How long would it have lasted?
If you're reading this post you probably already know the story. The Wild Wild West is a television rarity in that it was cancelled not because of its ratings (which ranged from decent to good) but rather due the show's excessive violence. During the late sixties, in response to acts of violence such as the assassinations of RFK and MLK, the feds began cracking down on TV violence with the idea being that violence on the tube begat violence in real life. Hearings were held and the networks agreed to curb it all back with CBS cancelling WWW as a sort of sacrificial lamb. So the US government would ironically be responsible for ending a show that portrayed the US government in a flattering light, but hey ... that's showbiz.
Suppose, however, that that never happened. How long could the show have lasted? There were many other factors involved. For one, it has been said that Robert Conrad was tiring of the role and that CBS knew this and thus decided to kill off two birds with one stone. It is also mentioned that Conrad and the stuntmen were afraid that someone would eventually get seriously hurt and therefore they should quit while they were ahead. And what about Ross Martin's health? After breaking a leg and suffering a heart attack could he continue with physical demands of the show? Plus, by the start of the seventies both the spy and western genres were fading from the scene.
Yet how much of that was true at the time and how much was it people waxing philosophical after the fact? At the time of the show's cancellation, for example, Conrad was pretty angry about the way things went down. And stuntmen complaining someone might get hurt? Please. If there wasn't a chance of people getting hurt they'd all be out of a job. Martin's injuries? He played in (at least semi-) physically demanding roles after coming back. Spy and western genres fading? Established westerns such as Gunsmoke and Bonanza went well into the seventies. And one of the decade's top shows was from the spy genre: The Six Million Dollar Man (although you could argue it marked the beginning of Hollywood's modern fascination with superheroes).
Assuming the show could have died a natural death, how long do you think The Wild Wild West would have lasted? Five seasons? Seven? Ten? 'Till the era of the TV movies (1979)?