Since it is the creation of Taylor Sheridan, who already has under his belt the script of Sicario and is the creator of both Yellowstone and The Mayor of Kingstown, I decided to pay for Paramount+ and take the chance it was in the same pedigree.
Holy crap, it is damned good. It tells the story of the Dutton family crossing the plains with a caravan. It is narrated by the Elsa who is the daughter of James and Margaret Dutton played by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. And if you are wondering if a couple of Country singers can pull a good acting job, holy crap they do amazingly well. And then you have Sam Elliot doing perhaps his best acting and that is a lot to say if you have followed the guy’s career.
First, amazing script. No punches pulled and great story which makes for good watching. This quote is from the last episode “Fangs of Freedom”:
I think cities have weakened us as a species. Mistakes have no consequences there. Step into the road without looking, and the carriage merely stops or swerves. The only consequence, an angry driver. But here, there can be no mistakes because here doesn’t care. The river doesn’t care if you can swim. The snake doesn’t care how much you love your children, and the wolf has no interest in your dreams. If you fail to beat the current, you will drown. If you get too close, you will be bitten. If you are too weak, you will be eaten.
Production values, scenery, weapons, etc. so far to my untrained eye is top notch and accurate. It feels very real even if you know is all a made-up story.
With the total lackluster of decent TV in broadcast, cable and streaming, this is one of the few jewels for you to enjoy.
This Taylor Sheridan guy kind of crept up out of nowhere and now I want to watch anything he makes/writes.
Yellowstone obviously came first and is a good show, but I feel like they are running out of story on that one. Everyone is after the Dutton ranch, everyone wants the land. Still recommended.
1883 is a very realistic take on what a wagon train would have been like in the West. Grit, hardship, loss and death. If anything you’ll gain an appreciation for how tough people were back then.
Mayor of Kingstown is also highly recommended – it took me a few episodes to understand the role the main character plays in the context of the story, didn’t even know that someone with that kind of work existed. Its dark, but very well done.
Speaking of traveling through the west, I recently read two books which describe traveling to SLC in the days before trains went west of the Mississippi. One is by Mark Twain (it also spends a fair chunk of time in CA and then in Hawaii), “Roughing it”. The other is by Richard Burton (yes, the Brit), “The city of the Saints”. Very different writing style, and at some point I stopped reading Burton because I wasn’t interested in 200 pages about Mormonism, but as descriptions of the dangers of travel in those times they are quite good. Both are available as free downloads on gutenberg.org.
I read “Roughing It” many years ago, and thought it was great. Another Twain favorite is “The Innocents Abroad”.
I like it. The only complaint I have is why they chose 1883. In 1883, the big question is why they don’t just take the train. The transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869. Why pay $200 for a dangerous hard trip, when you could pay $150 and ride to California in style?