Real wild west documentary full biography

American TV series

This article is about the television series. For other uses, see Wild Wild West (disambiguation).

The Wild Wild West is an American Western, spy, and science fiction television series that ran on the CBS television network for four seasons from September 17, , to April 11, Two satiricalcomedytelevision film sequels were made with the original stars in and and the series was adapted for a theatrical film in

Developed at a time when the television Western was losing ground to the spy genre, this show was conceived by its creator, Michael Garrison, as "James Bond on horseback." Set during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant (–), the series followed Secret Service agents James West (Robert Conrad) and Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) as they foiled the plans of megalomaniacal villains to take over part or all of the United States, protected the President, and solved crimes. The show featured a number of fantasy elements, such as the technologically advanced devices used by the agents and their adversaries. The combination of the Victorian era time-frame and the use of Vernean technology has led several steampunk web sites to cite the show as a pioneering influence on the genre. This aspect was accentuated even more in the film adaptation.

Despite high ratings, the series was cancelled near the end of its fourth season as a concession to Congress over television violence.

Concept

The Wild Wild West told the story of two Secret Service agents: the fearless and handsome James West (played by Robert Conrad), and Artemus Gordon (played by Ross Martin), a brilliant gadgeteer and master of disguise. Their mission was to protect President Ulysses S. Grant and the United States from all manner of dangerous threats. The agents traveled in luxury aboard their own train, the Wanderer, equipped with everythi

documentary series

Wild Wild Country is a Netflix documentary series about the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), his one-time personal assistant Ma Anand Sheela, and their community of followers in the Rajneeshpuram community located in Wasco County, Oregon, US. It was released on Netflix on March 16, , after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. The title of the series is drawn from the Bill Callahan song "Drover", which features prominently in the final episode, and it also echoes the comments of Jane Stork ("Ma Shanti Bhadra") about first seeing the ranch, shown at the beginning of episode 2: "it was just so wild, so rugged, but vast—really wild country". The series received positive reviews from critics and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.

Episodes

Reception

Critical reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 46 critical responses and judged 98% of them to be positive, with an average rating of out of The website's critical consensus reads, "Wild Wild Country succeeds as an intriguing examination of a forgotten piece of American history that must be seen to be believed."Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 79 out of , based on 8 critics, indicating generally favorable reviews.

Sam Wollaston of The Guardian praised Wild Wild Country, giving it a 5 out of 5, stating that "It doesn’t matter how well you know the Rajneeshpuram story – you won’t have seen or heard it told as thoroughly as this". Nick Allen of wrote "by handling this story so intelligently and by opening its heart to a very complicated idea of good and evil, Wild Wild Country has a profound, mesmerizing power itself". Robert Lloyd of Los Angeles Times asserts that "The greater point of t

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The adage comes from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, made by John Ford, the undisputed master of a genre that plays with the disparity between American myth and reality like no other. The new four-part Curiosity Stream docuseries The Real Wild West tries its own hand at this task, dutifully highlighting stories and figures that have traditionally received short shrift from Hollywood and other purveyors of pop culture. Black cowboys, fearless madams, conquistadors, the Trail of Tears, the depletion of the buffalo, Alta California. This is an earnest accounting of the West that didn’t make it into most John Wayne movies. It is largely a series of slaughters and land-grabs that reminds us the West was won often through ugly, bloody measures taken against those who were already there.

It’s a handsome production, with cinematography that situates its subjects in wide-open spaces and captures the sweat and excitement of, for instance, a Black rodeo, one of many events included to demonstrate that, while the frontier has long been closed, the West is still very much alive. It incorporates highly qualified experts, from university professors to a very enthusiastic, wide-eyed gold prospector still infused with the spirt of ’ It delves into areas that we might not immediately associate with the West – for instance, the region’s significance in the Civil War, when Confederate troops marched into New Mexico as part of the mission to preserve and expand slavery. It shows a knack for breaking the well-worn down to colloquial essentials. The Lewis and Clark Expedition, undertaken in the aftermath of the Louisiana Purchase, is characterized as an answer to a very basic question: What did Thomas Jefferson just pay for? This is solid popular history, engaging and wide-ranging, worth a look for anyone interest