1. Pride and Prejudice
Lancer is a 1969 western, set in California of 1870. Murdoch Lancer's vast ranch (100,000 acres) is threatened by "land pirates" who are trying to run him off the estancia. He sends for his two sons to help him - Scott, who he has only seen briefly once when Scott was five (his first wife died in childbirth and her family took Scott and raised him in wealth and privilege in Boston) and Johnny, who was taken before his second birthday by Murdoch's second wife when she ran away with a gambler. So there are the bones of the story : proud, remote landowner, rich Boston dandy, and a half-Mexican gunfighter better known as Johnny Madrid, all learning to be a family.
The only other thing you need to know is that Johnny Madrid("Madrid's an awfully expensive gun to hire." "The suddenest man I ever saw." "The fastest thing west of the Mississippi and east of China." "I've heard stories about John Madrid from here clear down to the Mexican border." "What's another dead man to Johnny Madrid?") is the first of the messy-dark-haired men that I fell in love with. Johnny is just gorgeous.
An episode tag for Shadow of a Dead Man, in which Jessamie bakes biscuits, Grady goes to school and Scott brings letters and a photograph.
The First Impressions Sequence
A 'missing scene' from the show's pilot, in which this ill-assorted family has its first supper together.
Sam Jenkins, the local doctor, arrives to deal with the aftermath of the battle for Lancer. A "what happens next" for the show's pilot.
The story continues: the Lancers start the process of adjustment.