In discussing TV Detectives, the series Cannon was mentioned, and the fact that the show had one star.
William Conrad was in all 192 episodes
The next most appearing actor was in 8 episodes (playing different characters) (even if counted as 1 is a 24:1 ratio)
For playing the SAME character, the highest is Charles Bateman with 5 (38.4:1)
Are there any shows that were really just one main character? With a higher ratio? NO talk shows, and no shows where only one person ever appears (infinite ratio). Minimum 10 episodes?
I thought about Doctor Who, but even if you lump all the Doctors together, Jamie (Frazer Hines) was in 116 episodes.
The Twilight Zone, maybe - Rod Serling was in all the episodes (I think!) but the most common other actors were Jack Klugman and Burgess Meredith (again, I think)
I wouldn’t count Twilight Zone, as he really wasn’t IN the episodes.
Cheyenne:
so a ratio of 34.3:1 – pretty close
Danger Man/Secret Agent had Peter Madden as Hobbs / Admiral / Admiral Hobbs in 6 episodes
(he was also the undertaker in the opening sequence of The Prisoner)
Another Warner Brothers western, Sugafoot had Will Hutchens in 69 episodes with no other recurring characters.
Maverick is an interesting case. Though they had three actors playing the lead, they were different characters and rarely appeared together, so it was akin to three separate shows. Jack Kelly played the role 81 times, James Garner did it 56 times, and Roger Moore was there 16 times.
It’s a good example. Scott Bakula (Sam) and Dean Stockwell (Al) were in every one of the 97 episodes, but the next highest number is 6 (Dennis Wolfberg as Gooshie, who was frequently mentioned, but rarely appeared). Deborah Pratt’s voice, as Ziggy (and the narrator), was in a lot of episodes, but it looks like she was uncredited.
There were many shows with an itinerant hero wandering from town to town encountering trouble at every stop. Some of them would be good matches.
Bast I’ve found so far, The Rebel (1959-61) has 76 episodes with no recurring characters other than the hero, as far as I can tell.
They did reuse several actors a lot, playing different characters. Chuck Hamilton was in a lot of episodes playing Townsman, or Barman, or Barfly. But I assume it was a different town or bar each time.
“Nowhere Man” with Bruce Greenwood did pretty good - one main character in all episodes (Greenwood as Thomas Veil) - and the next most common actor was in four episodes (of 25) Nowhere Man (American TV series) - Wikipedia
Looks like in The Rebel, John Carradine played “Elmer Dodson” in 2 episodes – as mentioned, plenty of people appeared in more episodes, but as different people.
Though, it’s not a bad example, because there were three actors (Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno as David Banner/The Hulk, and Jack Colvin as Jack McGee, the reporter who pursued them) who were in every one of the series’ 80 or so episodes, and no other actor or character appeared more than 3 or 4 times.
Peter Falk as Columbo was the only character in all 68 episodes. There are some actors (including his wife) that were in multiple shows as different characters. John Finnegan was in 12 episodes but various characters. He was “Barney” in three of them.
One show with that format was Highway to Heaven with Michael Landon and Victor French. They appeared in all 111 episodes. The next on the list was James Troesh-- a paraplegic actor who appeared in 7 episodes.
Also to note Landon directed all but 14 episodes and Victor French directed 12 of those.
Route 66 had two main characters played by Martin Milner and George Maharis, although Marahis’ character was replaced for the 4th season with one played by Glenn Corbet. Milner was in all 116 episodes, Marahis and Corbet were in 114 together. The actor with the next most episodes is in 8.
How about “Fantasy Island” (154 episodes, 2 main characters, a lot of one-episode characters) or “The Love Boat” (250 episodes, 5 or 6 main characters, a TON of one-episode characters).