It can now remain safe and forever perfect on DVD and in re-runs, just as it should be.Comanche Moon completes Larry McMurtry's epic cycle of novels of the American West that began with the Pulitzer-Prize-winning masterpiece, Lonesome Dove.

At least by airing Comanche Moon CBS can finally let America’s beloved Lonesome Dove rest in peace. While Lonesome’s newest prequel may not be all that fans could hope for from author Larry McMurtry, what else are they gonna watch on Sunday night… not the Golden Globes, that’s for sure.

The projects that have followed it on CBS, including this week’s Comanche Moon… uh, not so much. Nineteen years after its release, Lonesome Dove is still revered as the finest example of the art of the network miniseries. Whether CBS can hold audiences for parts two and three when Comanche goes up against American Idol on the fifteenth and sixteenth is debatable. The writer’s strike has actually given Comanche Moon a rare opportunity to buck expectations and pull in solid ratings with its debut now scheduled for Sunday, January thirteenth. After shelving Comanche Moon for over a year, the network finally scheduled the three part drama for a release over the New Year’s holiday probably the least watched television week of the year. This adventitious approach to characterization leads Comanche Moon to some inter-series continuity issues, obfuscating the beautiful simplicity of Lonesome Dove.ĬBS must have had similar feelings.

Aside from Adam Beach as the villainous Blue Duck, many of these inclusions, though patently designed to appease old Lonesome Dove fans, are given short shrift by the writers. Other familiar faces include Pea Eye Parker and ‘ranger gone wild’ Jake Spoon. Now the sixth man to reprise the role, Urban could not possibly best Tommy Lee Jones, the penultimate taciturn Texan.Ĭomanche Moon reunites Gus and Call with many of Lonesome Dove’s most memorable characters, including fan favorite Deets and a very young Newt. Karl Urban, on the other hand, plays Call like a cowboy version of his Eomer character from the LOTR trilogy although to be fair he had an almost impossible task before him. Zahn actually performs a miniseries miracle by resurrecting the true spirit of the late Gus McCrae as immortalized by Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove. I am a big Steve Zahn fan, so I found even the syrupy scenes between him and true love Clara (Linda Cardellini) watchable. The life-long bond between garrulous and ornery Gus McCrae (Steve Zahn) and the strait-laced, reserved Woodrow Call (Karl Urban) remains the glue that holds Comanche Moon together, but McMurtry and Ossana continually test that sealant by following tangential story-lines into narrative and emotional dead-ends. With a corny soundtrack by Lennie Niehaus punctuating hackneyed lines like “There are two kinds of men in this world, honey, the marrying kind and men like Gus,” Comanche Moon seems closer in spirit to Bonanza than to a compelling modern western like Deadwood.Ĭomanche Moon also does itself a disservice by too often drifting from the one element of Lonesome Dove that truly set it apart from other miniseries of its time: the unlikely friendship between Call and McCrae. In 1989 westerns were still regarded as a bit cheesy, but Wittliff’s adaptation, short on words but long on character development, helped break that perception and made way for “intelligent westerns” like Unforgiven.īy contrast, Comanche Moon too often feels like a throwback to the Technicolor western shams of the 1950’s. Lonesome Dove was remarkable for its realistic treatment of the mythic cowboy.

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