Broken Arrow

Broken Arrow is a 1950s television Western that aired on ABC in prime time, running from 1956 through 1958. The series occupied the Tuesday 9 p.m. Eastern slot, and ABC later reran episodes on Sunday afternoons during the 1959-60 season, with selected repeats returning to prime time in summer 1960. The program presented stories set on the frontier and unfolded across multiple episodes rather than as a single movie, giving viewers a steady weekly encounter with its characters and conflicts over its original two-season run.

The show starred Michael Ansara as Cochise, with John Lupton and Tom Fadden among the supporting cast, and it was produced for network television during the late 1950s. Its scheduling in a prime evening slot reflected ABC’s intent to reach mainstream family audiences at the time.

Broken Arrow did not collect major industry awards, and it’s not known for Academy, Emmy, or Golden Globe honors. There’s little record of high-profile trophies attached to the series, and it didn’t enter the awards conversation in a lasting way during or after its initial broadcast period.

Placing a Native American leader at the center of its narratives, the series was unusual for 1950s TV in its focus on Cochise as a recurring figure. That casting choice, and the show’s willingness to center Indigenous experiences within a Western framework, set it apart from many contemporaneous programs that relied only on one-off Native characters.

Critical and audience response to Broken Arrow was mixed, and contemporary fan memory is modest, reflected in a sparse set of modern user ratings, including an average of 5.0/10 from a small sample. The series concentrates on familiar Western themes like frontier tension, leadership, law and order, and attempts at negotiated peace, often framing those ideas through recurring character interactions rather than standalone spectacle.