The History Channel's Hatfields & McCoys is no play on word but rather the real deal. Broadcast over three nights, starting Memorial Day, and including stars such as Kevin Costner (William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield) and Bill Paxton (Randall “Old Ranel” McCoy), we get to learn much more about two families that have always been a throw-away term rather than a piece of history. The History Channel sets up the story this way:
It’s the true American story of a legendary family feud—one that spanned decades and nearly launched a war between Kentucky and West Virginia...It chronicles a clash of clans that inspired passion, vengeance, courage, sacrifice, crimes and accusations, while forever transforming the two families and the region they lived in. The Hatfield-McCoy saga begins with Devil Anse Hatfield (Costner) and Randall McCoy (Paxton). Close friends and comrades until near the end of the Civil War, they return to their neighboring homes—Hatfield in West Virginia, McCoy just across the Tug River border in Kentucky—to increasing tensions, misunderstandings and resentments that soon explode into all-out warfare between their families. As hostilities grow, friends, neighbors and outside forces join the fight, bringing the two states to the brink of another civil war.
The trailer for the show is what you would expect, with gunfire, scalping, burning homes, women with shotguns, and more. Oddly enough, due to budget issues, the setting in Romania rather than Kentucky and West Virginia. Costner was ready for a solid American tale, bloody or not, as retold by The Hollywood Reporter:
From the first page I started reading and understanding and I got lodged completely in the story," he said. "I was thrilled with the history of our country. Even when it borders on being embarrassing or violent or shameful, I'm still thrilled with the story of our country and the Hatfields and McCoys are part of that DNA."
We shall see if we are similarly thrilled.
The second program from BBC America, Copper, does not premiere until August 19th. Set in 1860s New York City, it tells the story of Kevin Corcoran and two other veterans from the Civil War as they solve crimes together in the famous Five Points neighborhood. This British program is being filmed in a Toronto former auto parts factory rather than NYC or even the good ole USA. What's up with all this filming outside the states? This is BBC America's first original program and could be the start of many more should it do well. Show creator Tom Fantana provided more information in a LA Times interview:
"Despite the fact that the show takes place in the 1860s," says show runner Tom Fontana, "it will have a very contemporary feel. We are still dealing with the same issues they were then — everything from racism to poverty, immigration, love, death, insanity,post-traumatic stress disorder." Clothes and accents are different, he says, but we're still blessed and cursed with human nature.
I just hope this is not another set up for a cop show with a different spin. We have seen enough of this with Awake and other recent shows. Stay tuned.
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