We started watching DEADWOOD because it was done by David Milch, the man who guided NYPD BLUE to its best seasons—all while limiting how far it could go thanks to his addictions and demons, along with the U.S.'s ABC Television Network's/Disney's limitations. (I've always wondered just how much of a self-portrait of Milch Dennis Franz's Andy Sipowicz was.) My then-wife and I really wanted to see what Milch would do when he wasn't coked out of his skull, and was released from broadcast network censorship.
The first half of Season One was pretty rough going as it often felt like "No more Standards and Practices! I can show all the tits and blood I want!!!!" But we stuck with it, largely thanks to the one-two punch of Timothy Olyphant's Seth Bullock and Ian McShane's Al Swearengen—the not-so-holy Angel and the not-always-Evil Devil on the town's shoulders. Also, because of the Shakespearean sound of Swearengen's—well, swearing! (Nobody else could add so many levels of meaning to "Cocksucker!" as McShane could.)
To my surprise, both Seth Bullock and Al Swearengen were historical figures in Deadwood—though the series and the movie spare us history's conclusion to their arc, where some reports claim reformer Sheriff Seth Bullock gunned Swearengen down in the streets of Denver while trying to serve an warrant for his arrest, and others claim Swearengen was found murdered in the streets of Denver, killer or killers unknown. I'd be curious to know if Milch had originally intended the series to end with Bullock killing Swearengen as a sort of "end of the Wild West" for the town of Deadwood, then changed his mind when he fell in love with writing Swearengen's dialogue and hearing McShane deliver it.
We started watching DEADWOOD because it was done by David Milch, the man who guided NYPD BLUE to its best seasons—all while limiting how far it could go thanks to his addictions and demons, along with the U.S.'s ABC Television Network's/Disney's limitations. (I've always wondered just how much of a self-portrait of Milch Dennis Franz's Andy Sipowicz was.) My then-wife and I really wanted to see what Milch would do when he wasn't coked out of his skull, and was released from broadcast network censorship.
The first half of Season One was pretty rough going as it often felt like "No more Standards and Practices! I can show all the tits and blood I want!!!!" But we stuck with it, largely thanks to the one-two punch of Timothy Olyphant's Seth Bullock and Ian McShane's Al Swearengen—the not-so-holy Angel and the not-always-Evil Devil on the town's shoulders. Also, because of the Shakespearean sound of Swearengen's—well, swearing! (Nobody else could add so many levels of meaning to "Cocksucker!" as McShane could.)
To my surprise, both Seth Bullock and Al Swearengen were historical figures in Deadwood—though the series and the movie spare us history's conclusion to their arc, where some reports claim reformer Sheriff Seth Bullock gunned Swearengen down in the streets of Denver while trying to serve an warrant for his arrest, and others claim Swearengen was found murdered in the streets of Denver, killer or killers unknown. I'd be curious to know if Milch had originally intended the series to end with Bullock killing Swearengen as a sort of "end of the Wild West" for the town of Deadwood, then changed his mind when he fell in love with writing Swearengen's dialogue and hearing McShane deliver it.
Well said. This is piece is an example of great writing as “education.”
Absorbing essay on this complex, abandoned (ironic) tribe in the wilderness.