At its peak, Bonanza, which had broken ground by being filmed in color, reached 480 million viewers in 97 countries. The shows all embraced the myth of the American West, where cowboys worked hard, stood for what was right, and protected their women from bad men and Indians. The cowboys were white, the storylines simple, and the land unpeopled by anyone of color or women except as they fit into the larger tale of the individualist’s fight against evil.33
