Montana Sky opens with the death of the family patriarch, a man named Mercy who like Ben Cartwright fathered three children legitimately, except in his case it was daughters instead of sons. But a role model like Lorne Greene this guy wasn't. One daughter Ashley Williams stayed home and learned the ranch business. The other two were from trophy wives, Charlotte Ross and Laura Mennell. Ross is a screenwriter and Mennell is hoping to escape from a batterer whom she married.
For the zillionth time an eccentric will is the thing the plot turns on. The estate after a couple of cash bequests is worth 24 million dollars and the half sisters who don't know each other have to live and work the ranch for a year for any of them to inherit any of it. Eight million dollars is a mighty powerful argument to induce the sisters especially Ross to stay and make a go of it. Poor Mennell just wants to find refuge.
There's also someone slaughtering animals in a particularly sadistic way on the place. It could be Mennell's ex-husband Scott Heindl or maybe someone else also has a grudge.
I have to say that the three women had some nice chemistry between them or otherwise Montana Sky would not have worked. The vast western vistas are really something, better than the mostly studio based photography on Bonanza. Ross especially impressed me as she essayed a character who saw some considerable growth in character over the course of the story.
That's worth seeing Montana Sky in and of itself.
