Just a few years ago, the TV miniseries seemed headed the way of the dodo bird, a victim of restless audiences and shrinking network budgets.But the format has experienced a comeback on cable. The Cecil B. DeMille of this surprising revival is Steven Spielberg, who has produced expensive and expansive miniseries for HBO (Band of Brothers) and the Sci Fi Channel (Taken).
Now Spielberg’s most ambitious TV project yet, Into the West, is coming to TNT. The 12-hour, $50 million saga will unfold over six Fridays, starting tomorrow and ending July 22. Multiple rebroadcasts are thrown in for good measure.
A sprawling, multigenerational drama spanning the years 1825 to 1890, it recounts the great Western migration through the stories of two families — one settler, one Native American — and the ways they clash and coalesce over the decades.
Along the way, the characters participate in a remarkable range of historical events: gold rushes, the building of the transcontinental railroad, the founding of the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, the Sand Creek Massacre, Little Big Horn, and Wounded Knee.
The mini employs the proverbial cast of thousands, including Tom Berenger, Will Patton, Keri Russell, Josh Brolin, Gary Busey, Wes Studi, Matthew Settle and Irene Bedard. The actors and extras were outnumbered only by buffalo during six months of shooting in Calgary, Alberta, and New Mexico.
"Stepping onto the set and seeing the scale at which this story is being told, it took me out of myself," says Tyler Christopher, the General Hospital actor who is part Choctaw and part Seneca. In Into the West, he plays the half-white, half-Lakota Jacob Wheeler Jr., who becomes a scout for Gen. Custer.
"It’s not a history lesson; it’s how these events affected these people’s lives," says Simon Wincer, one of the series’ six directors. He was responsible for the second episode, "Manifest Destiny."
"We begin to understand why natives attacked wagon trains, stuff we’ve only been told about in a Hollywood way before," Wincer added. "It’s quite revisionist but it doesn’t take sides."
Into the West goes to enormous lengths to re-create period detail, especially the culture of the Plains Indians.
Zahn McClarnon, a Hunkapapa Sioux who plays Running Fox, a Lakota, recalls: "When we went up to rehearsals (in Calgary) in August, I walked into a gymnasium full of bulletin boards covered with information about Native American lodging, clothing, ceremonies, history."
Throughout Into the West, the native characters speak in authentic tribal dialect that is translated in subtitles. Mastering the languages entailed considerable work for the cast.
McClarnon, for instance, studied with Charlie White Buffalo to learn a historically correct version of Lakota.
"He made sure we were accurate down to the last syllable. I’m talking about even guttural sounds," McClarnon says.
Of course, such a painstaking duplication of period detail doesn’t come cheap. TNT shelled out $50 million to make Into the West, and that investment shows up on the screen.
"For the railroad scenes, they shipped up all these incredible antique trains from South Dakota," says Rachael Leigh Cook, who plays Clara Wheeler. "I couldn’t wrap my mind around that."
Incredibly, TNT has since spent $50 million more to promote the miniseries, including movie-house promos and incessant ads during the channel’s NBA playoff games.
