Season 3 of HELL ON WHEELS is on hold for the moment,
because there’s no engineer in the locomotive.
While the show was renewed by AMC for a ten episode third season, the
contracts of creators/writers/producers Joe and Tony Gayton have not been
renewed. There is some talk that they
may be back to consult.
John Shiban, a writer and producer who made his bones on
X-FILES, and this season wrote four HELL ON WHEELS episodes, and exec produced
the entire season, was announced as show-runner, but less than a week later
bowed out. AMC notes that all of their
series renewals are conditioned on their approval of the show-runner, so the
start will be delayed unless and until a suitable replacement is found. Stand by for details as they become
available.
NEWS ON SEMI-WESTERNS BRIGHTER
There are no such problems for the nearly-westerns that have proliferated around the dial. JUSTIFIED returns to FX with season four on
Tuesday, January 17th. LONGMIRE will be back on A&E next year for
a second season. COPPER will be coming
back to BBC America with an expanded season two – thirteen episodes instead of
ten. There was talk of a possible
HATFIELDS & MCCOYS II, but it’s unlikely, since everyone’s dead.
TWO NEW ‘WESTERN INTEREST’ SHOWS ON THE HORIZON
‘GHOST TOWN GOLD’
There are two new series heading our way which, while not
technically Westerns, should be of interest to many Western fans. One of them, GHOST TOWN GOLD, actually
premiered on Discovery Channel this past Thursday, and will play for five more
Thursdays. It’s a reality show of the
Pawn/Storage/Pickers/Diggers variety, following a pair of ‘present-day
explorers,’ Brit Eaton and Scott Glaves, as they travel the Old West, hunting
through ghost town in search of treasure.
If you’ve watched this genre of show, you know they run the
gamut from the highly entertaining to the painfully forced. My one ‘negative’ about this kind of show is
that I’ve known enough people who’ve worked on them to know that when not
enough great stuff is found in the storage locker or brought to the hock shop,
great stuff is planted. This often gives
the unsophisticated viewer the impression that striking it rich is much easier
than it is. I would hate to see such a
show lead to ghost towns being plundered.
‘WASHINGTON
NBC is developing a drama about the life of our first
president based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times bestseller WASHINGTON
GEORGE WASHINGTON, as the project is currently titled, is to
be scripted by David Seidler, who earned an Oscar last year for his excellent
THE KING’S SPEECH screenplay. Other producers involved are Gareth Neame of DOWNTON ABBEY,
Jason Sosnoff and Tom Fontana.
Apparently it’s
not going to be about chopping down cherry trees. Seidler says, "There's George Washington
the national icon, gazing out from the dollar bill with his mouthful of
supposedly wooden teeth, and then there's the George Washington who had an
adulterous affair with his best friend's wife.
The George Washington obsessed with social status, finely tailored
clothes, his image. Not an icon, a very human human being, who learned how to
lead. That’s the man I want to understand.”
Levinson concurs,
“What’s so interesting is here was a man who was more instrumental to what our
country is today and more famous than any other figure in our history, and yet
no one knows anything about him. We know the myth of the man, but the reality
was he was a flawed and troubled character who overcame his flaws to become one
of the foremost leaders of this nation.”
Recalling the tremendous success of the JOHN ADAMS miniseries a couple
of seasons back, this could be a big one.
SPOOK SHOWS
UTILIZE ‘PIONEER CEMETERY
The Pioneer Cemetery
in Sylmar is the second oldest cemetery in the San
Fernando Valley . A victim
of neglect and vandalism in the 1960s and 1970s, it’s now managed by the San
Fernando Valley Historical Society, and fixing it up has been an on-going
project. (If you didn’t read my piece
about the SFVHS last July, you can read it HERE .)
Happily, the
cemetery has recently been filmed twice for a pair of reality spook shows, MY
GHOST STORY, which runs on Biography, and a new series, GHOST GIRLS, which
premieres in January. Amazingly, GHOST
GIRLS is a production of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, which was
D. W. Griffith’s old outfit! The MY
GHOST STORY segment will air the day after Thanksgiving, November 23rd. They’re running two episodes in a row, and I
don’t know which it is, but you may want to check it out on Biography.
6TH L.A.
Today was the
final day of the L.A. Skins Fest, which highlights Native American
Filmmakers. More than 100 films have
been featured in their programs since the event began. A mix of features and shorts, dramas,
comedies and documentaries were screened.
Saturday afternoon’s student films program was hosted by Zahn McClarnon,
one of the stars of LONGMIRE. A program
later that day featured films from the Skins Film Workshop in Agadir ,
Morocco by members of the
Amazigh, an Indigenous tribe of North Africa .
from the Native American in Film program
The program I
attended this afternoon featured a wide range of short films. Among the most effective were a pair of
comedies, EAGLE FALLS
from RED GIRL'S REASONING
TCM FANATIC - WESTERN NOW ONLINE!
And speaking of TCM (okay, nobody was), have I mentioned that the segment I was interviewed for is now viewable here?
THE
Built by cowboy actor, singer, baseball and TV entrepreneur Gene Autry, and designed by the Disney Imagineering team, the Autry is a world-class museum housing a fascinating collection of items related to the fact, fiction, film, history and art of the American West. In addition to their permanent galleries (to which new items are frequently added), they have temporary shows. The Autry has many special programs every week -- sometimes several in a day. To check their daily calendar, CLICK HERE. And they always have gold panning for kids every weekend. For directions, hours, admission prices, and all other information, CLICK HERE.
Across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, this building, once the headquarters of Lasky-Famous Players (later Paramount Pictures) was the original DeMille Barn, where Cecil B. DeMille made the first
This small but entertaining museum gives a detailed history of Wells Fargo when the name suggested stage-coaches rather than ATMS. There’s a historically accurate reproduction of an agent’s office, an original Concord Coach, and other historical displays. Open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Admission is free. 213-253-7166.
WESTERN ALL OVER THE DIAL
INSP’s SADDLE-UP SATURDAY features a block of rarely-seen classics THE VIRGINIAN and HIGH CHAPARRAL, along with BONANZA and THE BIG VALLEY. On weekdays they’re showing LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, BIG VALLEY, HIGH CHAPARRAL and DR. QUINN, MEDICINE WOMAN.
ME-TV’s Saturday line-up includes BRANDED, THE REBEL and THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT. On weekdays it’s DANIEL BOONE, GUNSMOKE, BONANZA, BIG VALLEY, WILD WILD WEST, and THE RIFLEMAN.
RFD-TV, the channel whose president bought Trigger and Bullet at auction, have a special love for Roy Rogers. They show an episode of The Roy Rogers Show on Sunday mornings, a Roy Rogers movie on Tuesday mornings, and repeat them during the week.
WHT-TV has a weekday afternoon line-up that’s perfect for kids, featuring LASSIE, THE ROY ROGERS SHOW and THE LONE RANGER.
TV-LAND angered viewers by dropping GUNSMOKE, but now it’s back every weekday, along with BONANZA.
That’s it for another Round-up! Happy Thanksgiving! Does anyone know of any good
Thanksgiving-themed Westerns? It seems
to me that there must be a few, but I’m coming up empty. If you can think of any, shoot us a line!
Happy Trails, and hope you get a drumstick,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright November 2012 by Henry C.
Parke – All Rights Reserved
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