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[Tom]

trailer

But it can't just be a straight-up Western. No, it needs to have a twist. Here Anson Mount stars as the world's sexiest Confederate soldier who ends up working on the Transcontinental Railroad while trying to avenge his wife by killing the Union soldiers who killed her. See, here the Confederates are the heroes. Way to deliver something both world-weary critics and conservatives still fighting the War of Northern Aggression will both love. Anyway, the show looks promising—for a western.

So, forum hivemind, what do we think?

[KvP]

Basically Outlaw Josey Wales: The Series.

I just want Deadwood back.

[TheFuriousWombat]

looks good!

[Blyss]

Meh, not really interested.

[David_Dovey]

Basically Outlaw Josey Wales: The Series.

Or non-space Firefly

[KvP]

With even more overt War of Northern Aggression themes!

[SilentJ]

Kinda interesting, I think.  I like the idea of a guy joining the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad as a means of finding his wife's killers.  The show looks like it's taking a pretty realistic approach to portraying Manifest Destiny as it actually was, and not the jingoistic banter I've gotten from some of the history textbooks I've had to study.  I think the majority of what a saw looks promising.

However, there's one big thing that's nagging at me.  The parts of the trailer showing people talking about how dangerous the building of the railroad will be and how "blood will be spilled," with cuts of explosions in between, is making me nervous.  I realize it could just be terrible editing for the sake of making a trailer, but in the event it's not, I think that could ruin the show for me.  I'm aware that any construction work back in those times was dangerous work, building a railroad particularly so, but I got a somewhat different vibe from those scenes, like the workers had to constantly be on their guard from attacks.  Maybe it's just me, but that seems like just too much.

I hope I'm overthinking things, because if the show is made as historically accurate as possible while still following the soldier's story the whole time, I think it could turn out pretty good.

[TheFuriousWombat]

Building the transcontinental railroad was not only extremely dangerous and involved (literally) tons of explosions/explosives to pull off but there actually were competing interests that led to violent conflict along the lines. Moreover building the railroad coincided/was directly linked to Indian removal projects which also cause a good deal of violence and tension. That's not to mention the fact that violence between workers was also hardly rare. I would guess that the show might amp up the action a bit but it's a big mistake to think of the construction of the transcontinental railroad as a more or less peaceful affair and to be disappointed with a violent looking show about the subject as a result.

[SilentJ]

Building the transcontinental railroad was not only extremely dangerous and involved (literally) tons of explosions/explosives to pull off but there actually were competing interests that led to violent conflict along the lines. Moreover building the railroad coincided/was directly linked to Indian removal projects which also cause a good deal of violence and tension. That's not to mention the fact that violence between workers was also hardly rare. I would guess that the show might amp up the action a bit but it's a big mistake to think of the construction of the transcontinental railroad as a more or less peaceful affair and to be disappointed with a violent looking show about the subject as a result.

You make some good points that I admit I overlooked.  I really hope you're right here, because playing it straight historically could lead to some riveting television.  I don't quite know how to put it into words, but the things that bothered me just seemed pretty... Hollywood, I guess.