ION searches for its identity in the old West

By WALT BELCHER
MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
Published: March 28, 2008

Just when you think the last Western movie has been planted in Boot Hill, along comes someone to give the genre another go.

Coming up Saturday night at 9 on the Ion network is “Prairie Fever,” a horse opera starring Kevin Sorbo as a drunken ex-sheriff who gets stuck with three rejected mail-order brides.

Sorbo, best known for the lead role in “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,” plays a rugged but emotionally damaged dude named Preston Biggs. He still suffers from a shootout that went bad.

To clear up his saloon bill, Biggs accepts a job escorting misfit brides from a remote Colorado town to a train station where they are to be shipped back East. Along the way, he encounters bad guys and a lady gambler (Dominique Swain). He also sobers up and finds love.

Ion, which used to be Pax, started a run of new and old Western films on March 15, when the network debuted “Ace ‘N Eights,” starring Casper Van Dien as an ex-outlaw trying to go straight. It co-starred 91-year-old Ernest Borgnine as a crusty rancher and Bruce Boxleitner as an aging, burned-out gunfighter.

Coming up April 12 is a third new Western, “Lone Rider,” with Lou Diamond Phillips as the good guy with a gun. Stacy Keach is the crusty old coot in this one.

These low-budget films are entertaining, but they are not of Clint Eastwood-type quality. There’s grit, gunplay, violence and the familiar trappings of the Old West. The films are being produced by the same company that cranks out movies for the Hallmark Channel.

If these are successful, Ion will order more. The network has been searching for something to give it a brand identity.

Ion has had to overcome the Pax legacy. A network best known for reruns of “Diagnosis Murder” is not exactly a ratings winner.

FLUFF SCOOP: Here’s a roundup of breaking fluff from TV land:

-- Fox has canceled the comedy “The Return of Jezebel James” after three airings on Friday nights. Low ratings and bad reviews sealed its fate. The series was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who did better work on “Gilmore Girls.”

-- Britney Spears’ guest role Monday night on “How I Met Your Mother” gave the CBS sitcom its highest ratings of the season. Credit the public’s curiosity over the pop star.

-- “American Idol” and “Dancing With the Stars” top the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings while “Two and a Half Men” remains the top-rated comedy.