Set in the lawless San Joaquin Valley of the 1870's, the concept of Lancer was an interesting one: Murdoch Lancer (Andrew Duggan) had not seen his sons since they were boys. Plagued by land pirates, the rancher located his grown offspring through Pinkerton Agents and offered to give them each one-third of his sprawling spread if they would help him to manage it.

The young men agreed, although they turned out to be fellows of a decidedly different sort: Scott (Wayne Maunder) was a Boston dandy, and Johnny (James) was a dyed-in-the wool Westerner, tough and cynical. The characterizations played extremely well against one another, and made Lancer one of the finest Westerns to come along in many a high noon. This one-hour series debuted on September 24th, 1968 on CBS.