TV GUIDE: Weekend TV: Reviewing Teen Wolf, Longmire; Plus Thrones Finale
Jun 1, 2012
by Matt Roush
... THE LAWMAN: Think Jesse Stone in a cowboy hat (instead of a ball cap), and you've got a pretty good handle on A&E's Longmire (Sunday, 10/9c). Like Jesse, the character of laconic Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire was introduced in a series of novels (by Craig Johnson). Like Jesse, Walt is not an early adapter to cell phones — much to the chagrin of anyone who needs him in a crisis. Like Jesse, Walt is gravely stoic. "Thinkin'. I do that sometimes before I talk," he tells his excitable Philly sidekick (Katee Sackhoff). Like Jesse, Walt is something of a loner, and also lonely, having lost his wife a year ago. As the series begins, he's only just getting back to work, where an upstart deputy (Bailey Chase) has decided now's the time to run against him for election. Walt is played with grave, gruff dignity by Aussie actor Robert Taylor, whose melancholy sensitivity is such that he's not afraid to let a tear drop on his boot when notifying the kin of the latest victim.
There's nothing terribly groundbreaking about Longmire as he and his team wrangle with the local, resentful Native-American community in the course of solving mildly puzzling but often violent crimes. But it is satisfying in its own low-key way, a solid companion piece to the laid-back charms of The Glades, which kicks off its third season Sunday at 9/8c. And having Walt Longmire around may ease the blow for those upset by CBS' recent decision to pull the plug on any future Jesse Stone movies. (I can't help wonder, though, if the networks aren't having second thoughts about their abandonment of the movie/miniseries format after this week's blockbuster performance of History's Hatfields & McCoys — which repeats in its entirety Saturday, starting at 6/5c.)
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