Justified

When I was a young child one of the few times we were allowed to stay up past eight o'clock was to watch the programme 'Maverick' with James Garner as Maverick. My father loved westerns. He loved reading about the American West, he loved watching movies about the west and he loved watching TV programmes set in the 1800s in the west. With most programmes he would pass judgment so that we soon learned that Hogan's Heroes was, according to him, a work of appalling fiction that only an idiot would believe came close to reality. My mother liked the programme and was quite happy to ignore his comments as she watched Colonel Klink go about his day. Other TV shows came in for equal criticism but those, like Bonanza, that had a cowboy theme were allowed to get away with inaccuracies. I never asked him why he liked the period as much as he did. I think it was because he grew up in a period when young boys could go off hunting and fishing on their own with a rifle, salt, tea, sugar, flour and a few utensils without having parents panic about where they were and what they were doing. He enjoyed being alone in the bush. He loved the solitude of open spaces. Like the cowboys and others portrayed by the western he was taciturn, independent and liked to spend hours on his own. Being outdoors was as necessary to him as oxygen. The portrayal of the early period of western settlement was the period in history when, I think, he saw himself as having missed.

My daughters do not enjoy westerns. They loath westerns. They would rather listen to me discussing ancient history then watch a western. A ten mile walk in 110 F is preferable to watching fifteen minutes of a western. How this happened I have no idea. It is not as if we forced them to watch westerns as children. We did not spend weekends watching westerns with them bound and gagged in a chair. They just do not like the genre. I am hoping the love of westerns has skipped a generation. If I catch even a glint in Brandon or Clara's eyes when we one day suggest watching a western the curse of western loathing will be lifted and the planets will align.

"The Unforgiven" is a great movie and it has been said that with it the western as a genre was done. I beg to differ. The western continues in various forms and still seems to be able to capture the attention of an audience who wants something more than courtroom drama (of the melo variety) and people lusting after each other whilst dressed in blue surgical gowns. My favourite of the moment is "Justified". In it the sheriff of Deadwood (Timothy Olyphant) takes on a new role in the form of a US Marshal who is sent back to Kentucky after killing a drug lord. Once in Kentucky he reconnects with the people and places that he knew as a boy and young man. The scripts ring true, the characters are multidimensional, the landscape is part of the story and the violence is not of the Spartacus variety but it is sudden and intense with an edge to it that makes the viewer hold their breath. It is a much better series than "Blue Blood" with an earnest Tom Selleck as the patriarch of a family committed to law and order. It is grittier than "In Plain Sight" and manages to be one of those series that like Maverick I can not wait to watch each week. The series makes me think that there might be hope for adult audiences who want to be able to watch something that is far removed from their own lives but has characters with whom one can connect and even when they are dark have patches of gray, and in some cases even pale white. You can not watch it and dash off to the kitchen to make a cuppa. You have to actually pay attention and if you are dragged kicking and screaming from the room for four minutes you have to rewind instead of knowing immediately what is happening because Dr. MacLust is still gazing into the eyes of Dr. WhoGivesADamn being watched by Nurse OhMyGodAgain while the patient in the corner has a disease that was last documented in 1743 in a remote corner of Yorkshire. The actors act rather than prance around. They are all part of an ensemble that work because the stories are held together by excellent writing from writers who know their craft and are permitted the luxury of using their talents.

So on a Wednesday evening don't phone, don't e-mail, don't twitter, don't fall asleep before you have settled down with a cup of what every pleases you and have spent an hour in the company of the people of Justified. You can thank me later.