Focus : What Becomes UPN’s ‘Legend’? : ANSWER: AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT AND RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON’S IDEAS ON HOW HIS HERO WOULD ACT

Richard Dean Anderson, the brainy, nonviolent hero for seven seasons on ABC’s “MacGyver,” has traveled back in time to play a hero of a different mold.

In the lighthearted Western adventure series “Legend,” which premiered last week on the fledgling United Paramount Network, the year is 1876. Anderson, 45, plays Ernest Pratt, a man with a fear of horses who lives hard, loves hard and drinks hard. In between all that, he writes books featuring the heroic exploits of the fictitious Nicodemus Legend. With the help of brilliant European scientist Janos Bartok (John de Lancie of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”), Pratt reluctantly assumes the identity of his brave literary creation.

“I think that what I have found is a vehicle that has the potential of being all the things that I love to do and all the things I love--like irreverence and comedy,” explains Anderson, who also is executive producer of the series. “One of the things that attracts me ... are things that deal with invention or science. Adventure is one of my favorite genres.”

Executive producer and co-creator Michael Piller (“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager”) came up with the idea for “Legend” several years ago. “It came about with a conversation I was having with a therapist about the difference between the image we portray to the outside and how we feel we look inside,” he says. “I thought it was an interesting concept for a character.”

Piller, who created the series with executive producer Bill Dial (“Simon & Simon”), wanted “Legend” to be compatible to the “Star Trek” series. “I wanted the audience that I had learned a great deal from over the last seven years to be satisfied with this,” Piller says.

“I really felt there were things I could take from ‘Star Trek’ and apply to a new genre. For example, the idea of combining science and adventure. Obviously, we are dealing with a different kind of science, but in a very real way the technology that Bartok uses in the show is very real for the time and place. It was an optimistic time in American history. That’s the sort of sense of adventure that I think is part of ‘Star Trek,’ the optimism.”

He also wanted to create intelligent heroes who use “cleverness and words and education to solve problems and not violence--another thing which I felt was an important lesson I learned from the ‘Star Trek’ experience.”

When the script for “Legend” first came across Anderson’s desk, his producing partner, Michael Greenburg, didn’t like it, Anderson says. “I had him reread it. I said, ‘Read this as though Terry Gilliam was going to direct it and then think of it on a perpetual level, skewing it sideways and making it quirky, and trust me that I will bring an energy to it that’s fun and mischievous.’ ”

In Piller and Dial’s original script, Pratt was more of a dandy, a la Bat Masterson. “They had him written with a bowler hat and a silver cane and very prim and proper and kind of a classy guy,” Anderson says. “I said in the first meeting, ‘I like the concept, I like the idea, I like the premise. But you guys are going to have to let me go with this character. It is not how I see him.’ ”

The actor envisioned Pratt sporting a mustache. Piller didn’t. “That was our first fight--over the mustache,” Pratt recalls, laughing. “I was worried. I just was worried. I hadn’t seen Pratt in my mind with a mustache, but Rick felt very strongly about it. It has turned out to be gorgeous.”

Anderson says at this point in his life and career, “it is time to play and time to misbehave. I saw the potential for an outlet to some creative juices which have been laying dormant having played “MacGyver’ for seven seasons. I knew if I was going to be involved in a series again I wanted to make sure I would have fun doing it. Finally, what I am left with now is the opportunity to be playing a character I like watching and I certainly love playing. He is energetic, fun, wry, sardonic, sarcastic, cynical. He’s a drinker, a womanizer. All of that and more. I am getting to kind of misbehave.”

“Legend” is produced in Mescal, Ariz., where such Westerns as “Monte Walsh” and “Tombstone” were filmed, and Tucson.

“It’s isolated and in the middle of the desert,” Anderson says of Mescal. “There are not any distractions, other than an occasional jet that will go over. It is a free-standing, full-blown Western town. It is absolutely perfectly suited for what we needed.”

Anderson feels he’s found a perfect cast mate in de Lancie, who played the Enterprise’s nemesis Q on “Next Generation.”

“He is a studied actor. I am kind of the other end of the spectrum when it comes to work. I am bouncing off the chandeliers to start with and eventually I will pare it down. The interplay and dynamics involved in (Pratt and Bartok’s) exchanges create really funny dynamics and very intelligent humor as well.”

“Legend” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on KCOP and KADY.