Lone Star TV Show Review

So last week I received an email from Klout offering me a preview package to watch a pilot of the new show Lone Star on the FOX network. In exchange they included this message.

  • If you accept the offer you are not required to do anything. We do not want to "buy" your tweets. You are receiving the product because you are influential and have authority on topics related to the product. This is a more targeted form of receiving a sample while shopping at the grocery store. You are welcome to tell the world you love the product, you hate the product or say nothing at all.

How could I refuse? Well I guess I could and I guess a lot of people might. The truth is that taking some sort of gift often does make people feel like they owe something. In my case I feel like I owe them actually watching the show and giving a review. I don’t feel I owe them a favorable review. Which is good because I didn’t much like the show. I loved the goodie box though. So a review they get.

I don’t like con artists. Oh sure there are lots of con  game shows on TV I do like. I’ll watch Leverage anytime its own and it is largely a con game show. The difference is that the bad guys get conned in the shows I like and the main character is coning good people. Now this is a story of a man, Bob Allen, changing his heart and mind about his line of work. If it focuses on his trying to go straight in future episodes, and it looks like that is the goal, I might get to like the show. The character of his father though is truly hateful to me and that is a drawback. The man is so sold on conning people as being the right way to live that he insists on his son staying on the broad and crooked.

John Vought is down right scary as the oil magnate father of the main character’s first wife. There is some ambiguity about him. Is he evil or just tough? He’s clearly no nonsense and a bit of tension is always going to be there in this show about what would happen if he learns the truth about his son in law. And of course he has a son who is out to get Bob Allen since his father put him in charge of the oil company. And a second son is likely to have torn loyalties because Bob Allen as the new CEO is running with some of the projects the younger son has been suggesting over the years but getting shot down about. Family drama ala Dallas.

Oh and Bob Allen wants to keep things going with his girl friend who lives in a town where he has been coming lots of people out of their money. Yep, a girl friend and a wife. IS this guy totally crazy? He thinks he is in love with both. Possible? I guess we’ll see.

The women in the show, the wife and girl friend, are the two characters I do like. They are both in love and seem to be supportive of their man. They seem honest and good. Seems a shame they got mixed up with this guy.

I may watch another episode to see where it goes. Pilots can be a hard thing to base a show on because there is so much set up going on. So if you like shows about criminals trying to go straight or con artists give Lone Star a try and maybe a second episode. If there is a limit to how much tension you like in a show (and there is for me) you may want to give this one a pass. Either way it starts tonight on FOX.

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