The idea of MISSION'S MERCY is to have the lily-white tropes of the Old West seen in early television and film coexist with a strange and chthonic brutality rooted in the grand spiritual ideals surrounding America's foundation and later western expansion (i.e., THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.) There has already been much deconstruction and reimagining of the worlds created by RAWHIDE, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE, HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, and others. But where DEADWOOD and UNFORGIVEN, for example, have kicked much-needed realistic dirt on honorable men in clean white hats and sparkling tin, MISSION'S MERCY seeks to preserve noble (if somewhat naive) ideas like "nothing comes between 'pardners'" and "a man is only as good as his word." The fun bits come in when this idealized Christian Masculinity and its code of ethics and behavior are challenged by both supernatural and mundane menaces that are veiled representations of real world historical atrocities that early 20th century television and text books ignored or defanged. And the true challenge lay in not belittling or undermining the essential "Goodness" of gentle God-fearing folk or the teachings they live by.
