Why Kurt Russell's Western TV Series The Quest Was Canceled After One Season

Television Drama Shows

Kurt Russell was born to play a cowboy on the screen. After all, his old man, Bing Russell, starred in classics like "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza," so one could argue that the Western genre has always been in his DNA. Unfortunately, horse operas were going out of style when Kurt landed a starring role on "The Quest" in 1976, a one-season wonder that NBC canceled after 15 episodes due to poor ratings.

Created by Tracy Keenan Wynn, "The Quest" sees Russell and Tim Matheson play Morgan and Quentin Beaudine, a pair of long-lost brothers who reunite to search for their long-lost sister in the wild frontier. The siblings couldn't be more different, as Morgan was raised by a Cheyenne tribe and only knows the Wild West, while Quentin is a doctor who grew up in San Francisco, making him quite unaccustomed to the rough-and-tumble cowboy lifestyle. However, their quest to find their sister, coupled with the crucibles of the American frontier, force them to become a dynamic duo.

The premise of "The Quest" echoes John Ford's "The Searchers," a film many fans agree ranks among the best Westerns of all time. Perhaps the show was too derivative of Ford's flick and other Westerns to attract a sustainable audience. Furthermore, viewers were more enamored by a hipper show that dominated the airwaves at the time.

Charlie's Angels was more appealing than The Quest

"The Quest" had its heart in the right place. While the plot resembled other Westerns, Kurt Russell and Tim Matheson were rising stars who brought a fresh-faced dynamic to a genre that was typically associated with more grizzled and mature performers. This casting approach was a good idea in theory, but it seems that audiences were in the mood for urbanized action fare like "Charlie's Angels."

"It was an attempt to reboot the Western, to reach a younger audience and not make Native Americans the enemy," Matheson told TV Insider while reflecting on the series. "The funniest thing was, we were up against Charlie's Angels and we said, 'Wouldn't [people] rather watch cowboys running around and shooting it up?' We learned quickly that we didn't stand a chance opposite it."

The good news, though, is that "The Quest" didn't put the death knell in Russell's on-screen cowboy career. In fact, the veteran actor has starred in some pretty memorable ones in the years since the short-lived show was sent to the chopping block.

Kurt Russell's hit Western roles

Kurt Russell has made a handful of Western movies in the wake of "The Quest," all of which have cast him as a straight shooter with an impressive mustache. The most famous of the bunch is probably "Tombstone," in which he portrays the famous outlaw hunter Wyatt Earp. The lawman just wants to hang up his gun and run a legitimate business in the titular Arizonan town with his brothers, but the antics of "Curly Bill" Brocius (Powers Boothe) and his gang force him back into action.

Elsewhere, Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" follows Russell's bounty hunter John Ruth as he escorts a criminal to the town of Red Rock to hang. However, a heavy blizzard forces them to stay in a haberdashery before the big occasion, and let's just say some of the other guests aren't who they say they are.

Russell also starred in the Stephen King-approved "Bone Tomahawk," a horror-tinged take on "The Searchers" premise. Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler, the film sees Russell play a lawman who leads a search party into cannibalistic territory to save a woman who's been kidnapped by troglodytes. "Bone Tomahawk" isn't the actor's most popular Western, but it's definitely the gnarliest and not for the faint-hearted. Plus, it's yet another movie that proves the actor is a good fit for roles of this ilk.