Am I the only Rifleman fan...?

No, you aren't alone. I always felt the show was best-served with the single father-son relationship, something that was rare in those days (and even now, we are often inundated with single mother households on tv) and made the show unique. A marriage would've taken away that quality.

I definitely agree that the foundation of the program was the relationship between father and son. In this case two was company, three would have been a crowd.

I much preferred Lou over Millie (Joan Taylor was a marvelous actresses and played "Millie" beautifully), but that is probably due to my own male instincts. Lou was just freaking gorgeous. To most men she is just sexier period. On a Rifleman Facebook group we've done a few unscientific polls and Lou wins by a healthy margin.

I think the show could have worked well with or without Lucas being married. For some unexplained reason, some Westerns seemed to prefer unmarried protagonists.

Look at Bonanza where Ben Cartwright had three wives who each died early and I think the wives were not ever shown during the series. Moreover, the Cartwright sons remained unmarried as well.

The producers liked the idea of the rugged individualist who didn't need a woman in his life. This is not realistic for most men but these shows were all about fantasy.

Since this was before birth control and antibiotics, many women died in childbirth.

In fact prior to WW1, MORE WOMEN DIED giving birth than MEN did in BATTLES.

So for that reason it's not that uncommon for the males to be alone back then.

And the west was also still a pretty wild place to live (which would also make it a much less desirable area for many females to want to settle down in).

On the MARATHON session that they had today on the SUNDANCE channel (which just ended), the DOC also mentions how he's the only one around in a 200 MILE area.

And he also mentions how some woman who is about to give birth again also already has 12 KIDS and probably doesn't need him that much for that reason.

So if LUCAS had married someone, then we'd probably also be looking at the birth of a baby each year which would also have radically changed the show.


And since LUCAS also keeps talking about how tight money was for the 2 of them, imagine how much worse off they'd have been with a dozen more mouths to feed.


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Nope, not alone. Lucas's yearning becomes the viewer's yearning. Besides, how many t,v. Shows have lost their allure when the main characters got married, had a baby, got a job, etc.? I think they did it just right, and probably ended it when they should have (if Branded was any hint of the writing that was available). The Rifleman is a perfect pearl in all it flawed beauty.

Nope, not alone. Lucas's yearning becomes the viewer's yearning. Besides, how many t,v. Shows have lost their allure when the main characters got married, had a baby, got a job, etc.? I think they did it just right, and probably ended it when they should have (if Branded was any hint of the writing that was available). The Rifleman is a perfect pearl in all it flawed beauty.

I totally agree. The show worked just as it was--father and son.