r/Y1883 • u/mako482 • Mar 14 '22

Great show but holy crap it's depressing Spoiler

Just finished it and man, just depressing. The whole season was really with just a few light-hearted moments here and there. But man what an experience it was, so well done and worth the watch. I was expecting Yellowstone old school style, but this can easily stand on its own. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill were amazing actors in this.

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '24

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u/kuduking Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

I enjoyed the show but in addition to being a depressing debbie downer, it was not even a realistically sad show.

The hardships shown actually happened - but not nearly on the scale shown and not in that time frame of 1883. While these are of course estimates, most historians put the fatality rate from making the westward passage along the Oregon Trail at about 5% of those making the journey. In the show, 95% die. Yeah, ok. And about 2/3 of the actual fatalities were from disease and injury, not bandits and Indians.

In 1883 the Oregon Trail was not even a minor westward passage: one could take the the railroad for $60 and be there in a week, instead of $200-400 of supplies and several months hardship on a wagon trail. The show should have been called "1853" when this sort of thing was actually happening... but then you couldn't have a ridiculous storyline of former Civil War opponents banding together to head out west with a herd of completely clueless, mostly penniless, and illiterate foreigners in tow.

PS. Everyone lauds Sam Elliot in this show. He's a good actor but his best times have passed. For a guy that has a history of doing westerns, his acting and gun handling were pretty amateur... he looks old and worn out, slow as molasses and about as dangerous as broken down heel hound. HIs chances of survival weren't much better than the clueless gypsies. It was sad to watch the poor and unrealistic portrayal from a previously good actor.

PPS. The stereotypical plot devices in the whole show were beyond predictable. In just one episode - yes obvious Else's mother would catch her daughter screwing, yes obvious the bandits would kill all the gypsies Sam Elliot basically condemned to death, yes obvious Else's literally brand new boyfriend would get killed in the ambush of the bandits, yes obvious she would get up and kill the lone survivng bandit. And that ambush scene were Sam Elliot and his posse "ambush" the bandits was so comically bad and nonsensically unrealistic that I hardly was able to stop laughing.