Strange Empire

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!

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!

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.

This is one of the worst shows I have ever watched. I gave it all 13 episodes and was left wanting. There is absolutely no redeeming character on the show at all. Even the righteous Kate Loving who is good with a gun with her moral compass; she is weak and ineffective. She couldn't stop the miners from brawling and then she was working for the mine. Isabelle is ruthless and greedy with no shame or remorse. She was willing to kill the young mother just to keep her father-in-law on the hook. Which brings us to John Slotter who posses no charm, no wit, no vision and no sense. I don't just hate his characterization I really find the actor not very good either. It is a quagmire of bad writing and almost claustrophobic in the stylization of 1880s. If we are to believe this is the Canadian wilderness where is it? The smaller, simpler charters are not completely fleshed out but at least allow for some kind of hope of manna in the wilderness.

Okay, maybe the young doctor wanting to do right is not too bad...

I've always liked the idea of Westerns, but I've always found them lacking. I like shows with women and about women, and Westerns have always been the domain of straight white men (like most everything) running around being heroic, and if you're lucky enough to get a female character in the setting, she's either a damsel in distress or a whore. Neither of which are bad, but some variation would be nice. This show has everything I've been looking for for a long time. The three main characters are female, two women of color and they are awesome (well, two are). It's a great look at the women of the wild west and it has actual Cree and Blackfoot characters as part of the main cast. Also, Helo from BSG, what more can I say. Except that Kat is bad ass and Rebecca is the most adorable genius ever. Watch this show!