By Curt Schleier

COMANCHE MOON (the novel on which this mini-series is based) is a prequel to LONESOME DOVE, Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize winning book.  I know, I know.  You hear the words “Pulitzer Prize” and your eyes start to glaze over. I need you to trust me here.  It was a book so great that not even TV could ruin it.

LONESOME DOVE became one of the best mini-series in the history of the medium.  It starred Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow McCall and Robert Duvall as Gus McCrae, two retired Texas Rangers, and featured Diane Lane, Danny Glover, Angelica Huston, and Chris Cooper in its all-star cast.  If they gave out Pulitzer Prizes for TV, this show would have won.  In stead, it was nominated for 19 Emmys and won seven.

So going in you know that the chances are that COMANCHE MOON (as did STREETS OF LAREDO and DEAD MAN’S WALK) will pale in comparison to LONESOME DOVE.  But the truth is that while serviceable, COMANCHE MOON does more than pale.  By comparison it’s almost an albino.

The biggest problem is the casting.  Steve Zahn plays McCrae.  I look at Steve Zahn and I see Daddy Day Care, Saving Silverman, Employee of the Month, I don’t see Gus McCrae.  Every time he speaks he seems to try to channel Duvall.  Karl Urban who plays Woodrow Call is a New Zealander.  The Kiwi doesn’t even try to sound Texan.  Then there’s Val Kilmer, who I am surprised is still employable.  He plays Capt. Inish Scull, a transplanted Yankee, with some indefinable accent that reminds me of Kathleen Turner, who speaks in a voice that is somewhere between England and Japan.


Casting aside, the story begins before the Civil War probably around the time Texas became a state.  The Rangers spend their time fighting Indians and Mexican banditos, not crime.  When we first meet them, the rangers, led by Capt. Scull, are chasing a wily Indian horse thief, Kicking Wolf (Jonathon Joss).  But while they sleep, it’s Kicking Wolf who does the capturing, stealing Scull’s horse.  So Skull names Call and McCrae as co-captains and orders them to lead the Rangers posse back to Austin.  Scull and Kickapoo tracker Famous Shoe (David Midthunder), walk off after the horse.

Meanwhile Comanche War Chief Buffalo Hump (Wes Studi) gathers warriors from neighboring clans to try to drive the whites out of Texas before they become too strong.  He is haunted by a scene he saw as a young boy, when his parents and grandparents were ambushed by whites at a time when the Native Americans (to be politically correct) under the protection of a white flag had come to sign a peace treaty.

McMurtry, who usually creates strong women, has two weaklings and one weight lifter here.  McCrae’s in love with Clara (Linda Cardellini), who seems to take great pleasure in teasing him about another suitor.  Call’s girl friend is the whore Maggie Tilton (Elizabeth Banks), who is pregnant with what she believes is Woodrow’s child.  Woodrow loves her, but how can he be sure the child is his?


The strongest woman – perhaps the strongest person – in this first episode is Scull’s wife, Inez (Rachel Griffiths), a woman who takes who she wants when she wants him and then spits him out when she’s through.

The hardest part for me judging Comanche moon is having LONESOME DOVE in my head.  If you haven’t seen it, I’d like to know what you think about COMMANCHE MOON.  Was I unfair?