Run to see this. | Deadwood Returns at Last!
Reviewer: Inaru from Alameda, CA on 05/19/06
Whether you love hard core realistic portrayals of American West legends, historical fiction, westerns, frontier romance, or just another beautifully photographed and produced, intricate character-study, Deadwood is yet another HBO series that will keep you begging for more. The ruthless, brilliant, unscrupulous and historically-real Al Swearingen is played by Ian MacShane, who's won an Emmy for the brilliance of his portrayal of Al, the social political and financial architect of Deadwood, working the strings to all the other characters from his post as saloon and whorehouse owner.
At first it was hard to understand the authentic dialects, but it's so worth the effort because you'll hear lines that can make you bust a stitch laughing. The people's language is raw, real, and beautiful for its old-style cadence when you get used to it. The writing is brilliant, imaginative, and guided by yet another no doubt sleepless artistic hard-core researching HBO producer (David Milch) with a wildly imaginative writing crew. The characters are complex and fascinating, and no matter how much you can despise some of them, the hard lives they lead and the situations they find themselves in earn your respect for their ability to survive at all.
It's a fascinating prism of perspectives on women, miners, business owners, Indians being pushed out and newly-freed Blacks and imported Chinese workers in the wild west that's been missing until now. It's not a facile politically-correct statement with today's values superimposed, by any means. Every classification of person is profoundly developed or will be, if the series gets enough seasons to cover all of the multitude of characters, ethnicities, social, political and spiritual groups drawn like moths to towns like Deadwood.
Finally, I get relief from watching it because in Deadwood, average but determined people are challenged by ruthless conditions and unjust circumstances, and they sometimes rise and shine and bring that entire put-upon adventurer's town and its inhabitants up to an almost celestial plateau of righteousness. At other times, reality just bites but in the most captivating realistic production of any television western ever made. The falls from grace and human failures still mesmerize even when we feel disgusted or disappointed beyond belief. If we watch long enough, almost every seemingly worthless or hopeless human being has a point where redemption is at least possible, if not likely.
The new season begins June 11th! Catch what you can in HBO In Demand, rent or buy the 1st season and see the 2nd season now in HBO In Demand. If you're like me, you'll be ready to buy the first 2 seasons because you'll only want to leave Deadwood temporarily for your home cookin' [the "restaurant" in a mining town's not appetizing], paved roads [the mud and horse manure is repulsive], flushing toilets and electricity [to watch another episode]. |
