An unwitting city slicker is made the marshal of a lawless town in this absurdist Western that pokes gentle but clever fun at the genre's stock plots and characters. Best of the West is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from September 1981 through August 1982.
Episode 1
Sam arrives in town intending to run the general store, then runs into all kinds of trouble after turning down the protection racket.
Episode 2
Sam must face a prisoner's outlaw brothers after the sheriff who was taking him in becomes ill on his way through town.
Episode 3
The Square Deal Saloon's new cook is the Calico Kid; he has sworn to never again kill anything he can't eat.
Episode 4
Sam goes out on a limb and manages to save Tillman from a lynch mob, but at the trial, his mixed-up testimony has him back at the end of a rope.
Episode 5
Sam infiltrates an outlaw band to try to prove Tillman is innocent of cattle rustling.
Episode 6
Sam loses his badge in a special election to Tillman's squeaky-clean candidate.
Episode 7
Daniel is as surprised as anyone when a few innocent kisses lead to a shotgun wedding.
Episode 8
Laney is smitten with a smoothie who bids high for her at a social—but he turns out to be a low-down heel.
Episode 9
Elvira's die-hard Confederate father (Andy Griffith) stays at the Square Deal Saloon while he is in town. His wife is trying to patch things up with their daughter; she married a Yankee!
Episode 10
Sam and Tillman try hard to convince the railroad to come to Copper Creek.
Episode 11
Sam's image as a lawman quickly loses its edge after he manages to shoot himself in the leg; the jail collapsing around him doesn't help.
Episode 12
Sam doesn't pay attention to signs of discontent from Elvira until the day he comes home to finds her packed to leave.
Episode 13
Frog meets a woman who was recently jilted by her beau, but neither realizes he wants her back.
Episode 14
The reformed Calico Kid decides he wants to be a United States Marshal. But he lacks one qualification: a third-grade education.
Episode 15
Tillman has been kidnapped and the kidnappers are demanding a ransom, but the Copper Creek citizens have no intention of paying up.
Episode 16
Doc's mail-order bride has a vivid personality with a past to match it.
Episode 17
Elvira and her stepson explore an abandoned outlaw cave, unaware that it is booby-trapped to collapse.
Episode 18
Daniel's refusal to fight a relentless bully leads to Sam having to fight the bully's father.
Episode 19
Sam is handcuffed to his prisoner—a flirtatious female outlaw—for an overnight journey.
Episode 20
Elvira's former fiance' comes to town, intent on taking her away with him.
Episode 21
Sam receives an anonymous threatening note.
Episode 22
Sam and Tillman try to foil a holdup by holding a funeral for Frog; the coffin contains the $20,000 the thieves are after.
