MovieChat Forums > Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years (1996) Discussion > Why did it end the way it did?

Why did it end the way it did?

posted 12 years ago by standrkm
3 replies | jump to latest

All the way up to episode 17 where Mattie gets shot was pure awesomeness but then the show turns into pure suck. Why is this?By pure suck I mean the show literally shoots itself in the head. It just destroys itself without a hope and a prayer. I have never seen a show do what this show does, it's crazy!! You can't just have the lead character get shot in the back while the second lead character who is in love with her is left standing over her with tears in his eyes and then have the next episode have absolutely nothing to do with what just happened! Mattie wasn't even in the following episode and Call is out banging prostitutes!! Are you kidding me?! SHENANIGANS!!!

Then after that in each episode 2 or 3 main characters at a time are missing. They just vanish into thin air, their whereabouts....who knows. It seems the show ran out of money or something or maybe they ran the best episodes first and everything ended up in the wrong order. Fox did this with firefly and that show got canceled because of it. Although each episode of that was just as good as the next and it didn't fall completely on it's face at the end.

I did notice that Mattie did have pinkish colored hair at different times in the show so maybe they did run the episodes in a different order. Maybe they ran the love quarrel (which there should have been more of) between mattie and newt when the ratings were hurting the most in some desperate attempt to save the show and ended up with the crappiest ones at the end? Who knows (maybe my lazy butt should google it) the last episode was a good finale but a horrible way to end the show. But lonesome dove series and miniseries do pop up every once in a while and maybe it'll be back.

"the day I tried to live, I learned that I was alive"

[–] LDfan13 12 years ago

They filmed all the episodes well in advance but the syndicators ran them out of order which is why characters disappear and reappear at will. Terrible for continuity. :( There were definite plans for a third season, but the syndicators bailed and a plan to bring it to Showtime Cable fell through.

[–] standrkm 12 years ago

I've noticed shows usually always fail when that happens, it's pretty much inevitable, probably intentional, they did that to firefly, ran the like 5th episode first because some genius at fox though it was more exciting although the first episode explained everything the viewer needed to know, it's very unfortunate because that show had the most authentic feel I've ever seen in a western

"the day I tried to live, I learned that I was alive"

[–] LDfan13 12 years ago

Fox used to have a history of sticking with shows, but once they got to be successful in the mid 90's they cancelled everything at the drop of a hat.

All we know about a season three is that Luther was going to start out to be the new sheriff. But I think (and so do others closely associated with the show) that Call would have ended up being the sheriff. That may have been the message of the very last scene.