The Alamo has fallen. By the order of Santa Anna (Olivier Martinez), the handful of survivors are lined up and shot, Jupitor West among them. Emily West (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) determines to avenge her brother. Among the dead at the Alamo, a nameless man (Ray Liotta) crawls from the ruins and kills a soldier as he escapes into the wilderness. Meanwhile, Sam Houston (Bill Paxton) is in Gonzales with the Texas Army, which is much too small to face the Mexican army. Though his officers and men are desperate to fight, Houston orders a retreat. Elsewhere, Erastus "Deaf" Smith (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and his band of Texas Rangers scout the countryside to keep track of both Comanche and the Mexican Army. At the Louisiana border, Bigfoot Wallace and Jack Hays are bound for Goliad with plans of joining the revolution.
The 5-part series follows these various characters from the Alamo through Sam Houston's election as the first president of Texas. Liberties are taken with the timeline. Liberties are also taken with the history. Extreme liberties are taken with the geography. There are no cliffs and mountains from the Alamo to San Jacinto but they are plentiful in this production. Durango, Mexico was the wrong choice for filming. The geography was so very wrong that I couldn't overlook it. Just before the Battle of San Jacinto, the Texas Rangers destroy Vince's Bridge. This did happen. However, the bridge crosses a dry gulch here rather than a bayou. Traversing the dry gulch is merely an inconvenience. Also, the bridge was burned, not detonated with barrels of black powder.
The casting was mediocre. I like Bill Paxton. As it happens, he grew up in Texas, which is ideal for this movie. Sam Houston was 43 during the Battle of San Jacinto while Paxton was 59. Far worse was casting the 60 year-old Christopher McDonald as the Henry Karnes, who was only 23 at the time. Rob Morrow (53) plays Colonel Fannin (32). Jeff Fahey (63) plays Thomas Rusk (32).
The look of the show is washed out. Everyone is covered in layers of dust - probably because they filmed in a desert - and there are no vibrant colors. Who would fight for this desolate landscape?
The show fully embraces the legend of Emily West, the Yellow Rose of Texas. The story goes that Santa Anna was distracted by a mulatto woman at the start of the Battle of San Jacinto, which led to Houston's total victory. High Yellow was a term used to describe light-skinned blacks. Not only does Emily seduce Santa Anna, she also seduces Houston.
There is very little effort to make this a balanced presentation. Texans good (mostly), Mexicans and Comanche bad. There was one point where Colonel Fannin demands to be treated as a prisoner-of-war and the Mexican officer says that he is an illegal immigrant, or something to that effect. Nice. Also true. Then the officer shoots him. That the Mexicans took no prisoners is a black mark against them. Later, Emily asked Santa Anna if the Texians seeking independence from Mexico wasn't just like how Mexico had won independence from Spain only 15 years earlier.
Santa Anna isn't quite so clownish as he was portrayed in The Alamo, but he still comes off poorly. His blindness to Emily's motives is a real mark against him, especially since this is a fictional side story. It must be remembered that Santa Anna returned from exile several times and he did this based on his charisma. Here, he often comes across as a bully. Maybe he was with his close advisors, but he usually presented himself as a selfless patriot in public.
Lorca (Ray Liotta) is an entirely fictional character who exists as the ghost of the Alamo. As a fictional survivor, he is out for revenge, killing every Mexican he meets: man, woman, or child. He's the insane soldier, the extreme case of PTSD. Like Emily, he could have been left out of the story.
Andrew Jackson (Kris Kristofferson) has an interest in the Texas Revolution and even makes plans should Santa Anna cross the US border in to Louisiana. The most interesting part with Jackson was at the end of the series when Santa Anna meets him at the White House. Santa Anna claims to be the Napoleon of the West. Jackson replied by stating that Wellington defeated Napoleon, and Jackson himself defeated Wellington's troops in New Orleans. Ha! That's actually true.
Overall, the show is disappointing. There is too much fiction mixed into the history to make it worthwhile. The geography is so wrong as to ruin the series even without the fictionalized history. The characters mostly don't develop, having weak arcs or no arcs at all. The series ended with a promise for The Comanche Wars. Apparently, it was not sufficiently successful to see that sequel made.
Skip.
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