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- By Levi Rickert
From the release of the first episode, Indian Country knew FX’s groundbreaking series “Reservation Dogs” was a special television series. At last there was television that depicted lives of contemporary Native Americans on screen navigating life in rural Indian Country.
The hard work of “Reservation Dogs” creator Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Muscogee) and all of the other talented Native American writers, actors. and production crew who worked on the series has paid off.
A week after the finale of series was released on September 26, 2023, Hollywood Reporter critics on Thursday named “Reservation Dogs” its No.6 pick on the best television shows of the 21st century (so far).
"There has never been a collection of stories quite like Sterlin Harjo’s Reservation Dogs," the "Hollywood Reporter" writes.
The series followed the lives of four Native American teenagers living in rural Oklahoma, first premiered in 2021 and was an immediate hit among critics and audiences alike.
This is what the Hollywood Reporter said about “Reservation Dogs”:
There has never been a collection of stories quite like Sterlin Harjo’s Reservation Dogs. It’s not merely that Indigenous teen characters are a demographic rarely depicted on television, though they are; nor is it just that their plotlines here shrug off centuries of stereotypes about Native Americans, though they do. It’s the way these tales are told, with boundless curiosity and a freewheeling sense of experimentation.
The show allows for oddball visitors from the spirit plane, ventures with equal confidence into the boozy pleasures of a work conference and the painful history of Indian boarding schools, sets joy beside grief and mingles the mundane with the magical. Any single episode might put you in stitches over the obliviousness of a would-be influencer or in tears over the collection of departed ancestors watching over our characters in the here and now. Collectively, they build a world that feels as lived-in and as distinctive as any home.
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