My Critical Take On The New Wyatt Earp And The Cowboy War Docudrama

 September 24, 2024

   Finished watching all six episodes of Wyatt Earp And The Cowboy War on Netflix last night and I had two realizations and a couple questions.

My critical take on the Netflix docudrama

The Big Realization

   Ultimately I realized how critical and judgmental I have become about the history I know and love, and the second is, well, I'll get to the more life changing realization in a minute.

   Was the costuming spotty? Yes. Ike Clanton's 1972 Bull-Rider-Flying-Taco hat is the worst hat in a portrayal of an 1880s Western I have seen since the Three Stooges Go West. Were there historical mistakes? Absolutely, and some of them were fictions by omission. Where was Johnny Ringo? And where was Wyatt's wife, Mattie? Was she left out to soften the criticism of Wyatt having an affair with Johnny Behan's live-in girlfriend? And don't get me started on the Arizona Ranger Super Posse at the end where we see Rangers from the 1903 era showing up in the events of the 1880s. This would be like showing a Navy Seal Team on Normandy Beach.

Arizona Rangers at Morenci, 1903

   I emailed one of my favorite Tombstone historians and asked him what he thought of the new show. Jeff Morey said he hadn't seen it, but he told me he thought the David Wolper production on "Appointment With Destiny" was the best documentary on the events surrounding the O.K. fight ever done. That took me back.

   I remember a certain kid who saw "Appointment With Destiny: Showdown at The O.K. Corral" when it first came out in 1974 and it changed the direction of his life. He was living in Tucson and after the show aired, this kid immediately made his way to Tombstone to see where it all happened and he made a vow to put out a graphic novel on the affair in time for the 1881 centennial. He failed to meet that deadline, but he did get to meet the historical consultant on the documentary, John D. Gilchriese who opened a Wyatt Earp Museum in Tombstone the same year of the Destiny doc.

   Eventually the kid did publish his graphic novel in 1993 and he sent one to Gilchriese and several of his history cronies and this is what John said: "There's a mistake on every page." 

   Needless to say, the kid was taken aback by the rejection.

   For your viewing pleasure, here's the show:

"Appointment With Destiny: Showdown at The O.K. Corral"

   The Wolper show is now fifty years ago. It wasn't perfect either, but it did ignite more than one kid's imagination and interest to study what really happened in Tombstone. And in the last half century, me and many other Boomer kids have done just that. And some of the best of those "kids" were on the show. Casey Tefertiller, John Boessenecker, Paul Andrew Hutton, Jeff Guinn and Mark Lee Gardner did us all proud. What they said was so right on it's kind of shocking how the rest of the show went off the rails so fast. Here's why:

   When solid history meets creative storytelling, something has to give. There's an old Texan saying: "If you can't improve on a story, you have no business retelling it in the first place." The "kids" who made Wyatt Earp And The Cowboy War felt like they were reimagining the myth and they wanted to tell their version of the epic tale, and so they have.

O.K. Troubles vs. O.K. Blessings

   I refuse to respond like the petty historians who scolded me, rebuffed me and tried to cancel me. Bravo for the show and I hope it reaches a whole new generation of kids who love our history just like that kid in Tucson, who of course, was me.

"The ultimate revenge is to not be like your enemies."

—Marcus Aurelius