Cordell Walker (Chuck Norris) is a Texas Ranger. He is a rough-and-tumble "cowboy" cop, who drives a big Dodge pickup, and busts everybody from organized crime bosses, to child beaters, to drug runners. He does his duty to the State of Texas with help of his buddy, Rookie Ranger James Trivette (Clarence Gilyard Jr.). The episode usually comes to an end with Chuck Norris using his several black belts in several different martial arts to kick the living crap out of the baddies, and then a happy ending where the bad guys are going away to jail, and the poor little kidnapped kid get reunited with his parents. Walker has to learn to mix his Old West ways of law enforcement, with Trivette's new school ways he learned in Baltimore, and not let his relationship with the District Attorney (Sheree J. Wilson) get in the way of his sworn duty to Protect and Serve the citizens of the State of Texas.