Skip to main content

Deadwood Second Season: The Greatest Spectacle on American Television


A day before yesterday, I posted a series of five topics I was to write about in few days. Well I am starting with the sixth 'unlisted' topic. It's an important one and like many important topics which I often forget to write about, I forgot about it as well. I am truly sorry.

The topic in discussion here is 'Deadwood'. It was a western TV series produced by HBO for 3 seasons starting in 2004. It's often is clubbed as the greatest TV series of all time with 'The Sopranos' and 'The Wire', coincidentally it's brethren on HBO. It was cancelled too soon by it's producers because production cost shot up too much and great recession of 2008 was already in motion and since then, and it is now 10 years, the fans of this show are begging HBO to bring it back.

So why was 'Deadwood' so famous? Just like 'The Wire', not many people watched it (but they were certainly more than the nos Wire fetched). There
were three main reasons:

1. It's historical background which was fictionalized magnificently by it's creator David Milch. Deadwood, you see, is a town in South Dakota which in 1870 was a town of salons, liquor, gold and lawlessness. No one living there wanted it to be annexed to Dakota Territory and at large, with USA despite running the risk of getting shot at any trivial issue at any given moment. The great popular figures of that time: Al Swearengen, Wild Bill Hicock, E.B. Farnum, Calamity Jane, George Hearst, Seth Bullock, Sol Star, Wyatt Earp and many more feature in it and they all are glorious in it.

2. The use of profane language which is poetic and so good and irresistible that you wouldn't even know that you were getting abused by one of it's characters if you were to listen to him. Try Al Swearengen!!!

3. The hypnotic performance of Ian McShane as Al Swearengen and for many, it's the only reason for their getting hooked to this TV series. He is a magnificent bastard who possesses the charm of a magician but one who doesn't hesitate for a moment in killing someone in gruesome manner. I believe if Deadwood would have been on a 70 mm screen rather than on a small TV, Ian could have won Oscars outright. He won Golden globe and Emmy instead.

Now my reason for writing this post is entirely different. You see, even a popular show languishes at some point of their run and at some time, they reach their peak. Now Breaking Bad was one such show of which third and fourth seasons were painfully slow but it's last and penultimate seasons were the best tv experience a viewer could have hoped for. Now imagine Deadwood's second season trumping even Breaking Bad's greatest seasons. It was 'that' spectacular.
So add it to your watchlist if you wanna delve into history of a great town and enjoy it's recklessness and most colorful (and tragic) characters!!!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Leftovers: A Very 'Special' HBO Production

Three things that have occupied my mind for last three days in descending order of importance are: Justin Trudeau, Heinrich Klassen and The Leftovers. I am going to write here about the least important entity for I am likely to forget about it most urgently. The Leftovers is an HBO production and like the most HBO productions, it makes for a great television experience. I chose to watch it for two reasons: First, it was only three season long with 28 episodes in total and secondly, for two years running, it was the best TV show in American Landscape. There was a third reason as well and it was in the name of its creator's promise. Damon Lindelof is one of the brightest American minds and he gave us 'Lost' all those years back. I have been a huge fan of 'Lost' and till this time, gush about its fantastical and mythical elements. People still find it very hard to crack the mysteries of Lost and when a show leaves you with more questions than the answers after its 8
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Review: Unanswered

'Unanswered' is a book penned by Mr. Kunal Uniyal and it's his third book. I am calling it a book, using a common noun to describe it and I have a good enough reason for doing so. It's a book that consists off both poems and prose and I was in real dilemma picturing its prognosis in my mind. It started with a poem named 'You and I' and beautiful it was, all poised and lyrical. And then came a snippet of a prose by the name 'Life of a Yogi'. They were really not connected and I was perplexed. Then I allowed myself some comfort and decided to dig up some more. Some more beautiful poems and accompanying yet again not quite related passages of prose followed but now they looked more in shape and very much in order. Now I was beginning to realize that there was more to this book than met my eyes earlier and it's scope is much wider that what I originally thought. You are required to engage yourself with this book and once you do that, you will know you ar
Post a Comment
Read more

Phillip Seymour Hoffman : An Obituary

Phillip Seymour Hoffman was one of the modern acting greats. You can always identify and isolate him in an ensemble cast. Give him just two-three lines in a 150-180 minutes long feature film and still he would enthrall the audience with his magic and aura and come out on top. People and critics alike bestowed countless superlatives upon him in a career spanning over more than two decades but whether any one of those adjectives ever managed to justify his cinematic craft, I seriously doubted. He was unprecedented and unsurpassed in the practice of cinematic artistry and thus emerged as America’s greatest character actor ever, period. Paul Giamatti is his worthy successor and hopefully he would calm and soothe our nerves with his finest performances in times to come in Phillip’s absence. Phillip ultimately was a show-stealer, a rabble-rouser, an aloof but a sympathizing marvelous human being who marveled in Hollywood though always residing at its sidelines. I first saw him playing a y
Post a Comment
Read more