Deadwood

We've had multiple topics on the Wire and Battlestar Galactica and Lost, but none for this show as far as I can tell. I started making my way through the first season, and was just kind of going along with it, not terribly impressed, when I saw the episode that deals with the two young grifter kids. Man if that wasn't one of the best hours in television. Loved it! I'm now pretty impressed with this series and hope it continues to be good from here on.

Is that the one with all the swearing? Charlie Brooker enthused about it, but I never had the chance to catch it. I will try to if it's ever on - I love the wild west.

first season is fucking gold, went a bit meh beyond that, seriously tho its very good.

someone sell me on this. what's so good about it? i'm not into investing hours of my life into a show and i've never really seen a reason to watch this despite the generally favorable reviews.

Im on series 5 of the Shield, after 7 I intend to do Deadwood. Cheers for reminding me, just text a friend to tell him im coming to get it.

  On 7/18/2009 at 5:21 PM, zaphod said:

someone sell me on this. what's so good about it? i'm not into investing hours of my life into a show and i've never really seen a reason to watch this despite the generally favorable reviews.

Speaking as someone who hasn't seen it, but has seen clips of it, I would recommend this programme to you if you're amused by cursing and moustaches.

Those who've seen it, is there a lot of denim?

Great fucking show. Awesome character development, really good storytelling and excellent acting, especially from Ian McShane and Brad Dourif. The show does an excellent job of transporting you to the period it's set in. Lots of swearing and IDM (I Don'tgiveafuck Moustaches).

Zaphod: just watch it you fucking cocksucker.

I need to know if there's a lot of jeans and whether they use authentic 19th-century cuts...

Superb show for sure. Kinda falls flat towards the end of the series but well worth watching.

COCK SUCKER! SWARGEN KILL COCK SUCKER

  On 7/18/2009 at 5:21 PM, zaphod said:

someone sell me on this. what's so good about it? i'm not into investing hours of my life into a show and i've never really seen a reason to watch this despite the generally favorable reviews.

it's probably the third best tv show ever (behind the wire and the sopranos). what's so good about it ... i guess the obvious answer would be, the characters, the writing, the underlying themes. there's actually a pretty profound (the creator has written about it) meta-critique of economic development, agrarian trade-based versus late capitalism (embodied by the speculators), and then also 'tribal' justice versus federal state-sponsored justice. perhaps the main reason is al swearengen, one of the best characters of any artform, ever; certainly the most compicated villain i've ever seen on tv. it's also very funny; the plot arcs go long and short, and are satisfying in both senses; the production values are ridiculous (they spent something like $7 million on each episode). also it's interesting in that all of the characters are based on real people, and many of the events actually happened in precisely the way they're depicted (yet it's not like a boring historical re-creation). etc.

also i'm pretty sure i started a topic on deadwood in like 2005-06, but maybe it died with the old watmm

  On 7/18/2009 at 6:06 PM, Drahken said:

.. Kinda falls flat towards the end of the series..

I disagree with that.

  On 7/18/2009 at 6:23 PM, playbynumbers said:

 

 

 

 

it's probably the third best tv show ever (behind the wire and the sopranos). what's so good about it ... i guess the obvious answer would be, the characters, the writing, the underlying themes. there's actually a pretty profound (the creator has written about it) meta-critique of economic development, agrarian trade-based versus late capitalism (embodied by the speculators), and then also 'tribal' justice versus federal state-sponsored justice. perhaps the main reason is al swearengen, one of the best characters of any artform, ever; certainly the most compicated villain i've ever seen on tv. it's also very funny; the plot arcs go long and short, and are satisfying in both senses; the production values are ridiculous (they spent something like $7 million on each episode). also it's interesting in that all of the characters are based on real people, and many of the events actually happened in precisely the way they're depicted (yet it's not like a boring historical re-creation). etc.

 

also i'm pretty sure i started a topic on deadwood in like 2005-06, but maybe it died with the old watmm

I agree pretty much here with PBN...although I don't know if describing Swearengen as a villain is exactly right. He's certainly a complicated person...

And yes there was a deadwood thread before.

Ahh, where to begin.

So, like PBN, I'd rank Deadwood as one of the three or four best television shows ever. Ironically, I'd also rank it as one of the most disappointing as well.

The first season was one of the most remarkable things I've ever watched, film or television. The idea of a Shakespearean / Hobbesian / Ultra-capitalist / Ultra-violent / Lawless / Gold-As-Currency Old West was pulled off almost flawlessly. I'd split the bulk of the credit for the success of the show between its creator, Milch, and its best actor and character, Ian McShane's Al Swearengen.

Season Two, however, was almost a parody of Deadwood. All of the wordy embellishments of certain characters, Swearengen most notably, were taken to an extreme. Watching E.B. Farnum mopping floors while delivering a 2,000 word soliloquy gave me a headache and made me feel embarrassed for Milch. Like, we get it, you're a clever writer, but eventually every character started to sound more like Milch and less like themselves.

They pulled things together again for Season Three to finish off the series with a bang, but it still didn't make up for how terribly wrong things went in Season Two. One of the things you'll read about Deadwood quite frequently is how it was almost entirely written by Milch. I think that was both the greatest virtue and biggest flaw of the series, which, in the end, did not prevent Deadwood from achieving greatness, but it definitely made it a mixed bag.

i'm gonna check out season 1 but it sounds like a pretentious mess from your descriptions.

  On 7/18/2009 at 7:27 PM, zaphod said:

i'm gonna check out season 1 but it sounds like a pretentious mess from your descriptions.

Season Two, yes, but dude, Season One is like one damn good feast after another.

like i said, i'll check it out. i think this:

  On 7/18/2009 at 6:23 PM, playbynumbers said:

there's actually a pretty profound (the creator has written about it) meta-critique of economic development, agrarian trade-based versus late capitalism (embodied by the speculators), and then also 'tribal' justice versus federal state-sponsored justice.

 

and then this:

  On 7/18/2009 at 7:12 PM, The Overlook said:

The idea of a Shakespearean / Hobbesian / Ultra-capitalist / Ultra-violent / Lawless / Gold-As-Currency Old West

 

just seem a little over the top. but i'm sure (i'm fucking hoping) this isn't blatant on the show and is subtext or historical context, otherwise you can forget it.

Quit being such a pussy and just got watch it. Jesus Fucking Christ, already... :P

  On 7/18/2009 at 7:38 PM, zaphod said:

like i said, i'll check it out. i think this:

 

  On 7/18/2009 at 6:23 PM, playbynumbers said:

there's actually a pretty profound (the creator has written about it) meta-critique of economic development, agrarian trade-based versus late capitalism (embodied by the speculators), and then also 'tribal' justice versus federal state-sponsored justice.

 

 

and then this:

 

  On 7/18/2009 at 7:12 PM, The Overlook said:

The idea of a Shakespearean / Hobbesian / Ultra-capitalist / Ultra-violent / Lawless / Gold-As-Currency Old West

 

 

just seem a little over the top. but i'm sure (i'm fucking hoping) this isn't blatant on the show and is subtext or historical context, otherwise you can forget it.

it's all extremely subtle; i didn't really catch most of it until i read milch's (very verbose) interviews, and also the treatment that he sent to hbo (before the show was accepted). though, to be sure, milch is very very pretentious --- this is the guy who made 'john from cincinnati,' after all --- but it doesn't quite come through in deadwood, except occasionally in s2. but even then, if you just roll with it, it's not bad at all; i mean, there's pretentiousness in the sense of a genius going a little overboard, but it's not pretentious like someone TRYING to be deep but failing

this is a show i've always been meaning to check out, it looked far superior to a lot of the other HBO dramas running around the same time .

when swearengen gets the indian head all hell breaks loose.

also brad dourif is fucking excellent

but yeah pretty much what PBN said is spot on. Ranks behind larry sanders and sopranos in greatest HBO shows.

this is pretty great. i can see some of the stuff pbn is talking about but it's kind of obvious and not really "genius", yet. but i'm only three episodes in. good stuff though. i keep thinking seth bullock is played by michael biehn circa 1986.

lol he definitely looks a lot like a young michael biehn

  On 7/18/2009 at 6:23 PM, playbynumbers said:

it's probably the third best tv show ever (behind the wire and the sopranos).

i agree with that statement completely.

I liked what I saw of Deadwood, but I never ended up watching it in full simply because Carnival overshadowed it for me. Not that the two were related in any way really, aside from the HBO connection. I just think they were on around the same time period, and I was more in to the Carnivàle story line. It's a shame that one never really had a chance to grow. More great shit from HBO.

With a list of shows like The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Carnivàle, John Adams and Oz, I am pretty convinced that mini series style shows are the way to go. I'd rather see book adaptations take on that format rather than have them crammed in to two-three hour shit piles.

i haven't completed it but my roommate used to marathon it and i have sat through 4-5 episodes in a row. it's pretty good. i don't know, i wouldn't call it a "must see" because i never went out of my way to watch it, but i always take a seat when it's on.

Oh man, Deadwood is spectacular. I don't know if it's cause I was an English major and totally got off on Shakespeare, but I absolutely adore the writing in the show, verbose as it may seem. There's one thing to write like Shakespeare, and another to have actors who can deliver the lines with the degree of subtlety they deserve.

My girlfriend just got this hardcover Deadwood book that has all sorts of information about the historical characters as well as essays from the main cast regarding their interpretation of the characters they are portraying. Really, really fascinating to read the thoughts of the cast, as most, if not all, reveal themselves to be extremely thoughtful and complex people in their own right. The guy who plays Mr. Wu is particularly interesting, as he has an obviously well developed vocabulary, yet you usually just hear him saying "COCK-SUCKA!" in the show.

Only bad thing is that they never properly finished the series - so you basically get this huge cock-tease at the end which will never get fulfilled. Still, I'd read 5/6 of King Lear and be thankful we got that much, so it's forgivable.