‘Texas Rising’ takes a balanced approach

If you watch

What: “Texas Rising” series premiere

Where: History Channel

When: 9-11 p.m. today

By Lynn Elber

AP Television Writer

LOS ANGELES

The success of “Hatfields & McCoys” and “The Bible” inspired the History channel to go Texas-sized big with its new miniseries.

“Texas Rising,” a 10-hour saga about the fight for independence from Mexico, was shot in wide-screen CinemaScope and was directed by Oscar-nominated Roland Joffe; features armies of extras in sprawling battle scenes; and includes songs performed by Kris Kristofferson, George Strait and Jose Feliciano amid a full symphonic score.

But when “Texas Rising” debuts at 9 tonight, executive producer Leslie Greif and leading men Bill Paxton and Olivier Martinez hope viewers appreciate the story’s nuances as well as its breadth. Subsequent episodes air Tuesday and on the three following Mondays, June 1-15.

“We wanted to try to tell the story from a lot of perspectives, so there are really no villains in our piece,” Greif said. “There are villainous deeds ... but we didn’t want to have a paintbrush and say this side is right and this side is wrong.”

“Texas Rising” opens in 1836 with the aftermath of the Alamo Mission battle, a critical Texas Revolution event in which Mexican troops wiped out their opponents known as Texians. The drama tracks a mix of real and fictional characters through the subsequent politics and equally savage battles that led to the creation of the Republic of Texas and ultimately the U.S. state.

The deep-bench cast includes Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Brendan Fraser, Jeremy Davies, Ray Liotta, Rob Morrow, Thomas Jane and a turn by Kristofferson as Andrew Jackson. The male-dominated story’s key female role went to Cynthia Addai-Robinson as the real-life woman known as the Yellow Rose — although her muddy history is given an imagined twist with a triangle relationship involving Houston and Santa Anna.

Center-stage are military leader and statesman Sam Houston and his nemesis, Mexican Gen. and President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

Paxton (“Hatfields & McCoys,” “Big Love”) has more than acting credentials to qualify him to play Houston: He’s a native of Fort Worth, Texas, and related to the towering figure, with whom he shares a paternal grandparent six generations back.