The Young Riders

1989

Seasons & Episodes

  • 3
  • 2
  • 1

EP4 Between Rock Creek and a Hard Place Oct 26, 1991

EP7 Initiation Nov 25, 1991

EP8 Just Like Old Times Nov 30, 1991

EP9 Spirits Dec 07, 1991

EP22 'Til Death Do Us Part (2) Jul 23, 1992

7.7| 0h30m| TV-PG| en
Synopsis

The Young Riders was an American Western television series created by Ed Spielman that presents a fictionalized account of a group of young Pony Express riders based at the Sweetwater Station in the Nebraska Territory during the years leading up to the American Civil War. The series premiered on ABC on September 20, 1989 and ran for three seasons until the final episode aired on July 23, 1992.

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Trailers & Clips

Reviews

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.
Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
hpchuckyc This is the for the person asking about the song: The song was that goes "that's the way it's gonna be little darling"...Well, it was bothering me too because I wanted to know as well! So I did me a little research and some digging and came up with an answer.The song is called "The Horses" and was originally done by Kenny Loggins of Loggins & Messina fame.That was the version used on the show.However, the version used in the movie Jerry Maguire, which you also asked about, is by Rickie Lee Jones. It's an soft-rock kinda cover tune.I hope that helped!
aimless-46 "The Young Riders" lasted three seasons on ABC (1989-92) so it must have connected pretty well with its generally teenage target audience. Created to capitalize on the success of "Young Guns" (1988) it replaced Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lou Diamond Phillips with lower budget young hunks Ty Miller, Stephen Baldwin, and Josh Brolin. While lacking the intelligent scripting of "Bordertown" another 1989 revisionist Western, "The Young Riders" matched that Canadian series in the production design department. Both are a treat to watch just for the sets and the scenery. "The Young Riders" is "set in the early days of the Pony Express," just before the Civil War which started in 1861. The Pony Express provided swifter than stagecoach mail service between Missouri and California through a system of single riders rushing between a string of almost 200 relief stations. The idea was to get about 75 miles of riding out of each man, exchanging his horse 5 times during his ride. The concept worked but lasted less than two years before it was replaced by the telegraph. The series tried to get a boost from historical connections while not allowing historical accuracy to constrain it in any significant way. Rather than have the group of young riders be a bunch of average Joe's they give the viewer a young Buffalo Bill Cody (who actually rode for the Pony Express), Bill Hickok (who did not ride for the Pony Express), and in season two Jesse James (who was only 11 years old and probably didn't know that the Pony Express existed). If this sounds like an extremely lame idea then you are most likely older than Jesse. Rounding out the hunks is a character named "The Kid" (Miller) who is technically the star judging by the amount of screen time he received. The non-hunks include Lou (Yvonne Suhor) - who is a girl pretending to be a boy, Buck Cross (Gregg Rainwater) – who is an Indian with many wilderness skills; and Ike (Travis Fine) who was kicked in the head by an horse early in the series and exhibits many signs of dementia. One would expect the life of a pony express rider to be a lonely one but these guys always (insert "every single day and night" here) seem to be just hanging around together, with little attention paid to transporting the mail. The idea of the system was for a rider to travel as light as possible and to avoid any confrontation or complication. Yet on the rare occasions when one of these youngsters actually manages to mount his/her horse with the mail they almost always manage to somehow get entangled in something more urgent than completing their route. Such is the penalty for skimping on imaginative screenwriters. But if you don't know any better or if you can suspend disbelief many of the episodes can be entertaining. The first season was clearly the best. In large part because it included Melissa Leo, as a kind of den mother to the boys, who becomes a little too fond of young Cody. Leo was already a very polished actress and her scenes were generally the best ones in each episode. Probably the best scene of the entire series was the first kiss between Miller and Suhor. It has enough charm and surprise to rank it among the top five television kisses of all time."The Body Count" issue: as you watch the pilot episode you will think that the violence level of the series is going to be in the style of "The A Team" (mega fighting and shooting but no real casualties). But it's not long before the thing morphs into another "The Rifleman", with the corpses piling up all around the ranch, the town, and the prairie. During its three-year run the young riders manage to kill more people in gunfights than died in all the Indian wars combined. Although the ultra-violence is pretty antiseptic it is often quite lame with a lot of stuff happening off scene. When they do attempt a big action sequence it is so cheaply staged that you will wish it had happened off screen. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
PippinTheHobbit First of all I want to say that I LOVE this show. This was the first new show I watched with my parents as a family on a regular basis, and was second only to The Waltons. The characters are fantastic, it's action-packed, romantic, emotional, and just overall endearing. I believe this show is one of the main reasons that I love American History so much, to this day I search for anything I can find about the Pony Express. And now it has been released on DVD (just season 1 so far), and I have been watching at least one episode a day, reliving the love I felt for this show when I saw it as a young girl who started off simply loving it because it had beautiful horses and a girl that was just as good as the boys.
treerose I grew up watching this show and loved every minute of it. While not very historically accurate, it was great fun and will be missed. While many of the actors involved in the series are still yet unknown, it was full of many talented actors. Jonathan Franklin went on to star in SeaQuest, Stephen Baldwin went on to star in many movies and Anthony Zerbe is an acclaimed actor. This show is worth watching.