Favorite Things Friday - Lonesome Dove....

Don't laugh. My favorite television series OF ALL TIME is Lonesome Dove.

I'm not a huge television watcher. Perhaps I've always found it difficult to sit still that long. Unless it's a football game. Or basketball game. Or gymnastics meet that I not only attended in person but I've watched a trillion times already. But whatever.

In a previous wifetime, my ex started talking about some western series that was coming on. I wasn't interested for a variety of reasons. #1 - I hated anything he liked. #2 - I wasn't fond of westerns.

But we only had the one television, so after I f-i-n-a-l-l-y got the kitchen cleaned up, I sat down to read or something mindless while the television droned on in the background. That was the first night.

The second night, I FLEW through post-supper clean-up so I could watch every last second of the masterpiece.

Well, masterpiece might be a little strong. But with a superb cast, wonderful writing, breath-taking scenery, and a captivating story line, it might not be far off the mark. Even the musical score was wonderful.

I had more than a slight crush on Gus, played by Robert Duvall. It is no accident that our dog's name is Gus. that way if I call out his name in my sleep, I won't get in nearly as much trouble.

Tommy Lee Jones played Captain Woodrow Call. If we ever get another dog, his name will be Woodrow, and we'll call him Woody.

Unless he happens to be black, in which case his name will be Deets.

We also had a dog named Newt, who was also a character in the series, played by Ricky Schroeder. He may have just been Rick by then, I'm not sure. He was the son of one of the town... uh... "sporting" ladies, and Gus claimed that Captain Call was Newt's father.

There was a very brief spin-off series with a grown-up Newt who became a bad-ass, and Hubby loved that series. It wasn't played by Ricky/Rick Schroeder, though, so I wasn't as enthralled. I like stories that keep the same actors in the sequels.

Jon Voigt replaced Tommy Lee Jones in Return to Lonesome Dove, and a beautiful young actress I had never seen before played in the sequel. It was only years later that I realized that character had been played by what had to be a very, very, very young Reese Witherspoon.

Gus didn't have to be replaced in the sequel, since he died in the first one. I watch Lonesome Dove every time it comes on (that Hubby will allow me to), and every single time I cry when Gus dies. Hubby says, "He's gonna die EVERY TIME you watch it."

Robert Urich played the part of Jake Spoon, a lovable, lazy gambler and womanizer who is too easily led down the wrong path and must pay the ultimate price.

I don't usually read a book AFTER I've seen the movie, but I did read this one, and there were parts of the movie that were word-for-word from the text of the book. I like that in a movie. The only obvious editing was because it was hard to compress an 833-page book, even into an 8-hour mini-series. I don't usually read book reviews, either, and one that I read AFTER I had finished the book summed up my feelings exactly. It said something along the lines of, "I've never been so angry with an author as I was with Larry McMurtry for stopping after a mere 833 pages." Or however many pages the book had.

Hubby and I are convinced McMurtry had someone else write Lonesome Dove for him, because we've read tried to read other books by the same author, and they're downright painful. If he DIDN'T have someone else write it, he used up all his creativity on that one book and couldn't replicate the quality. Ever again.

I don't have this mini-series on DVD, but it's one I would watch again and again if I did.