Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)LDTOL is one of the best TV shows ever. It's right up there with the 1st season of Michael Mann's Crime Story from the mid 80's. This is the show HBO's Deadwood wishes it could be.
Start with the opening credits. The editing and the theme music of the credits themselves are worth the price of admission and a good precursor to the overall quality of the show. To break it down further, the opening shot of the credits, Call on his horse coming into town, is a knock out image. If they'd put it on a poster I'd buy it.
The characters in the show are complex and richly drawn, a testament to the quality of the shows writing. The tension between Call and Moseby is the highlight but all of players in LDTOL mesh seamlessly to the greater good of the show.
And finally, the actors. To hell with Will and Grace, the Clay Moseby character is the one Eric McCormack was meant to play. (And hopefully, the one he'll be remembered for once the immediately forgetable W&G leaves the air.) Scott Bairstow as Call completely dominates every scene he is in. Tracy Scoggins and Kelly Rowan are smoking hot but their sensuality is relentlessly downplayed through the course of the series.
Finally, the one big quibble.
The set comes in a five disc package. Why the creators couldn't manage the simple task of placing these episodes in their chronological order, by air date, is beyond me. For the serious fan who wants to view them in their intended order this is the sequence to use. (Note: the number in parens is the actual episode number. For the last two numbers, 1st Number- the CD, 2nd Number- Episode No. on CD in their order on the set).
__1st_______2nd________3rd________4th_________5th
(1)_1-1___(5) 2-1____(9)_3-1____(13) 4-1____(18) 5-2
(2) 1-2___(6) 1-4___(10)_3-2____(14) 4-2____(19) 5-1
(3) 1-3___(7) 2-4___(11)_2-3____(15) 4-3____(20) 5-3
(4) 2-2___(8) 3-3___(12)_3-4____(16) 4-4____(21) 5-4
_____________________________(17) 4-5____(22) 5-5Starting with the end of disk one thru disk three they completely shuffled the deck with the episode order. The long narrative arcs and the character developments are scrambled to the point of distraction.
IMO you don't need any extras (director's commentary, promos, whatever) for this series. The quality of the writing, the acting and the production values sell themselves. If the bozos who packaged this set could just get the order right they would really have something.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years (1996)
Featuring 22 Episodes! The untamed glory of the Old West as it really was returns when Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years saddles up for another season of high-spirited episodes, with a new look and an exciting cast of characters struggling to survive on the wild frontier. The year is 1880. Curtis Wells, the locale of Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years, is now a boomtown on the Montana frontier. When neighboring Sweetwater was left in ashes by a prairie fire, its whores and desperadoes took up residence in Curtis Wells, changing its character forever. Newt Call has come back to the town after living the past two years on the trail as a bounty hunter. Call is a man whose past has left its scars. Having left Curtis Wells a few nights after the explosion which killed his beloved Hannah, Call went on a downward spiral, aimless and soulless, eventually hitting bottom. Coming back to the town has reopened some of those old wounds for Call, not the least of which is his unresolved business with Clay Mosby, the man who coveted his wife before the fire took her. Mosby has made Curtis Wells his personal dominion. Behind his charming, roguish facade, he is a ruthless businessman, swift and severe with those who cross him, ready to shape the town to his own dark vision. Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years brings to life all the grit, romance and excitement of the West--an untamed world where anything is possible.
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