"Ain't nothing worth doing that's easy." - John Voight as Captain Woodrow F. Call
Return to Lonesome Dove DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Return to Lonesome Dove has always been the odd man out in the Lonesome Dove series. The original miniseries, based on Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, became a surprise hit in 1989. With such spectacular ratings, a sequel was inevitable, but the producers were faced with a problem. McMurtry was working on another Lonesome Dove novel, but its appearance would be years away, and the attention span of television audiences is notoriously short.
The producers found what they thought would be a reasonable solution. Larry McMurtry would be hired as a consultant on the miniseries, but it would be created and written by another writer. Since McMurtry's book was set to take place years after the events in Lonesome Dove, they would create a miniseries set in the days immediately following those in the first and hope that there would be little conflict between the story they would choose to weave and the one that McMurtry would subsequently create.
Work progressed on the miniseries, but, as fate would have it, McMurtry finished writing his sequel, Streets of Laredo, and it was published in the spring of 1993 before the miniseries sequel was aired. In his novel, McMurtry killed off several of the characters from the original miniseries, characters prominently featured in the already filmed sequel, and changed the remaining characters' fates in ways that the miniseries could not have anticipated.
When Return to Lonesome Dove premiered on CBS in November of 1993 to somewhat mixed reviews but to decent ratings, it had thus been superceded by McMurtry's literary sequel, sort of like a post election but pre inauguration lame duck. Streets of Laredo and McMurtry's prequel, Dead Man's Walk, were subsequently given the miniseries treatment. Hewing closely to the novels, these two sequels ignored the events portrayed in Return, further sullying its reputation. (A fourth Lonesome Dove novel, Comanche Moon, was not filmed). With the rise of DVDs, the three miniseries directly taken from McMurtry novels were released as part of the "Lonesome Dove Collection." Return languished in the vaults, ignored and forgotten, until it finally made its DVD debut in the late spring of 2003.
At the end of Lonesome Dove, Captain Woodrow F. Call (Jon Voight) left behind his newly formed Montana cattle ranch to perform one last favor for an old friend, a favor that brought him back to Texas. His favor completed, Call decides that to simply return to Montana is not enough - he must also bring along a herd of wild horses so that his ranch can expand to horse breeding. With his trusted crew thousands of miles away in Montana, Call recruits former Texas Ranger Gideon Walker (William L. Peterson) and expert horse wrangler Isom Pickett (Louis Gossett, Jr.) to help with the drive. In turn, Walker hires a group of Mexican vaqueros led by headstrong Agostina Vega (Nia Peeples), a woman with a mysterious past. The crew sets off for Clara Allen's (Barbara Hershey) to buy more horses, carefully trying to avoid the killer Cherokee Jackson (Dennis Haysbert), the son of a buffalo soldier who was raised by Apaches.
In Montana, Call's unacknowledged son Newt Dobbs (Rick Schroder) has been left in charge of the ranch. Thanks to the hotheaded ranch hand Jasper Fant (Barry Tubb), Newt finds himself arrested for killing a man in a bar. The two are saved from execution by Gregor Dunnigan (Oliver Reed), a Scottish cattle baron and the owner of Kenilworth, a neighboring ranch. Now indebted to their savior, the boys begin to work at his ranch, where Newt befriends Dunnigan's much younger wife, Ferris (Reese Witherspoon). It seems that Dunnigan feels that Newt would be a perfect candidate to take over his empire upon his death. Newt, starved for a father figure, goes along with the plan, ignoring Dunnigan's vaguely unsavory behavior.
Return to Lonesome Dove is like a musician's too cautious follow-up to a hit album. The tracks, while different from those on the hit album, feel programmed, as if each song was picked because it sounded like its counterpart on the best seller. In short, they are just different enough, but not TOO different. The parallels between the two miniseries are great, as if the writer followed the original as a template. Instead of a cattle drive, they drive wild horses. Instead of Blue Duck, they must face Cherokee Jack. Charming ladies' man Gideon Walker takes the place of both Gus McCrae and Jake Spoon. Agostina is the new Newt (even though Newt is still around). Everything about the miniseries feels mildly derivative.
And yet, it works. The original miniseries was so strong, that even this imitation manages to be rousing good entertainment. Sure, it is not as deeply moving as the original, but it is great fun. It also has a thrust, a forward motion, that Streets of Laredo lacks.
One great asset of the miniseries is its cast. Jon Voight and Barbara Hershey ably take over the roles originally created by Tommy Lee Jones and Anjelica Houston. Hershey especially brings added warmth to Clara Allen. Rick Schroder and many of the ranch hands continue their roles from Lonesome Dove, although the role that the Hat Creek Boys play in this miniseries is diminished somewhat.
The performances of the other newcomers are also fine. William Peterson's easygoing charm lights up the screen. Reese Witherspoon brings her usual sunny good nature to her role. Louis Gossett, Jr. is also a welcome addition. The true revelation, however, is Nia Peeples. As written, Agostina is not the most well thought out character, but Peeples gives an electrifying performance
The miniseries is spread over two DVDs. Not much thought went into the making of these DVDs, however. The miniseries is divided into chapters. An insert in the keepcase lists the chapter names. According to the insert, disc two begins with chapter thirty, but of course this is only useful if the viewer plans on using the scene selection screen. Those who instead choose to simply skip ahead using their remote will have to figure out how the actual DVD chapters correspond with those listed in the insert (i.e. chapter one according to the DVD player correlates with chapter 30 on the insert). Someone also made the rather odd decision to delete all of the interior opening and closing credits. At the start of the miniseries, a title proclaims that we are watching "Part 1 - The Vision," but since all of the other credits have been purged, there is never a part two, three, or four. Sure, this is not an earth-shattering flaw, but even the most devoted Lonesome Dove fan will probably not choose to watch all five and a half hours of this miniseries in one sitting. By leaving in the closing and opening credits, the producers of the DVD would have provided natural stopping points for viewers.
