“Godless” -- The Top 25 Programs of 2017, No. 14

Westerns have never done much for me on television or in the movies.  I appreciate the fact that they comprise a subset of filmed entertainment that is an uniquely American art form.  I admire John Ford’s body of work and I agree with film critics everywhere that his 1956 masterpiece The Searchers (starring John Wayne and Natalie Wood) is one of the finest and most deeply layered movies ever made.  I have fond memories of watching Gunsmoke and Bonanza as a child.  (The vivid color palate on Bonanza, featuring hues not seen in real life, is as mesmerizing as that of Green Acres.)  But, given the choice of virtually anything else to watch over a western, though, and I will go with it.  It was true then and it true today.  Which makes my enthusiasm for Netflix’s Godless all the more interesting, at least to me.