Nation: The New Wilderness

A little more of America's innocence was lost the other day when ABC canceled its Barbary Coast. The show itself was not much good, but it was the last oldtime western action adventure on network television. Its demise follows by a few months the disappearance of the frontier cowboy and sheriff shoot-'em-ups. Prime time now belongs to the cops and docs.

They can never really replace the western protector-hero who knew good from evil and played out his morality tales under the classic Big Sky. If he inhaled any of that smoky air inside the saloon, it was only in the line of duty. He fought fair, and his relations with women were above reproach. Perhaps television's modern badlands, the urban canyons, are the new wilderness: places in which to hide out, filled with menace and treachery. But many Americans get their fill of the urban canyons every working day.