Wendy Chang

As a huge fan of the CJ Box books I was so excited about this series and as a fan I believe they dropped the ball hard on this series. The source material was there for the taking and they ruined it. The biggest problem? The casting. The acting was awful and the choices of actors was also terrible Joe Pickett is the main character and a wooden Michael Dorman is no way engaging in this role. In the books he is just a regular guy trying to do what is right and in the show he's a troubled abuse victim played very one-note, with no emotion and no reason to like him or cheer for him. The changing of blond haired blue eyed Nate Romanowski and Vern Dunnegan to black men? The first one is an affront because of how central the character is in the books and how clear the vision most readers have of him is and he is not made likeable in this show either. The second is bad because I cant believe comedy actor David Alan Grier as an serious old cowboy. Please don't take this as racism, as a visible minority myself who lived in exactly this area of Wyoming I can tell you with first hand experience that the most diverse person in this area was ME. No one else. There was no knitting circle in town with a gay person, a black person and a brown person. The problem with the push for diversity in roles is that it makes the show less believable and it's clear to me that the believability of the show was less important to the casting director than equal opportunity casting. It takes you out of the show because it just seems fake. I will stick to the second season just to see what they do with it out of my love of the books but I will suffer through the horrible acting and not wonder why this show was not renewed. I imagine if you didn't have any preconceived ideas based on knowing the books this show might be more enjoyable. I'm so sad at how much potential this show had to be good and how disappointing it was.