Nichols (TV series)

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Nichols (also known as James Garner as Nichols) was a Western television series starring James Garner broadcast in the United States on NBC during the 1971-72 season.

Nichols was a rather unusual Western in several respects. Its setting, the fictional town of Nichols, Arizona, in 1914, was rather late for a Western. It also accounted for the main character, a sheriff, riding on a motorcycle and in an automobile rather than on the traditional horse. Nichols was also unusual in that unlike most Westerns, the hero, if that is truly what he was, did not carry a firearm and was generally opposed to the use of violence to solve problems, preferring other means.

1 Overview
2 Additional cast
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Overview

Nichols (no first name was ever given) arrived back in the town founded years before by his family only to learn that it had been taken over by another family, the Ketchams, who functioned basically as a gang. Their matriarch, "Ma" Ketcham (Neva Patterson), soon blackmailed Nichols into serving as the town's sheriff, which carried little real authority (as the Ketchams largely ran things), but considerable danger. Ma's son Mitch (Stuart Margolin) was assigned to be Nichols' deputy, either in spite or because he was none too bright, none too honest, and something of a bully. Nichols (James Garner) soon found a love interest in Ruth (Margot Kidder), a barmaid, who worked for Bertha (Alice Ghostley), the bar's proprietress. Nichols' main concern was not usually law enforcement but rather a way of getting rich with little effort; the character was not far removed, particularly in this regard, from the one Garner had played over a decade earlier in Maverick.

Unfortunately, this program did not do well in the ratings, resulting in the decision by the program's producers to kill off the title character. The greedy, but pacifist Nichols was shot down, to be avenged by his identical twin brother Jim Nichols (also portrayed by Garner), who arrived in town and administered justice in a more stereotypical (and it was hoped, more popular) Western fashion. This solution would have made recasting and retitling the program unnecessary while allowing for considerable changes. However, the episode in which the first Nichols was murdered proved to be the final one; before it aired, NBC cancelled the series, rerunning the earlier episodes during the summer of 1972.

[edit] Additional cast

John Beck as Ketcham, Ma's son; not Mitch

[edit] Trivia

As the ratings flagged, the series was retitled James Garner as Nichols in October 1971 in an attempt to capitalize on the star's popularity.
Nichols was broadcast on American Forces Network Television in Germany in the early 1980s.
After its cancellation in 1972, both Garner and Stuart Margolin would co-star in the popular series, The Rockford Files.