Should I Skip or Stream "Wynonna Earp"?

Wynonna Earp has been showing up on my Netflix feed with an 86% match.  Should I stream it or skip it?

Con: My first instinct: run far, far away.  I hate Westerns, and I certainly don't want to watch a female version of Wyatt Earp gun-slinging down some fake dusty Wild West backlot.

Pro:  Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) is a modern-day paranormal investigator, no connection to the Wild West (except she's Wyatt Earp's great-great-granddaughter)

Wow.  The title and central characters are so completely misleading that they must have been created on purpose, to draw in Western fans.  But doesn't it scare away all of the fans of paranormal investigation?

Con: Oh, this is still a Western.  Wynonna lives in the modern-Wild West town of Purgatory, where the bars have antler-heads and people still wear cowboy hats.  And she has a six-shooter, a special legacy from her ancestor that allows her to hunt down Revenants, escapees from Hell, and send them back where they came from.

Fortunately, the Revenants can't go farther than the area around Purgatory, called the Ghost River Triangle.

Unfortunately, they are adept at masquerading as humans, and highly organized, with a leader unfortunately named Bobo (Michael Eklund).  You can tell he's evil because of his unfortunate beard and androgynous mannerisms.  Yet another trans villain?

Con: The writers seem to be getting their character names from old John Wayne movies: Shorty, Carl, Red, Hetty, Tug, Skip, Drek

I also find Eve, Abel, and Jesus, but maybe they aren't the Biblical characters.

Speaking of names, what's with the extra "n" on Wynonna? I have to check the spelling every time.  It just doesn't look right.

Pro:  According to the plot summary on Wikipedia, the  mythology gets curioser and curioser.  Everybody has a tragic backstory, and no one is who they seem.

I like complex mythologies, as long as they don't get too ridiculous, like on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where each season had a much-worse-than-before, Apocalyptic Big Bad.

Wynonna joins a top-secret paranormal-hunting government agency, and gathers up a group of scoobies:



1. Doc Holiday (Tim Rozon), the partner of her great-great-great grandfather, who didn't die of tuberculosis in 1887; he's still alive and kicking and looks about 30.

2. Waverly, Wynonna's sister (name too long to copy).  Well, actually half-sister.  They share a mother, but Waverly's father was an angel named Julian (yes, angels can reproduce).






3. Xavier Dolls (Shamier Anderson), the head of her unit.

4. Purgatory Sheriff Nicole (Katherine Barrell), who starts dating Waverly.

Pro: Ok, a lesbian relationship among the major characters, and they don't even wait until season 8.  That's a plus for inclusivity, but I wish there were some gay guys, too.





Pro: Score!  Jeremy Chetri (Varun Saranga), the Black Badge Unit's Lab Technician, is gay (and dating Agent Dolls?).  He's introduced in the second season.  In Season 3 he gets a boyfriend, Robin Jett (Justin Kelly, below).







Con: The show seems a bit beefcake-deprived.  Of the first 10 actors listed on imdb, 4 are women, 2 have weird beards, and 1 is grizzled.  That leaves Agent Dolls, Jeremy Chetri, and Daniel Onerheim as Paramedic (can't find a photo).

Farther down the list, we find Justin Kelly (6 episodes) and Dylan Koroll (top photo) as Hardy Champ, the boyfriend of Wynonna's sister Waverly before she starts dating Nicole.

So we have 4 Pro, 4 Con.  I need a deal-maker or deal-breaker.

I fast-forwarded through Episode 6: "Agent Dolls' secret comes out when he joins forces with Wynonna to find the Blacksmith, and encounters a family with a voracious appetite."

The Canadian Rockies in winter.  Cowboy hats, fringed leather jackets.  This is a Western.  Doc Holiday has apparently not changed with the times, ma'ama.  Wynonna wishes she could be a girl, buy lip gloss and wear flirty skirts.  Apparently she hasn't changed with the times, either.

Con.  Skip it.