Why ‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’ Isn’t a Spinoff of ‘1883,’ According to Creator Chad Feehan
Preview
Lawmen: Bass Reeves is not a spinoff of 1883, but it had the chance to be.
The Paramount+ anthology series, premiering Sunday, November 5, stars David Oyelowo as the legendary Bass Reeves, the first Black deputy marshal in the United States who’s said to have inspired The Lone Ranger. The eight-episode season is set from “roughly 1862 to 1877,” creator, executive producer, and showrunner Chad Feehan tells TV Insider. Feehan was “given the opportunity” to connect Bass Reeves to Taylor Sheridan‘s Yellowstone universe but chose not to. Here, Feehan explains why.
Viewers will see lots of similarities between Bass Reeves and Sheridan’s hit western shows. In addition to having Sheridan as an executive producer (star Oyelowo, who has been trying to get this story told for close to a decade, also executive produces), the Bass Reeves title sequence looks a lot like 1883 and 1923‘s and they have Yellowstone actor Mo Brings Plenty in the cast and as a cultural consultant (he did the same for 1923).
Bass Reeves begins during the Civil War and features multiple time jumps as it tracks Reeves’ escape from slavery, his time living among Native Americans, his family life, his first forays into law enforcement, and more. Connecting Bass Reeves to 1883 just didn’t make narrative sense for this tale, according to Feehan.
“There was conversations about a tie into 1883 before I was hired, and when I was hired I was given the freedom to craft the most compelling story that I could alongside the other writers,” Feehan says. “I was given the opportunity, if there was a place to tie it to 1883, that was OK, but there was no obligation to do so. And so, we landed where we landed, which was our story takes place from roughly 1862 to 1877. And Bass primarily operates in [Native American] territory, which is modern day Oklahoma and Fort Smith, Arkansas. And so it didn’t feel natural or organic to bring in any of the 1883 characters to the story.”
In real life, Reeves died in January 1910, but Bass Reeves‘ story ends around 1877. That timeline “was a product of the breadth that we had to work with [in] eight hours,” Feehan explains. “It was also driven by crafting, again, the most compelling narrative with these similar moments of his life.”
“There are certainly stories that are left on the bone that I would love to tell in the future, and that may be a possibility,” he goes on, implying his apparent interest in more Bass Reeves seasons. “I don’t know. But again, it was servicing the character and the legacy and the story, and that’s where we ended up.”
Lawmen: Bass Reeves also stars Lauren E. Banks as Jennie Reeves, Demi Singleton as Sally Reeves, Donald Sutherland as Judge Parker, Dennis Quaid as Sherrill Lynn, Shea Whigham as George Reeves, Forrest Goodluck as Billy Crow, and Barry Pepper as Esau Pierce. Episodes will come out weekly. In addition to Oyelowo, Sheridan, and Feehan, it’s executive produced by David C. Glasser, Jessica Oyelowo, David Permut, Christina Alexandra Voros, Ron Burkle, Bob Yari, and David Hutkin.
Lawmen: Bass Reeves is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios, 101 Studios, Sheridan’s Bosque Ranch Productions, and Oyelowo’s Yoruba Saxon and is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution outside of Paramount+ international markets.
Lawmen: Bass Reeves, Series Premiere, Sunday, November 5, Paramount+
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