When I was a child I can remember my grandmother being beside herself trying to get supper finished and all the dishes done before Lonesome Dove came on. She was as addicted to the miniseries as she was Dallas and that is saying a lot for a person whose favorite shirt said, “I shot J.R.”.

Lonesome Dove was based on the Pulitzer Prize Novel by Larry McMurtry. The western themed miniseries aired in February of 1989 and an estimated 26,000 homes tuned in. It doesn’t seem like much by today’s standards, but, for a western, at that time, it was huge. The miniseries had much acclaim, gaining 18 Emmy nominations and seven wins. It also won two Golden Globes and was deemed the Program of the Year by the National Television Critics Association.

The miniseries tells the story of Captain Augustus “Gus” McCrae and Captain Woodrow F.

Call, two ex-Texas Rangers who run a stable called the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium. Lonesome Dove is the small Texas town the stable was located in. The two best friends decide to run a herd of cattle to Montana, because of the beautiful description of the state by an old friend who is on the run. The Group encounters all kinds of adventure along the way including murders, thieves, Indians and bad weather.

Lonesome Dove has a laundry list of famous people who landed parts in the series including Robert Duvall as Gus, Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow, Danny Glover, Rick Schroder, D.B. Sweeney, Diane Lane, Angelica Houston and Chris Cooper.

It even had a TV spin–off series, Lonesome Dove: The Series. Later the title was changed to Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years and the series ran from 1994 to 1996 and had 43 episodes. Lonesome Dove is available on DVD and Blu-ray. The Blu-ray release was in August of 2008, months before the 20^th anniversary of the series first airing.