Into The West

I was somewhat skeptical about even watching the show, since it's a six week mini-series. Briefly, it's a drama about how the west was settled. From both the indians and white mans' perspective.

But I thought I would give it a try last weekend and I sort of enjoyed it, if for no other reason than the scenery. Someone (Speilberg?) really spent some time, money and effort on looking for beautiful places and perfect lighting to film it.

So I decided to go ahead and watch it again last night, and if I happened to make it through all six weeks, fine. If not, well, I never saw 'Roots' either, so I figured I could live without seeing this thing too.

Then last night, in the first half hour, they soured me completely on it. They turned what could have been a good story into a tree-hugging, PETA loving, bong sucking, kumba-ya singing 'Who allowed those barbarians to do the things the did' type of show, and cast aside any semblance of truism.

Here's what happened on the show. The wagon train full of men, women and children was headed across the prairie on their way out west, and a herd of buffalo (a very small herd, as compared to the millions that used to roam the prairie) came along. The guides, being the more experienced of the train and also the leaders, hunters, security detail etc., shot a couple of the buffalo to provide meat for the train. The women of the train came unglued. Jumped up, screamed "How could you kill those beautiful animals?" at the guides, and generally had a conniption.

Now granted, I wasn't there. I wasn't even alive back then. So I can't say for a fact how anyone would behave in that situation. But I do know that in those days,

• Women were of the mind to 'follow their man anywhere'. If the man provided food for the family, the women weren't going to squawk about it. This was lifetimes before the sexual revolution of the 1960's.
  
• No one, especially a woman, was going to confront a man of that stature. I.e., wagon boss, guide, explorer, buffalo hunter. These men were not to be reckoned with. They earned their stripes and they would never have put up with anyone questioning their actions. They were the 'ship captains' of that wagon train. Anyone questioning their orders or not following them to a 'T' would be turned around and sent back east.
  
• After living on dried meat, salt pork or even jerky for weeks on end, no one was going to pass up a slab of fresh meat. One buffalo could feed a family of four for probably two years. A train of hundreds would only require the meat of two or three buffalo a week.
  

So anyway, the bogus-ness pissed me off and I won't have to worry about missing the next four weeks. It would probably be sleighload of shit anyway.