STRANGE EMPIRE – created by Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik – (SPOILERS) ⁓

Rebecca, Kat, and Isabelle – The Three Amigas

In 1869 Captain Slotter (Aaron Poole) and his wife Isabelle (Tattiawana Jones) are trying to run a coal mine near the Alberta/Montana border. Slotter has enough men to mine the coal, but needs women to keep them happy. His solution is to ambush travelers, kill the men (blaming the attack on indigenous people), and coerce the newly-created widows into prostitution. Fittingly, Slotter (who is in the running for least likeable character in television history) ends up with a female sheriff, a female doctor, and many disgruntled women, only a few of whom have joined his whorehouse.

Isabelle and Fiona’s mother (Anne Marie DeLuise) — DeLuise won a 2015 Leo Award for her performance as Mrs. Briggs.

Characters are named in whimsical fashion. Slaughtering people is what John Slotter does, and his name is a different way of spelling that. There is a gunfighter named Kat Loving (Cara Gee). She’s a mostly non-lethal, philosophical gunfighter who may or may not love cats, but her outfit always brings Yul Brynner to mind. (Or maybe it’s just the way Gee carries herself.) After losing her husband, Kat embarks (in episode 5) on a mushroom-fueled spirit-quest that is beautiful and hard to forget.

Then there is Rebecca Blithely (Melissa Farman), a medical doctor with a blithe approach to everything she does. (This is not a criticism. Doctor Rebecca is a fascinating character and the best reason for watching the show.) In what might be the most memorable scene of the series, she declares (to Kat Loving) in an outburst of skepticism: “I am no believer” after her impious curiosity is rewarded with violence from her husband.

Dr. Blithely and Morgan Finn

Dr. Blithely is in many ways a mysterious character. She seems very well read, but is curiously surprised and intrigued by the effects of electricity on muscles. One wonders how she could possibly be unaware of Galvani’s experiments some 80 years previous. And it takes her a surprisingly long time to realize that her boyfriend Morgan Finn (Joanne Boland) was assigned female at birth.

There is virtually no cussing in STRANGE EMPIRE, and the animated opening sequence by Ryan Kane is a lovely Orphan-Black-style animation featuring a gun that morphs into rose petals. The music behind the intro is pleasant, though less than catchy. While the show lacks the sort of hook usually found in genre TV, it portrays its historical period from the point of view of exploited minorities, and that is unique.

Michelle Creber as Kelly and Matreya Scarrwener as her sister Robin.– These two also co-star in Ann Forry’s 2020 thriller SHALL WE PLAY?

Contrast this with the 2004 American western Deadwood, which tried to convey a realistic old west by using the f-word a lot, so much so that one remembers little else about the story. (The West Virginia Surf Report counted, and found that, in the show’s three seasons and 36 episodes, the f-word was used 2,980 times — a rate of 1.56 utterances per minute of air time).

Though Slotter’s wife Isabelle might at times seem villainous, the practical decisions she is forced to make reveal her true nature. Slotter’s household staff is led by Ruby (Marci T House), a freed slave who chose for practical reasons to remain employed by her former master. Pragmatism seems to rule the lives of the women in this story, but it is the impractical Fiona Briggs (Ali Liebert), who, urged on by her friend Miss Logan (Christie Burke) submits fictionalized accounts of events to a newspaper, catalyzing the demise of Captain Slotter.

Miss Logan and Fiona

“It’s not Sir John A. [Macdonald]’s history,” the show’s creator, Laurie Finstad Knizhnik explained to interviewer Melissa Hank. “It’s the history of the people who were actually in that part of the west.” She went on to explain that a second season would take place: “…over the 15 years between Louis Riel leaving Red River and going to Montana and [then] going back.” Sadly, the show did not get a second season.