Texas Rising

The History Channel (#Notquitehistorychannel) has been trumpeting this mini series for a couple months.  Last night it made it's debut.  As a proud Texian and history buff I had put this on my 'must watch' list.  Everyone knows my passion for Texas and I have had several ask if I had plans to watch and even  a text to let me know it was on. It's a great story to read about even without a TV series to enhance the appeal.  Why they thought changing it with falsehoods would make it better escapes my feeble mind. 

My first doubt crept in when that guy they picked to play General Sam showed up in a few commercials.  I wasn't really impressed much at that time with who they chose, but would withhold judgment until the actual show.  It starts right away with the Alamo already fallen and the aftermath of that.  Did you know there was a male survivor?  No?  I didn't either, but the History Channel put one in their show, there was a male survivor but he was a noncombatant.  Jim Bowie's slave.  But it wasn't him.  They actually executed a black combatant in this show.  The Yellow Rose was there also and survived, yet I don't recall ever reading anything about Ms. Emily being there.  She and Susanna Dickinson and a couple other ladies that survived the Alamo also got attacked by Comanche's as Mexican troops ferried them to who knows where.  I hadn't heard or read about any of that either and we are just 20 minutes into the show.  There are many more details they omitted or changed to suit them that I won't list here.  Kim is being very quiet at this point as she is listening to me and sometimes chuckling.  She knows how bent I get about inaccurate history, but to do that to the Texas story is almost as bad as changing what is says in the Bible to me.  Sacrilege. 

Other things I just couldn't get past was the set itself.  There is nothing where these 'true' events happened that even remotely resembled these locations.  The costuming seemed off to me.  I am not an expert about that sort of thing, but most of the hats looked wrong, the rifles/muskets looked wrong.  I also don't think anyone of the Texian army had uniforms at that time unless they had an American uniform.  Also their idea of what a Texas Ranger at that time was, was way off also which is where this is  supposed to lead, into the history of the Texas Rangers.  And the acting.  Oh my the acting.  Maybe it was the goofy script/dialogue that caused the acting to seem so bad.  The acting was painful to watch.

I gave it a chance, I really did.  I so wanted this to be good, on the order of the Lonesome Dove series good, and that was fiction but resembled the Charles Goodnight story closer than this Texas Rising monstrosity did.  I was determined to sit through at least the entire first 2 hour show.  Nope, didn't make it.  I just couldn't stand it any longer.  Glad I didn't watch their Bible series last year.  I may have had a heart attack.

Now we will have more people that use TV as their guide to history believing some sort of new garbage.  This series was taken from a book by the same name, that is supposed to be a true account of this period of Texas.  I had it on my wish list.  The show has left such a bad taste in my mouth, I am not sure I will ever read it now. 

Don't waste your time with this, do something else.  If you want a really good book to read about this period of Texas history I can recommend one and another that encompasses a longer time frame of Texas history.  Hit me up if you're so inclined.

Happy Trails