Kevin Costner’s The West is an eight-part docuseries hosted and narrator by the Yellowstone star, who is an executive producer along with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The series takes an honest look at the westward expansion of the United States, including the vicious battles settlers, militia and US soldiers had with Indigenous tribes who were simply trying to hold on to the land that they had occupied for thousands of years
Opening Shot: Kevin Costner looks at the camera while standing in a field and says, “What do we think of when we think of the West?”
The Gist The first episode starts with the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War in 1783, with the British ceding land all the way to the Mississippi River to the young United States. While George Washington and other government officials encouraged settlers to purchase land from the Native tribes who occupied those territories, and figured the Natives would convert their agricultural systems to how the colonists did it, other settlers just took land, whether it belonged to them or not.
There was a push into Northwest Territory, which is what is now Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and parts of Minnesota. Chief Little Turtle of the Miami nation knew that strength in numbers would help the Natives defend their land, and managed to get the tribes in the region to form a confederacy to fight settlers, militia and the US military.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ken Burns had a docuseries called The West, and Kevin Costner recently had a docuseries called Yellowstone To Yosemite with Kevin Costner.
Our Take: We’re not sure why, but we were surprised that the first episode of Kevin Costner’s The West took as much time as it did to examine what Chief Little Turtle and the Northwest confederacy of Native tribes did to combat the encroaching settlers from the new United States. It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, though, given the fact that both Costner and Goodwin have taken more balanced approaches to westward expansion in their previous projects. But there’s a degree of nuance in this first episode that we didn’t expect.
Many of the experts that the show’s producers talk to are from Indigenous tribes in the region, and they have the perspective that their ancestors had, that their land was being taken from them by white settlers and they fiercely defended it. There were battles where US forces got routed, mainly because of the fact that they tried to fight the tribal forces like they did the British during the Revolutionary War, and the Natives were best at hand-to-hand combat. When troops were trained on using bayonets, though, the balance of power shifted.
But it’s not like the Natives were disorganized, as the episode points out. Thanks to Little Turtle and other visionary leaders like him, they made strides against the US via their confederacy. It’s one of the rare times that the Natives’ defense of their land was seen as something more than individual nations being overmatched by US forces.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Costner talks to the camera about the Louisiana Purchase, and how that gave explorers, settlers and soldiers were “seeking their fortunes in a foreign land, and marching west with bloody footsteps.”
Sleeper Star: The reenactments, usually a bane of our existence when it comes to series like this, were well done, mainly because they supported the interviews with the experts instead of overwhelm them, so kudos to the producers and directors of those segments.
Most Pilot-y Line: We will say this: As compelling an actor as Costner can be, he’s not the most emotive narrator. He’s not exactly monotone, but the rhythms he employs during his narration didn’t really vary much, which at times caused our attention to waver.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Kevin Costner’s The West isn’t the usual retelling of the United States’ western expansion, because it takes the viewpoint that the US settlers were treading on an already-occupied land. But it definitely finds the nuance of both sides of the country’s push westward.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.