We binged American Primeval yesterday and while it had its good moments, it left a bad taste in our mouths. Yes, spoilers ahead, but also understand some of the show is loosely, very loosely, based on actual history, one of them a key event I incorporated in my own work of fiction.

The show has a couple of storylines which do not interact with each. A woman and child on the run from the law who get aided by a reclusive mountain man on a nebulous mission to link up with the boy’s father on the other side of the Wasatch. And the battle over land between Mormons, Native Americans, the US Government and, in a good role, Jim Bridger.

People have remarked on how brutal the show is, but the interesting thing is their faint recreation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (they refer to it only as the “Meadows Massacre”) is not anywhere near as brutal as the actual event. The real event was indeed a massacre, when emigrants who had surrendered to the Mormons and were guaranteed safe passage, were slaughtered. Here they go down fighting. Sort of. It seems no one, not a wagon train, not the US Army, not people on the run, ever thinks of posting guards.

I used the Mountain Meadows Massacre as one of the storylines in my Time Patrol book, Nine-Eleven, having it occur on 11 September 1857, which is the day the actual massacre took place after a couple of days of negotiation and standoff.

As far as I know there was no massacre of US Troops by Mormons. The ultimate result of the massacre in history was years later, after the distraction of the Civil War, the Mormons gave up one man as a scapegoat and he was executed.

Anyway, it’s fiction. Back to the story. There were several logic inconsistencies that felt like editing mistakes. Things were cut and then we were left with stuff that didn’t make sense. Like the party tracking the woman and kid suddenly increasing in size. The wolves busting into the cabin but leaving the horses alone?

The wound recovery in this show put modern medicine to shame. I’ve had ingrown toenails that hobbled me more than arrow and gunshot wounds in this show. Compound fracture of the leg that goes gangrenous? Just stick a hot knife on it. What? That kid was walking like no problem a day after getting it set. The mountain man’s two wounds disappeared after a poultice is applied. Toes are chopped off with a shovel and the guys not even limping the next day. And on and on.

There was also the constantly shifting terrain. I know one story took place on the high plains and the other in the Wasatch Mountains, but it was snowing, not snowing. Day in one scene, night in the next, day in the next all on the same day sort of?  In one scene, I swear the road to a convenient cabin was plowed. I’ve parachuted into the Wasatch in January on Winter Warfare training with 10th Special Forces and I kept shaking my head as I watched them supposedly go through it.

The bad taste? Frankly, the ending sucked. In one storyline everyone dies. I mean everyone. Except Jim Bridger. And the history around him was a bit flaky too. In the other storyline instead of a HEA we got a half-HEA while everyone kind of sucks. There was no need to kill off the Taylor Kitsch character.

Overall, it felt like an attempt to capture Larry McMurtry’s west, which is brutal and hard and unforgiving, without the character and story touch of his genius. I didn’t really care about any of the characters. Pretty much everyone, except Jim Bridger (played very well by Shea Whigham), made stupid moves. There were several good scenes, some great dialogue at times through the series and if the ending had worked, it would have been acceptable.

There was also a message that resonated about faith and hope and religion that could have really worked. It was just undercut by not giving the viewer character pay-off. Death is not a good pay-off.