Each week, I take a look back at a pilot from the 2010-11 season, first reviewed on my blog during that season. This week, I am looking at Fox's very short-lived Lone Star!
The Details:
Premiered: September 20, 2010 on Fox
Starring: James Wolk, Adrianne Palicki, Eloise Mumford, David Keith, Mark Deklin, Bryce Johnson and Jon Voight
Created by: Kyle Killen
What I Thought Then:
"The plot line is strong and it pulls the viewer in right away when it shows in the opening scene that Bob is living a double life."
"The show has a lot of tangled webs right now that it will be able to work with but if it were to last awhile, it seem like it would be hard to sustain over a number of years."
"The characters were well-defined and it will be particularly interesting to see the character development of the women and the brothers in the weeks ahead... if it makes it that long."
"Wolk is instantly likable... from the first scene, it's clear that he was a good choice to play someone charming enough to deceive everyone."
What Others Said:
"The fall's best and most original drama taps a gusher of intrigue and twisty romance." - Matt Roush, TV Guide
"As it poses existential questions, the show benefits from the casting choice of newcomer Wolk and a supple, low-key naturalism in both performances and direction." - Lesley Smith, PopMatters
"There's exactly one hour left for a fall TV show that tells its tale in a deliberate, well-written and subtly acted way. That one hour belongs to Fox's Lone Star." - Hank Stuever, Washington Post
"Lone Star has enormous potential to be a complicated, tightrope-walking tale of two lives. Or it could just implode." - Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle
"Lone Star centers on a con man who lives a double life - with two beautiful women - and is so full of plot holes you could drive a motorcade through it with a parade of elephants behind." - Mark A. Perigard, Boston Herald
What I Think Now:
I've been looking forward to re-watching this pilot since I decided to start this project of revisiting pilots. This show is one of TV's great "what ifs." I had not watched this pilot in the 15 years since I first reviewed it and it definitely holds up. It is a very compelling drama that sets up the series many great stories and characters. The problem was it was a prestige drama masquerading as a network drama. If only this show had waited 5-10 years. It could have definitely thrived as a streaming drama that does 8-10 episodes every season. But it was never going to fly as a network drama. Heck, it could have probably been an awards player on something like FX or AMC even then. Network dramas were at least a bit more ambitious in 2010 than they are now, but this was still too far off the beaten path even then. That's not to say it wasn't accessible. It was just the nature of the story they wanted to tell. James Wolk was charming in the lead role and the pilot did a great job of setting up both of his worlds and the characters in each of them. I was impressed with how little exposition was needed and how the show effectively gave us all the information we needed. The only thing I bumped a little bit against watching it back was how much the show hit us over the head with how conflicted Wolk was about his father (Keith David). But that was a small complaint.
What Happened to the Show:
Lone Star was an infamous flop. The 2010-11 season was met with a collective shrug by most critics aside from cable offerings like Boardwalk Empire and Terriers. But Lone Star was the exception. It received strong reviews by broadcast drama standards (73 on Metacritic) but pretty much everyone acknowledged in said reviews that it would be a tough sell on Fox on Monday nights. There was still some hope that it would do enough for Fox to nurture the show but then it arrived DOA. The show premiered to 4.1 million viewers and a 1.3 demo. While those numbers would make a network giddy today, that was not the case in 2010. It was one of the worst demo performances ever for a debut at the time and it was a dead show walking the second those ratings came in. Fox aired it for one more week where it dropped to a 1.0 demo and then it was promptly cancelled, the first cancellation of the 2010-11 season. The rest of the filmed episodes never saw the light of day. Kyle Killen had another couple intriguing dramas that didn't live to see a second season with 2012's Awake and 2014's Mind Games. He was then involved with the first season of Halo on Paramount+. Despite seemingly being made for the streaming environment, he hasn't done much in that arena.
Final Episode: September 27, 2010
Episode Count: 2 + 5 unaired
Where to Watch: Nothing official but the first two episodes can be found on YouTube.
I'm excited to be contributing to The TV Ratings Guide! You can read my regular work in my weekly newsletter at Benjamonster's TV!
