I’m surprised you mentioned Sugarfoot, after the first few shows where I wasn’t sure about it I came to like it a lot, these old series had some deep writing in them, the male writers with their well experienced lives and some with military and war experience wrote at a level that we can’t see today and sometimes it is jarring and you catch yourself surprised to see it in weekly TV series.
Wanted Dead or Alive is another good western TV series.
“these old series had some deep writing in them”
That has really struck me about “Death Valley Days.” There have been a lot of racial (black, Indian, Chinese, early Californians [i.e., Mexicans]) themes that were treated very well and with dignity and respect. There have been a number of episodes dealing with women’s rights and careers. There have been some episodes dealing with government corruption at the local and territorial level. Many episodes address men and women in marriage on the frontier.
I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the deep themes addressed.
“these old series had some deep writing in them, the male writers with their well experienced lives and some with military and war experience wrote at a level that we can’t see today”
A lot of Gunsmoke episodes were written by a woman, which surprised us — Mary Hite.