Longmire (Seasons 1 - 2)
When I log into Netflix, there is usually a banner suggestion for some new movie or show for me to watch. one might assume the suggestion stems from my viewing habits. While I'm on the fence about software tracking my preferences and trying to pigeon-hole me, you have to appreciate if they're making the effort.
The promo for Longmire just showed a guy in a long coat and cowboy hat carrying a rifle with a backdrop of wide-open countryside. I had no idea what the show was about, and wondered if the suggestion came from my watching Wynonna Earp. (Had I thought about it, I would've realized that it couldn't have -- I was using someone else's account when I binged Season 1.)
The Longmire of the title is a sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming, and the show is based on the Walt Longmire Mysteries, which I've never heard of. However, there were six seasons of the show, which means it was popular enough to keep making them, and hopefully have good quality episodes for more than half of that.
The show also answered the question, "So what ever happened to Starbuck after Battlestar: Galactica went off the air?" Katee Sackhoff appears as Vic, one of Walt Longmire's deputies. Adding to its "sci-fi cred" (not that it needs it), Lou Diamond Phillips costars as Henry Standing Bear, the Cheyenne owner of the Red Pony (whom you might remember from Stargate Universe or a hundred other things).
I've enjoyed the simple episodic nature of the first two seasons, and even though there's an election coming, they don't rush to get there. This could come from the fact that the show started on basic cable -- which makes me reach from my remote every time it hits the points where the commercial breaks used to be.
Some of the ongoing drama is generated by the fact that Walt seemed ready to hang it up after the death of his wife a year before the series opens, so Branch, one of other deputies, starts his campaign for Sheriff, which doesn't sit well with Walt.
If there was one weak point, it's the writing for the final deputy, Ferg (or "the Ferg") who appears to be a rookie and overgrown Boy Scout, and who isn't given enough to do or enough respect, frankly.
If there's a second weak point, it's the Sheriff worrying about something that happened in Denver that seems to be haunting him, and making the viewer wonder if Walt isn't the upstanding moral character we're led to believe that he is.
A quick review of Robert Taylor's filmography tells me that he's been around for a long time, but if I've ever seen him, it was in a random bit part. In any case, I'm enjoying his performance so far and look forward to season three. I just hope that the season two cliffhanger doesn't take an entire season to resolve and doesn't unravel what I like about the show.
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