Lancer

Lancer is currently streaming in the US on Philo, and its 6/10 TMDB rating reflects what viewers who have already found it know. 2 seasons that reward every hour invested. That rating comes from 6 viewer scores — enough to represent a genuine consensus rather than a handful of enthusiasts. The availability across streaming platforms means you can start tonight without hunting for a disc or a dodgy stream. Andrew Duggan is the obvious draw, but once you are in, it is the writing and the ensemble that keep you watching. If it has been sitting on your watchlist untouched, there is no better time to finally start it.

Lancer is an American Western series that aired on CBS from September 1968, to May 1970. The series stars Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, and Wayne Maunder as a father with two half-brother sons, an arrangement similar to the more successful Bonanza on NBC. Andrew Duggan and Wayne Maunder lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. The series ran for 2 seasons (1968–1970), building a story that gave its audience time to invest properly. The writing trusts the audience to sit with ambiguity rather than wrapping every episode in a tidy conclusion — it is the approach that separates good drama from great. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

The show you recommend to people who say they do not really watch TV. Lancer tends to convert them. The complete run is available and worth treating as a single long film if your schedule allows. The quality of the character writing is the reason it holds up on rewatch, when you can see the groundwork being laid in early episodes for things that only pay off much later. The patience it asks of you in the early episodes is paid back with interest. Andrew Duggan is the centre of it, and it is one of their strongest performances on record.