The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is the first Western television series written for adults. It premiered four days before Gunsmoke on September 6, 1955. Two weeks later came the Clint Walker western Cheyenne. The series is loosely based on the life of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour, black-and-white program aired for six seasons on ABC from 1955 to 1961, with Hugh O'Brian in the title role.

Television Westerns are programs with settings in the later half of the 19th century in the American Old West, Western Canada and Mexico during the period from about 1860 to the end of the so-called "Indian Wars". More recent entries in the Western genre have used the neo-Western subgenre, placing events in the modern day, or the space Western subgenre but still draw inspiration from the outlaw attitudes prevalent in traditional Western productions.