Strange Empire

Incredible show. Just re-watched the first three episodes. All four lead characters are brilliant actors. Such talent. Visually stunning with the British Columbia foothills as a backdrop. So many words to describe this show, mystical, bizarre, quirky, tragic, etc. Historical perspective of women and their lot in life during these times. I recommend this show for anyone who enjoys a good and oddly bizarre drama. Hindsight now gives us historical accuracies, but at the times depicted they were not quite sure where they were. But interesting, the coal mines, think of Coleman area, the railroads, the hard life of the early settlers. Thankyou CBC for producing this excellent show. I am enthralled!

Strange Empire is more than just a Western, although there's plenty of Western action. It's a female-driven, sexy, well-plotted drama. Beautifully shot, well-written, it's really the characters who drive the story. A small wagon train traveling into the west between Montana and Canada border, runs into a mining community that has little more than a brothel, mine, and railroad running through it. When two young girls are hidden from the brothel and mine owner, he extracts his revenge by sicking his men on the wagons, killing all the husbands, fathers, and male children, in order to force the women to work the brothel. The plan mostly blows up thanks to Kat Loving, a fierce wife-made-widow. From then on, it's pretty much war. Hopefully CBC won't cancel this one prematurely while it finds its audience. Hear that, CBC? Don't you dare!

My husband and I have enjoyed binge-watching this show! Recently, we have seen a lot of post civil war America period pieces on Netflix. They all have the similar theme of civil war trauma (ptsd) and its subsequent violent effects in a frontier landscape. I like this because it's NOT a typical western. I felt that the themes in the story were universal. I loved the costumes! They could almost be "steampunk." If I were to write the second season, I might go that route as engineers work out issues on the railroad and in the mines using technology. I can almost see a Johnny Depp style character partnering up with Dr. Blithely. Of course, this show wouldn't go as far as the steampunk fantasy world, I suppose. We are very disappointed that the show is cancelled. I hope Netflix decides to produce the story.

Unlike muffin munro, I don't look to TV for history lessons or historical accuracy. I look for entertainment and new spins on the hackneyed, which Strange Empire delivers. Westerns are generally cheesy glorifications of a violent time in North American history. The ten or so years it took for settlers to migrate from the east to the west coast gave free-reign to greed and brutality.

In SE, the women of Janestown continually redefine their alliances as they cope with the brutality of the man who killed their husbands in order to strand them as whores for a mining community. All the old male western stereotypes--marshal, miner, cowboy, doctor, bounty hunter, etc.--are trotted out at their creepy worst. And the women, despite beauty, money, intelligence and deadly aim, are flawed and periodically reduced to some form of prostitution by brute strength. No shiny heroes here, but enough tension and drama to make occasionally awkward syntax forgivable.

There is much to like about Strange Empire. Character driven by relatively unknown actors, the fact that it is gritty and flawed works well within the context of the strange world of trauma and loss these women find themselves thrust into. Those who want to nitpick about historical accuracy or whatever else are missing the thrust of the piece. I applaud the fact that a chance was taken with this story by Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik. There is a deeper and darker truth about what it is to be human when faced with survival, and this series does a damn good job of giving the viewer a window into it. Word of mouth could very well elevate the series to some level of cult status.