Christian Kane

Mild, Mild West

If size and sprawl were all, Into the West (premiering Friday, June 10, at 8 pm/ET on TNT) might qualify as one of the best TV Westerns ever made. Instead, it feels like every TV Western ever made. (And Lonesome Dove remains the best.)

There’s a "been there, rode that" quality to this handsome miniseries, which packages a 12-hour story into six weekly chapters. The narrative alternates between the wheel-making Wheelers, who hail from Virginia - wheels are a mighty metaphor - and the beleaguered Lakota tribe, who revere a symbolic wheel of life.

So much ground is covered, from gold rush to railroad to Little Big Horn, and often in such a familiar fashion, that the result can be both hurried and tedious. Still, it’s easy enough to get caught up in the flow, if not with the paper-thin characters.

Unlike HBO’s Deadwood, so full of vulgar grit and dastardly wit, Into the West takes a glossy Hallmark approach to the pioneer spirit and its impact on Native American culture. Most of the main characters, if not too good to be true, are too good to be truly interesting. There’s plenty of violence, sudden tragedy and bitter irony, but these pawns of history lack complexity, so their living and dying rarely resonate.

Of the three nights available for review, the best is the second (June 17), a wagon train episode, with a flamboyant guest turn by Beau Bridges as the ill-fated caravan’s blustery leader, and the ever-radiant Keri Russell as a Wheeler who learns to love the Cheyenne.

Despite its shortcomings, West represents a type of TV - expansive and visually dynamic - that’s all too rare. I’ll be surprised if it’s not a hit.