Review of Lawmen: Bass Reeves

As a lifelong TV and movie Western fan, I'm still amazed at the fact that I never heard of Bass Reeves until the Bill O'Reilly series 'Legends and Lies' offered an entry on the frontier lawman. That episode took a questionable tack, suggesting that Reeves might have been the inspiration for The Lone Ranger. Though there may have been similarities between the fictional character and the historical one, I can't buy the premise that one followed the other. This series does present elements of Bass Reeves' career as a Deputy U. S. Marshal, sworn to the post by the legendary Judge Isaac Parker for the western district of Arkansas, which had jurisdiction over the Indian Territory. Of the events portrayed in this series, Reeves' shooting of his camp cook in Episode #7 for letting a prisoner escape was made to look intentional, while the O'Reilly program stated it was an accident. Either way, Reeves was found not guilty of murder by Judge Parker, allowing him to resume his livelihood. One in fact that was legendary, and in no way touched upon in this series. Over the course of his career, it's estimated that Bass Reeves arrested over three thousand criminals, and killed a total of fourteen men. Given the scope of his career as a lawman, I thought more could have been done with this production, a fact that may offer hope for a second season, although it looked by the way this one ended that Reeves was ready to hang up his guns and become a family man full time.