Year: 2012

In the US: Sundays, 10/9c, A&E

So time to pass a verdict on A&E’s new show, modern western Longmire. Not much has changed since the first episode, in which craggy Robert Taylor went around investigating crimes in Wyoming, aided by his traditional, conservative values, while pesky women, youngsters and Native Americans (there are no gay people in Wyoming) tried their best to help or interfere, but proved to be no match for his superior wit and inherent white male superiority.

The subsequent two episodes have more of less followed this exact same formula, albeit with fewer thrills and with less depth. Everything’s about Taylor or about making Taylor look good, while Katee Sackhoff and company get little by way of plot, characterisation or anything else.

However, it is a well made show, thoughtful, mostly well acted, beautiful to look at, and it does have moments of poignancy. It’s also a refreshing change to most urban dramas, looking at rural issues that don’t often appear in crime dramas, although episode three does have the mob intruding. Taylor’s character is sympathetic, even if he’s simultaneously an ornery, uncommunicative man of the land, and Sackhoff is good in more or less everything she’s in.

Sometimes engrossing, different but nothing spectacular.

Carusometer rating: 3
Rob’s prediction: If The Glades can survive for four seasons on A&E, this will probably last at least a couple.