Kristine Sutherland

Much like getting hooked on a TV show, it’s easy to become addicted to a favorite author. They don’t come much more different than Wild West chronicler Larry McMurtry and the 19th century’s droll Jane Austen, each returning to TV this week.

McMurtry’s epic Western Lonesome Dove ranks among the all-time greatest TV miniseries, but with the six-hour prequel Comanche Moon, he and CBS have dipped into this mythic well once too often. Perilously poky and sometimes just plain hokey, this sloppy and scattershot yarn finds Gus and Woodrow, the Dove characters immortalized in their twilight years by Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, as young and restless Texas Rangers. Steve Zahn is scrappy fun as gabby Gus, but Karl Urban is a dud as the sullen, scowling Woodrow.

Through most of the meandering story, our heroes bicker, banter and woo the womenfolk they will ultimately disappoint. Meanwhile, they track clichéd foes: murderous, horse-thieving Comanche and a sadistic Mexican bandit who has captured their eccentric Yankee captain (Val Kilmer, a goofy hoot). Playing Kilmer’s spoiled wife, Rachel Griffiths swans around Austin like an overripe vixen from a trashy John Jakes potboiler. It’s simply embarrassing.

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Comanche Moon premieres Sunday, Jan. 13, and also airs Jan. 15 - Jan. 16, at 9 pm/ET on CBS.