The Peacemakers is one of those rare television pleasures; a program whose producers went to great pains to develop an environment that was just about as close to the real thing as you can get. Each everyday item and situation seem to be fine tuned for producing a reality straight out of the Old West era, right on the edge of the Age of Oil. The viewer can literally get lost in the details while savoring how each frame is composed. But, somehow, things get a bit bogged down. This is not a perfect production. Unfortunately, and probably the reason for its short lifespan, the deep overall story of the characters becomes murky, and the audience may be somewhat expectant of those strong character relationships that, disappointingly, never quite seem to develop as the series goes on. We are also asked to believe that unlikely situations and murder are the norm in this small town. Although it is quite satisfying to see characters of intelligence using current technologies and psychology to solve a crime, perhaps the progression of everyday life and the laboratory time should have been more intermixed with lasting human drama. The portrayals are somewhat flat, and the slow pace of life of Victorian America might have been sped up a bit to retain the interest of the audience. Many viewers in the present day expect more action from a western genre, and perhaps that is not a bad thing. The producers seemed timid when it came to staging a flat out scene of action. The colors were washed toward sepia in order to place a final touch to the period feel of the piece, however, color adds a certain feel of immediacy to the stage, and might have brightened the production somewhat. For those who really appreciate a nice deep bath of historical truth, I cannot recommend a more carefully crafted nine part mini-series. You will come to appreciate these characters, and wish they had been given time to develop more fully into a real and intriguing community.
Review of Peacemakers
