WYNONNA EARP: Cheerfully derivative supernatural Western based on a Beau Smith comic book, originally aired from 2016 to 2018 with a fourth season in 2021, about the bad girl descendant of Wyatt Earp (Melanie Scrofano), who's inherited the family curse of battling white trash demons in the small town of Purgatory with a magical revolver called Peacemaker, aided by the cynical but handsome Marshal Xavier Dolls (Schamier Anderson), her adorable younger sister Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley), the mysteriously immortal Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon), and cute local sheriff's deputy Nicole Haught (Katherine Barrell), who eventually becomes Waverly's girlfriend.
Created by Emily Andras, this by-the-numbers nerd show is a great improvement on the original 1996–1997 incarnation of the comic (above left), but it's a sloppy goulash of ideas obviously lifted from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ANGEL, SUPERNATURAL, CHARMED, and TRUEBLOOD, executed with the expected allotment of self-consciously quippy dialogue, cheesy special effects, convoluted internal mythology (little of which makes any sense), adolescent love triangles, and cute but rather one-note characters who act like high school kids regardless of their actual ages.
It remains watchable mostly on the strength of its attractive leads and sensible reluctance to take itself too seriously, although if you're not a connoisseur, I'm not convinced it would pass a blind taste test comparison with SUPERGIRL, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, or other such nerd media. Also, like far too many of its nerd show ilk, its treatment of its Black characters is consistently appalling. (The Shamier Anderson character, positioned in the first season as a co-lead and romantic interest, is marginalized in a deplorable way in the second season before being abruptly written out midway through the third.) CONTAINS LESBIANS? Indeed — many were watching mostly for the Waverly-Nicole romance. VERDICT: Dopey fun if you like this sort of thing.
