Western fails to mine any new ground

A tale of adversarial matriarchs fighting over land falls flat in 'The Abandons.'

- ROBERT LLOYD TELEVISION CRITIC

Ah, the western. That great American canvas, upon which many sorts of motion pictures have been projected, stretching back to the very beginning of the medium: adventure, romance, comedic, serious, simplistic, artistic, racist, revisionist, historical, metaphorical, low-budget, big-budget, dark, light, set in a wild landscape or on the edge of it, where the deer and the antelope play, etc., etc.

In 1939, the year John Ford made "Stagecoach," elevating John Wayne to stardom, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were also busy. (If Wikipedia is to be trusted, something like 120 westerns were released that year.) Roy and Gene would also have television careers when the tube came knocking, birthing a wealth of westerns - “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Rifleman,” “The Virginian,” “Maverick,” “Have Gun, Will Travel,” I could go on from here to Missouri. This year we've had “American Primeval” and “Ransom Canyon,” the ongoing brilliance of “Dark Winds” and the continuing adventures of Taylor Sheridan.

With so many movies and television series working that vein over more than a century, it's no surprise that the same material turns up again and again. “The Abandons,” a new western streaming now on Netflix, is thick with old plot points and character types. (Seven episodes out of 10 were available to review.) Admittedly, creator Kurt Sutter has given the tropes a bit of a spin, making two women played by Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey adversarial matriarchal leads, but the nuts and bolts come right off the shelf.