The Abandons is a Rorschach test. What you see in the new Netflix western says at least as much about your perspective on the current TV landscape as it does about the show itself. Look at it one way, and it’s an innocuous potboiler—no masterpiece, sure, but entertaining enough to please fans of the genre. The girl-power themes; the casting of two beloved franchise leads, Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey , opposite one another; and the fact that it was created by Sons of Anarchy ’s Kurt Sutter are guaranteed to delight various key segments of the platform’s meticulously quantified subscriber base. But for anyone who sifts through huge quantities of television, The Abandons embodies everything that’s frustrating about the medium right now.

In its ongoing quest to become the on

See Full Page