Because for the most part I have no use for modern C+W, I wouldn't have given this a second look if not for Trace Adkins' appearance on Real Time and Maher falling all over himself with praise. But to be honest, we barely made it through the opening credits before it was clear that it was going to be a sanitized, cookie-cutter, Hallmark-worthy torture session whose every moment made me want to watch the Righteous Gemstones instead. Maybe I shouldn't even be writing this; there's probably some unstated rule about how much of something you actually have to see before dismissing it as junk and putting on something else.
We know that Susan Sarandon still has it - she rocked Ray Donovan. So unless the age ceiling for Hollywood actresses that we keep hearing about has suddenly come down on her hard, I can't for the life of me figure out why she'd sign on to this turkey. Or maybe the producers, desperate to attach the name of an actual "serious actor" (rather than just an array of Nashville twangers), made her an offer she couldn't refuse.
In the end, it doesn't matter why. It has been seen and cannot be unseen. And if it goes on to earn praise from country music fans, it will, as a point of reference, tell you much more about them than about Monarch.
