A woman is forced to leave her comfy Indiana city to go to Nebraska with her family because her husband wants to farm. She faces finding out they were scammed and there is no land, a miscarriage, widowhood after they finally find a place to settle, and holding on to the place with her children. The one false note is her playing hard-to-get with an obviously smitten neighbor who is ringing her chimes as well.Joanna Pettet is the woman, William Shatner her husband and David Janssen the man who wants to be. If you can believe this bit of casting, Lance LeGault is a friendly neighbor and totally good guy. Helen Hunt makes her acting debut as the woman's daughter. Yes it's a feminist piece since a "pioneer feminist" is who the story revolves around, but it's not preachy and is well done.

This was an entertaining made for TV movie-something to catch in the middle of the night when insomnia hits. I won't provide a synopsis as there are several written but I would like to suggest that anyone with an interest in movies about Pioneer Women seek out "Heartland" with Rip Torn and Conchata Farrell. Ms Farrell's portrays a widowed mother in 1910 who sets across the country in answer to an Ad to become a housekeeper with the eventual dream of owning her own homestead. The movie is much more realistic than "Pioneer Woman" and is based on the letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart collected in Letters of a Woman Homesteader. The movie truly shows the harsh reality these women faced and Ms. Farrell, with her larger stature is better suited to this role than the delicate, pretty Ms Pettet.

I just watched this movie on Starz and was riveted when I saw Shatner in it. His best scene came when David Janssen brought him back on horseback "dead" after a rain storm / landslide or something killed him. Did you see how still he lay on that horseback? Not a whimper or a word out of 'im. God, he plays a dead man so well ! This movie was a complete waste of film. They should have just burned it in the brush fire toward the end of the movie. Horrible !Acting sucked all around. Only the beautiful eyes of Joanna Pettet kept me watching. Beam me out of here ! The Western movie will never be the same.

I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would.It presents well the vulnerability of the individual in settling the pioneering lands of vastness. Especially for a woman who has children to care for where survival is rough & tough & against the odds! I thought these insights were effectively described in the diaries of the woman attempting to farm the harsh lands amidst con-men, the well-meaning and hillsides of buffalo. But every time, it's a case of a struggle to make more steps forward, against the obstacles forcing the determined back, through natural and man-made catastrophes.Along the way, the vastness of the raw scenery is impressive in creating a sense of the difficulties of this "pioneer woman" and those around her. Well worth a look!