Rod Serling’s The Loner Now Available on DVD

Shout Factory! has released Rod Serling’s short-lived western series The Loner on DVD. As is the case with My Friend Flicka and Custer, this is a Walmart exclusive at the moment. It’s currently selling for $17.52 at Walmart’s website, reduced from a suggested retail price of $24.97. You may find it even cheaper in Walmart stores.

For those not familiar with The Loner, it ran for 26 episodes on CBS during the 1965-1966 season. It was one of the last network prime time shows to air in black and white. Serling created the series and served as supervising script consultant. According to his Internet Movie Database profile he also wrote 15 episodes. William Dozier was executive producer.

DVD cover for The Loner: The Complete Series
The Loner: The Complete Series (Courtesy of Shout! Factory/Walmart)

The half-hour series starred Lloyd Bridges as a former Union officer wandering the West shortly after the end of the Civil War–referred to in the opening credits as a “ruthless, restless, searching” man–hoping to find a place for himself in the world while helping to explore and tame the West.

I don’t believe The Loner was ever syndicated but some episodes were shown on TV Land in the late 1990s. Personally, I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the series, never a full episode, but it sounds a lot like the Union version of The Rebel, which ran on ABC from 1959 to 1961.

Guest stars included Zalman King, Anne Baxter, Burgess Meredith, Dan Duryea, Whit Bissell, Leslie Nielsen, Brock Peters, James Whitmore, and Deanna Lund, among others. Beau, Jeff, and Cindy Bridges also made appearances alongside their father.

(via Home Theater Forum)


Related Posts

Become a Patron Today

Are you a fan of obscure television? Please support Television Obscurities on Patreon by becoming a patron today.

3 Replies to “Rod Serling’s The Loner Now Available on DVD”

  1. This is probably obvious to most visitors, but it should be noted that William Dozier also produced Batman that season. He was also the excited announcer who told us to “Tune in tomorrow! Same Bat-time! Same Bat-channel!”

  2. Tried ordering twice from the Walmart website, both times waited 2-3 weeks for delivery, was told each time to cancel and reorder. Fool me once….. Amazon likely would have credited me and possibly even sent me a replacement for free within 2-3 days, totally different customer experience, avoid WalMart.com.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.