The Wild, Wild West
Once more, we must ignore the risible excuse for a feature film and go back in time to the original TV series The Wild, Wild West. It ran from 1965-1969, and became notable for its weird steampunk combination of Western tropes and science fiction motifs, basing a number of episodes on stories from Edgar Allan Poe and H.G. Wells.
I mean, let us look at the plot of this weird Western that starred Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. The pair are James West and Artemus Gordon, two Secret Service men under the guidance of President Ulysses S. Grant, who head out to the Old West to protect the President and foil evil-doers with an array of high-tech gadgets and disguises. It’s like Wyatt Earp meets Inspector Gadget, complete with an arch-nemesis in the person of Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless, a brilliant but insane scientist on the scale of Professor Moriarty.
The Wild, Wild West is tailor-made for our contemporary obsession with pastiche. It’s a grand opportunity for steampunk stylings, Bond-esque gadgets, and old-fashioned shootouts. Ignoring the dreadful attempt at a big screen adaptation, let us bring this one to the smaller screen. I don’t think we have a good steampunk TV show running right now.