Return to Lonesome Dove: Living or Dead?

About Return to Lonesome Dove

Return to Lonesome Dove is a 1993 American four part television miniseries, written by John Wilder involving characters created in Larry McMurtry's Western novel Lonesome Dove which was broadcast by CBS and first aired on November 14–17, 1993. The story focuses on a retired Texas Ranger and his adventures driving mustangs from Texas to Montana. It was nominated for an Emmy Award, and followed by two TV series, Lonesome Dove: The Series and Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. Neither series lasted long.

It is a sequel to the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove, but was not written by McMurtry, who instead wrote and published his own sequel novel Streets of Laredo in the same time frame. McMurtry followed Streets of Laredo with two prequels, which with Laredo were also subsequently made into TV miniseries. Many fans of the Lonesome Dove series and novels do not consider Return to Lonesome Dove nor the two derivative TV series to be canonical because of their divergence from McMurtry's storyline, and the apparent motivation of its production by the success of the original miniseries.