Godless holds up well across 7 episodes

The 7-part Netflix series Godless is entertaining right through to the end - and it truly does seem like the end, rather than an entree to a expected season 2 - in fact the only dud was the first episode, which introduced a welter of characters and plot elements and was hard to follow; I definitely would watch at least through episode 2 before deciding whether to go on. On some level it's just a typical shoot-em Western with gunslingers galore (Jeff Daniels playing a particularly weird and complex one) and a lot of frontier life in and around the saloons and the corrals of the post Civil War SW, but there are some "modern" Western elements, too, notably the inclusion of an isolated black community made up of retired Buffalo Soldiers now trying to farm the arid land. Most of all, the series is notable for it's feminist stance, with at the center a community called La Belle, N.M., in which virtually all of the men had died in a mining disaster and the women now run the show. That's a great concept, and the heroic stance of the women in the final episode is great, but it was a little disappointing, after seeing the series promoted as a series about women running a town in the west, that most of the major roles - w/ only 2 exceptions - are still given to the "menfolk." The two women w/ strong roles, though - Michele Dockery as a widow running remote ranch and raising her half-native American son - and Merrit Wever (had to look up her name) playing the de facto mayor of La Belle - are both really good, and there are some pretty funny moments as well egarding the town's former leading prostitute who, in the absence of clientele, has become the school marm. All told, a good, entertaining dramatic series that holds up well across 7 hour-long episodes.