Sorry to revive an old thread, but I just watched this series on DVD.
My thoughts are similar to everyone elses. I hated the Clunes (especially Gordon and the two teenage girls) with the fire of a thousand suns. Back in Malibu, Gordon thinks mowing the lawn is a good family bonding activity? And he is one of those people that can’t take any sort of criticism. If he didn’t work for a family business, would he ever have risen to a position of authority? To say some nice things, it looked like Adrienne was a great baker and the two boys didn’t seem to bad.
I liked the Glenns initially, but Mrs. Glenn was a bitch and Mr. Glenn was too much of a wimp to do anything about it. The kids were great–I really enjoyed seeing Erin getting into the spirit of things (and I thought it was great that Rawhide said that she was by far the best animal caretaker) and thought the son did a good job with the chickens and pig. Too bad it wasn’t made so clear to them that they were for eating.
Like everyone else, the Brooks family was the best. Mark, his father, and his brother were such nice men, and it was cool to see 3 strong men that weren’t afraid of being caught a bit verklempt. When Mark was crying when it was time to leave, I could totally understand–not only did he build everything by hand with his dad and brother, but he was leaving the first home he and his wife had as a married couple. I don’t think I saw his wife enough to get any sort of impression from her, but I loved seeing her and Mark working and playing together. “The hills are alive” bit cracked me up.
There was one thing that threw me off–according to the Homestead Act, the land had to be “improved” (i.e. buildings and cultivation) each year. IIRC, a certain acreage had to be broken and planted. How were the Brooks, with no horses or oxen, supposed to do that. Or the Clunes, with just 1 horse?
A few weeks ago, my public television affiliate aired “Pioneer Quest,” a CBC program that took 2 Canadian couples and had them live like pioneers for a year. I won’t comment on it too much, but I thought it was interesting to see them live a winter out there. They definitely were cutting firewood all the time. They had to cheat a bit, because the draft horses started losing lots of weight (they lived outside all winter and they hay they harvested wasn’t nutritious enough) so they were allowed to be given high-protein hay from their neighbors.