Kevin Costner's the West

Was hoping this would truly be a historical look about the West but No we can't do that, we have to Hollywood it up with their nonsense. Shame as this could have been an awesome series.

Why not focus on the hardships (droughts, dust storms, famines, diseases) that people had to endure? Nope we've got to virtue signal about how The West was settled.

Kevin Costner unfortunately has been ate up with everything that is bad with pretty much everything coming out of Hollywood now. If you've ever heard him off camera, he's absolutely clueless and in the end doesn't at all care about this great country!

I had been expecting the premiere of this series, mainly because of Kevin Costner's role in producing it. Sadly to say, I couldn't keep watching the first episode because I caught myself wishing that the narration shifted to the experts' comments or some action. I'm sorry to say it, but Costner's narration was lifeless, boring, no passion or anything. That made the whole thing dull, monotonous. Another thing was that it lacked acting. Too many pictures, too much narration and too little acting. I may give it another chance because the story was interesting and perhaps the whole thing improved after the 20 minutes I saw. Otherwise, I wouldn't stand it.

Yaaaawn. Kevin Costner must have been paid to just put his name in the title. His introductions to each "lesson" (episode) are

For a history series such as this is to work the host should inspire interest in the audience through impassionated oration. Excitement. A clear sense of interest. Costner conveys none of the above.

In point of fact, it seems completely the opposite. Hands in pockets. Monotonous tone of voice. A sense of just passing the time & being done with his lines ASAP. Boredom.

The end result is a docu series that is over before it even started. When Costner has finished speaking, the audience has already stopped listening, agreeing with the boredom of their host. And so it goes that, when the next "expert" begins to speak we are either sleepy, sleeping or completely disinterested.

I did watch all of episode 1 but fell asleep within the first 5-10 minutes. Highly recommend if you need a little nap.

I tuned in because of Costner's participation and history. Unfortunately his performance is sluggish, monotone, and he doesn't seem at all interested in this production. Often staring into space, he looks like a bored sixth grader reading a book report. Sad, because the content would be a lot more entertaining without him. Always enjoyed his movies if not his acting, but this one is really bad.

As for the documentary, though a bit slow paced, it's entertaining and informative. Worth watching. Nice visuals...nice piece of history. I confess, however, that my irritation with Costner's efforts will probably preclude any further interest on my part.

Bad news for Kevin Costner it takes a lot more than briefly appearing in a Ken Burns documentary to know how to make an interesting doc. Movie. Aside from any possible financial investment Costner may have made he does not come across remotely interested in the topic. Instead of a craftily constructed script that breaths life into history Costner instead reads from one of those dusty history books with all the dread that most high schoolers feel about their history class. It does provide some mild humour listening to Costner struggle with pronunciations of first nation place names like the way he mispronounced Kekionga 3 different ways. I couldn't make it to the end of the first episode voluntarily. I can only imagine the only audience that watches this series in its entirety are Junior High Schoolers who have been forcibly locked in a classroom and made to watch it.