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| Five characters from David Milch's Deadwood stare you down on this poster for the first season |
Deadwood is an HBO TV-series in 3 seasons from creator David Milch (NYPD Blue (1993-05)), based on the real town of Deadwood, South Dakota. The season comprises 12 48-60 min. episodes.
Season one takes place within approximately two weeks of 1876 in the raw gold-digger camp, which is more or less run by Al Swearengen (Ian McShane (Sexy Beast (2000))), owner of the brothel and saloon The Gem. Our other protagonist is the former sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy OIyphant (The Grinder (2015-16))), who founds a lumber store in the town with his business partner Sol (John Hawkes (The Sessions (2012))) and rich New Yorker madam Alma Garret (Molly Parker (House of Cards (2014-15))), whose husband SPOILER gets pushed to his death on the land he bought cheap.Western legend Wild Bill Hickok arrives with his companions; the drunken, miserable Calamity Jane and Charlie Utter, who opens a post office, SPOILER after Hickok gets shot dead by an embittered poker enemy by the name Jack 'the Coward' McCall, who is freed after a mock trial in town.
The details:
Powers Boothe (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2015-16)) is spectacular as Cy Tolliver, the entrepreneur who opens Swearengen's competing brothel, The Bella Union, where he gets into trouble with a young conman couple, SPOILER who he later murders brutally in front of his closest employees, a soft, lesbian prostitute and a gay card shark, who consequently lose sympathy for their employer.
Other festive elements of Deadwood include the priest, who has some kind of brain tumor, which gives him seizures and makes him increasingly pitiful, until Swearengen shows mercy SPOILER and strangles him to death. - And the doctor (splendidly portrayed by Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975))), a choleric but honest man, who helps and falls for an invalid who works in The Gem.
The last of the town's residents I feel implored to mention is Mister Wu (Keone Young (Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos (1986), TV-series)), who runs the Chinese part of town similarly as Swearengen, whom he respectfully calls 'Swegen!', runs the town general.
McShane is a force to be reckoned with and has one of his career's best parts in Swearengen. The show features raw aesthetics and innovative, refreshing (and very, sometimes even exaggeratedly expletive-laden) dialog. It is refined if psychologically somewhat flat, and not unlike a western soap opera, a good one though, mind you.
Best episode:
12. Sold Under Sin - written by Milch and Ted Man (NYPD Blue (1994-99)), directed by Davis Guggenheim (He Named Me Malala (2015))
The season's last episode is a royal finisher, in which Bullock goes against Garret's vile father and accepts the sheriff's star of Deadwood, while Swearengen cements his power, despite the town getting itself a mayor.
Related post:
2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Cost: Reportedly 4.5 mil. $ per episode, or 54 mil. $
Box office: None (TV-series)
= Unknown
[Deadwood was an expensive show to produce, and it was finally canceled because of this I suspect. I have not been able to find its viewer ratings, (shoot me a comment with a link, if you do.) The season received 80 % positive reviews, according to Metacritic, based on 26 of them, which is the lowest of the three seasons. It is #69 on IMDb's Top 250 TV-shows where 60k+ users have given it an 8.8 average rating.]
What do you think of Deadwood season 1?
Other good western TV-series?
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