Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tim McGraw, Sam Elliott, Faith Hill, Isabel May, LaMonica Garrett, Audie Rick, Marc Rissmann, James Landry Hébert, Anna Fiamora, Malcolm Stephenson, Amanda Jaros, Jordan Walker Ross, Stephen Austin Long, Konstantin Melikhov, Eric Nelsen, Noah Le Gros, Josef Bette, Eric Bear, James Jordan, Rob Mello, Martin Sensmeier, Sacha Seberg, Neal Kodinsky, Daen Olivieri, David Midthunder, Billy Bob Thornton, Rita Wilson, Graham Greene, Tom Hanks.
If the western genre has learned even just one thing to make it relevant in the 21st Century, then its positive moves away from the lazy, ungracious, even racist connotations of the Native American people has been perhaps the most enlightening. For the story of the expansion of European settlement is tempered by the knowledge of the injustice we have displayed in arrogance in the aftermath of our collective representation of the indigenous people during cinema and television’s early years; and whilst the storyline is one of family saga, the fact that the makers acknowledge both the potential harmony and the devastation wreaked upon the history of the Native American tribes in the stand alone serial 1883 is one of potential uplift.
1883 is part of the Yellowstone arc that has become a rival of sorts to one of American television history’s finest hours, Dallas, and yet as its prequel demonstrates the hardship of the 19th century settlers’ broken dreams and hopes, of the uncertainty of life and the ease in which the land held every possible grudge against anyone willing to leave the relative safety of the coast, and take up the position of pioneer, to penetrate the interior of a nation that was developing in pain, in anger, and in continual political and military flux.
The sense of beginning and its natural end that the series fiercely defends with its stark hope, the desolation, the silence of perpetual death, is consuming, and framed with dramatic buoyancy. Adventure will always come with the possibility of death, and as the wagon train, led by Shae Brennan, and played by the incomparable Sam Elliott, and with the main focus of attention is on the Dutton family and portrayed with considerable charm by husband and wife team Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and their free-thinking and wonderfully rebellious daughter Elsa, played by the raging talent of Isabel May, shows just how determined people are to leave the hardship behind and walk if needs be through Hell, just to reach a brief glimpse of paradise.
As a one-off series, 1883 is all that you could wish for, it is hard-hitting, it is unafraid to bear witness to the emotions of the viewer as they are confronted by the history of the pioneer, and the terror of what they could not imagine in their brave new world they hoped to make home.
A truly terrific series, one that inspires to bring understanding to the attention of many who seek a different life no matter the cost.
Ian D. Hall