They are pissed. This kind of stuff leaking into the mainstream really pokes a lot of holes in the history some of them have in their minds, or that they tell their kids, of their heroic ancestors, all the while said ancestors kept getting run out of towns/states because they were assholes, so of course they continued to be assholes in Utah. It’s similar to the “the Civil war wasn’t about slavery” crowd when you point out that most of the Confederate states put out statements declaring they were seceding to protect slavery (Texas has among the worst of the declarations of secession).
This is probably the most high-profile take on the Massacre, and there’s already been a few Mormons out there doing the “it wasn’t as bad as they made it out to be”. There’s been some recent books that made noise, but their audiences are pretty narrow,
I’m pretty aware of the Massacre, but very aware of the Huff and Fancher families and the wagon trains as a whole - I have a few ancestors amongst those families in Benton and Carroll counties in Arkansas, and some genealogy/background research I had published on them made its way into a book on the Massacre.
I’m a couple of episodes in, and gritting my teeth a bit over some of the errors (most of which were already mentioned). I am trying to just roll with it, but I keep wondering why they didn’t get some things right, that would not have distracted from the story and would not have cost extra, but Hollywood is gonna Hollywood. There was no need to make up some of the stuff, or compress some timelines, because the story, the characters, the land, would have been captivating enough.
My guess is the people behind the show felt the need to be edgy and/or were worried they’d lose their audience. We won’t be getting any mini-series like Michener’s Centennial in the future, I’m guessing.
But I’ll reserve final judgement until I’ve finished it,