Watched Any Good Books Lately?
Much like getting hooked on a TV show, it’s easy to become addicted to a favorite author. They don’t come much more different than Wild West chronicler Larry McMurtry and the 19th century’s droll Jane Austen, each returning to TV this week.
McMurtry’s epic Western Lonesome Dove ranks among the all-time greatest TV miniseries, but with the six-hour prequel Comanche Moon, he and CBS have dipped into this mythic well once too often. Perilously poky and sometimes just plain hokey, this sloppy and scattershot yarn finds Gus and Woodrow, the Dove characters immortalized in their twilight years by Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, as young and restless Texas Rangers. Steve Zahn is scrappy fun as gabby Gus, but Karl Urban is a dud as the sullen, scowling Woodrow.
Through most of the meandering story, our heroes bicker, banter and woo the womenfolk they will ultimately disappoint. Meanwhile, they track clichéd foes: murderous, horse-thieving Comanche and a sadistic Mexican bandit who has captured their eccentric Yankee captain (Val Kilmer, a goofy hoot). Playing Kilmer’s spoiled wife, Rachel Griffiths swans around Austin like an overripe vixen from a trashy John Jakes potboiler. It’s simply embarrassing.
You’re much better off at PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre, where one durable brand name bolsters another, as The Complete Jane Austen gets under way. First up: a smart new 90-minute version of the emotionally intense Persuasion that’s as economical in scope as Comanche Moon is swollen. (The series continues with new films of Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and a two-part Sense and Sensibility, plus an original biopic titled Miss Austen Regrets and acquisitions of A&E’s Pride and Prejudice and Emma.)
Sally Hawkins is appropriately and heart-rendingly dour as Persuasion’s pensive heroine, Anne, a 27-year-old spinster whose family’s falling fortunes make the situation even more awkward when she is reunited by chance with the dashing naval officer she once unwisely spurned. “We love longest when all hope is gone,” she says, trapped by social conventions and obligations that forbid her to speak her mind until it’s almost too late.
In the supporting cast, check out Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Head as her preening buffoon of a class-obsessed father. His is the most comic turn in this quietly moving romance.
Strike, schmike. This winter, my favorite TV writer may just be the immortal Miss Austen.
Comanche Moon premieres Sunday, Jan. 13, and also airs Jan. 15 - Jan. 16, at 9 pm/ET on CBS.
Persuasion airs Sunday, Jan. 13, on PBS; check local listings.
