Posts by Gino Sassani

Three-time widower Ben Cartwright  (Greene) runs his famous Ponderosa Ranch with the aid of his three grown sons from three different mothers. There’s Little Joe (Landon), Adam (Roberts) and Hoss (Blocker). Set some time in the mid 1800’s, this long-running series followed the family’s many exploits. In the late 1950’s, westerns accounted for six of the top ten programs on TV. Only Gunsmoke had a longer run than Bonanza. From 1959 to 1973, Ben Cartwright and his boys rode across the small screen. Years later in syndication the series re-emerged as Ponderosa, and a handful of TV movies continued the tale into the 90’s.We never have grown tired of the genre that gave us such heroes as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.

Unlike many of the 1960's Western television shows, Bonanza was all about the characters. You rarely saw a gunfight. There was often a bit of fisticuffs, but usually it ended with a lesson that violence never pays. The show prided itself on using the Western genre to deliver a family kind of show, and it's no surprise that series star Michael Landon would use many of the same kinds of stories and lessons on his own Little House On The Prairie. The Cartwrights are always helping widows, the wrongly accused, and the local Indian population. That help often lands them in hot water.

Until recently DirecTV's Audience Network was a home for critically-acclaimed shows that somehow lost their feet on another network. It started with Friday Night Lights and more recently Damages. So DirecTV was no stranger to original series production. Now for the very first time the satellite carrier and network have developed their own television series. Rogue would be the first show on the network not to have played somewhere else first. The effort is a collaboration with eOne and Greenhouse Entertainment. From the first ten episodes of the first season, you can bet it's a pretty wild ride and a relatively strong start.

Grace Travis (Newton) is taking a break from undercover work. If you saw season one, you can understand why. If you haven't, you can certainly watch this season. It's stand-alone enough to have everything you need. You will get a lot more out of the story by starting with the first season. Now Grace is part of an FBI task force. The head of the task force is Elliott (Evans). Of course, he's not revealing the true nature of the operation. It appears to be a prostitution sting, but there's a lot more going on with the powers that be. His second in command is Marlene (Roth). She has had a shaky past and is on her last strike with the FBI. The two have also had a romantic past that could get in the way. Grace is the handler for an undercover agent, Sarah (Palladino). In the season's first episode she is sent into a dangerous situation and ends up missing after a frantic cell message for help and a bloody crime scene left behind with the investigation subject dead.

"I have doubts about my sanity, the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, but this..."

No doubt about it. Major Crimes has managed to do what few shows before it have been able to pull off. Shows have survived the loss of their lead, but the remaining years were usually something lesser than it once was. That's not the case when The Closer lost its lead actress/character. The title was changed, and with just a few cast tweaks the series returned as Major Crimes, and I dare say it’s a much better show than its predecessor.