for this short-lived TV series.  Yet a reappraisal of this almost forgotten prime-time TV Western drama not only affirms Serling's integrity as well as superior understanding of humanity, but illustrates that he was way ahead of his time.  In today's digital world of streaming limited series via the Internet or Cable TV, The Loner would be a perfect fit.  Instead, it was a series that in the days where there were only three major TV networks and its creator was in a constant battle to stop network executives from tampering with his scripts, it unintentionally became a short-lived series that was not given time to gain popularity or achieve commercial success.

The Loner featured Lloyd Bridges as the title character, William Colton, a former Union cavalry captain who journeyed throughout the American West in search of a new life immediately following the American Civil War.  It was an adult western written for a mature audience as each week it tackled such issues as the horrors of war, pacifism, prejudice, survivor's guilt and other such topics not generally found in other Western themed TV shows in the 1960s.  It was not a typical shoot-em-up or straight morality storyline with a neat, tidy ending. The Loner often had ambiguous or unresolved endings leaving it to the viewer's imagination.  The lead character, Colton, was shown to be a complex, thoughtful individual whose wartime experience influenced his relationships and actions when dealing with difficult situations.  The show was noteworthy for having stellar performances by legendary guest stars that included such luminaries as Anne Baxter, Sheree North, Katherine Ross, Brock Peters, Leslie Nielsen, Burgess Meredith, Jack Lord, James Whitmore and Whit Bissell.  As a mid-1960s entry, The Loner was televised exactly 100 years after the American Civil War, thereby providing Serling an opportunity to transfer his creative writing style from The Twilight Zone into a Western genre to examine the divided loyalties that existed in the immediate aftermath of The War Between the States.  Despite the very high quality production values, The Loner did not achieve the ratings or commercial success desired by CBS.  In retrospect, Serling's mature, adult TV Western was more suitable as a specialty niche type program rather than for a mass market viewing audience.  In today's digital world chock full of lots of viewing portals from Cable TV to Internet streaming services, The Loner would likely be packaged as a thought-provoking limited series targeted to an adult or mature audience.  Like Rod Serling himself, The Loner was way ahead of its time as it approached its subject in a more subtle, less ostentatious style than its competition.

In celebrating the centennial of Rod Serling's birth, The Loner, while not having the commercial success or notoriety of other more well-known Serling projects, is a worthwhile watch to celebrate the creative genius of a writer whose body of work gave us a deeper understanding of humanity while setting a standard of excellence revered to this day.  What are your memories and thoughts about Rod Serling and his amazing record of accomplishment in both TV and film? Please share them by either posting to the Galaxy FACEBOOK page (and liking us) or writing directly to me at: Haloulakos@gmail.com

NOTE: Sources for photos are from the public domain.