For years now, I’ve enjoyed watching (British) historical reenactment shows on YouTube alongside various scripted period dramas. So imagine my surprise when I came across HBO’s modern take on PBS Frontier House, Back to the Frontier?

Back to the Frontier Episode 1 Review

As mentioned above, I love period dramas and historical reenactments. I always have, and enjoyed memorable (field) trips to the regional historical reenactment towns and even a whaling museum in my youth during elementary and middle school.

For years now, I’ve enjoyed Historian Lucy Worsley’s works on Tudor and Victorian life like If Walls Could Talk: The History of the Home, Netflix’s Lords and Ladles, and Ruth Goodman’s shows like 24 Hours in the Past, Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm, and Tudor Monastery Farm alongside fellow archeologists and historians Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn.

I’ve even heard that they are currently restoring a castle in France (like many of the intriguing French/Italian chateau or castle restoration channels on YouTube) but I could have swore I saw them restoring (or rather, building) a medieval castle years ago for a British countryside TV show.

Either way, I think I’ve illustrated how much I enjoy these historical reenactment shows, and history in general. With my newfound abundant love for gardening and homesteading, I was extremely interested (and invested) in watching the three chosen families on HBO Max’s show adapt to more labor strenuous, but emotionally simpler times.

I picked up the gardening hobby that turned into a new way of life during the pandemic – along with millions of others worldwide who picked up traditional hobbies, professions, and adapted a more self-sufficient and stable lifestyle.

The families who were transported back to the 1880s via The Homestead Act of 1862 were:

The Loper Family consisting of Joaquin, Stacey, Grandmother Shirley, and sons Landen and Maddox

The Hall Family consisting of Jereme, Lina, and their three children Mia, Zoe, and Jet

And the Hanna-Rigs Family consisting of Jason, Joe, and their twin boys Ethan and Lucas.

(The Hanna-Rigs family was a same-sex couple, and one of the men chose to be the Head of the Household for this exercise after a joint decision by the partners based on who had more expertise for the role.)

I found it helpful that the participants were given certain supplies to make things easier (such as canned meats, pickled foods, basic home necessities for cleaning like a broom) but the degradation levels of the frontier cabins confused me.

The Loper family had enough beds for family members to live comfortably, but no front facing protection on their cabin home. While the Hall family had a good exterior but limited bed space (and bratty teenage kids who refused to share beds, and wanted to hog around the dusty, uncleaned antique mirror while wishing they could take a selfie).

I think the Hanna-Rigs family had a few light cracks in their cabin, and their outhouse was non-functioning without immediate attention.

I liked seeing the kids (while somewhat reluctantly) get involved with cleaning and preparing the cabin for the first night. While I initially had a good impression of the Hanna-Rigs family and believe that they are nice, tech-savvy people, I do not think a homosexual couple should have been included during a time period where their love was quite literally illegal.

The Loper family, to be fair, should not have been included, either.

Based on historical context and what Grandma Shirley from Alabama said about the family being farmers – they did not belong in that situation, as well.

If they are indeed ethnically American and have retained their ancestral lands by their ancestors taking the Negro/Coloured racial designation they were exempt from The Homestead Act of 1862, which was geared toward European Settlers, criminals, freed indentures/slavs, and poor whites like the “crackers” in historical photos of the prairie.

Either way, I enjoyed watching episode one and will go on to the next one!

But, tell me your thoughts: have you binged the entire series yet? Do you think you could survive a life of rural homesteading in the 1800s?

Let me know your thoughts and leave them in the comment section below! And follow us for more Back to the Frontier Episode Reviews!

Until next time ~

“This world is a shadow of the real one”.

❂ Stories From the New World

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