Deadwood

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I watched about 2 minutes of episode one.

― adam.r.l. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

that is not even giving the show one try!

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I have to say this show is so much more interesting than fucking Carnivale, which lost me 3/4 of the way through the first season and I never had the energy to go back to.

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't like horses.

― adam.r.l. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

This is right after OZ and the Wire on my Netflix queue (as I said on another thread.)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

there are not that many horses in this show, there are a lot of pigs though

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

also, it is extremeley violent and WEIRD

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

All of this sounds good to me.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

the only thing I don't like about it is the Calamity Jane character who is way way way overacted and annoying.

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Is she played by Doris Day?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Dinah Shore

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

the only thing I don't like about it is the Calamity Jane character who is way way way overacted and annoying. I totally disagree. I think she's one of the most amazing characters on the show! The scene where she breaks down in front of Swearengen seems a bit much early on, but given the fleshing-out she receives later in the season it's totally warranted.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Thursday, 24 February 2005 02:18 (twenty-one years ago)

well I'm only at episode 6, so I'll take your word for it

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 24 February 2005 02:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Also: I'm writing a spec episode of this, so I'm not entirely unbiased.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Thursday, 24 February 2005 02:35 (twenty-one years ago)

My other favorite show, after The Wire. I got more and more impressed by it all the way through the first season, as they layered on more ideas and characters. What I like is that it takes conventional Western themes -- the whole taming-of-the-frontier thing, the tensions between individual and common/social power, etc. -- and makes them more complicated. In a way, it's like what happens after the movie ends: the politics and commerce and negotiated alliances that go into creating civilization, and the trade-offs that come with them. I thought the plague subplot was great, the formation of an ad-hoc authority in the face of a crisis.

And one thing it shares with The Wire is that it takes politics seriously -- not as abstract talking-head stuff, but as part of on-the-ground daily life.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 24 February 2005 02:49 (twenty-one years ago)

OZ is crap, Alex in SF likes it!

― adam.r.l. (nordicskilla), Thursday, 24 February 2005 03:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha the SHIELD wishes it could carry OZ's jockstrap!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 24 February 2005 17:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Note: OZ's jockstrap may smell sorta funny.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 24 February 2005 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay so I watched the first two episodes (no POWERS BOOTH yet) and this is really quite good EXCEPT for the language sounds completely and ridiculously modern (I'm pretty sure cocksucker was not quite as in vogue a term as this show implies--if it was even used at all.) But that's a minor quibble really.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 3 March 2005 00:55 (twenty-one years ago)

completely and ridiculously modern (I'm pretty sure cocksucker was not quite as in vogue a term as this show implies--if it was even used at all. Err, not as frequent. But very accurate. Anyway, Milch has the show written as a morality play, and the historical reality is of very little concern.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 March 2005 01:41 (twenty-one years ago)

this show is pretty good! i actually started to like it more as it got closer to the end of season 1, which i finished last night (nb: the extras on disc 6 are pretty interesting, milch seems like a really smart guy)

however my main problem with show is--well, i have a few problems.

1) too much good-guy olyphant. i like the actor when he goes roguish but i don't really like watching him as bullock (buttock? what is his character's name?)

2) while i'm a fan of the long-game, long-arc tv show (ie buffy, the wire esp., i claudius etc.) i feel like deadwood isn't really handling it that well. it puzzles me why a lot of the show's strands get so much time, almost like milch is stalling while he warms up the good stuff. it's all b-plot!

ok two problems.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 3 March 2005 06:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually kinda like how the b-plots are the plot. A lot of the ostensible big conflict moments happen without a lot of fanfare. What matters is all the rest of the stuff happening around the margins.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 3 March 2005 06:28 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah i just find that a lot of them aren't quite so compelling--i'd rather be watching ian mcshane!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 3 March 2005 06:29 (twenty-one years ago)

i mean in theory, yeah, i agree with you, but it doesn't work quite as well as it does in say the wire.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 3 March 2005 06:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, I realized while watching "Something About Mary" on TV tonight that Dan the barman/hit-man in Deadwood was Cameron Diaz's retarded brother.

x-post
yeah, nothing about it works quite as well as The Wire...but I'll take it in the absence of.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 3 March 2005 06:30 (twenty-one years ago)

(maybe cuz there isn't enough payoff?) (xp)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 3 March 2005 06:31 (twenty-one years ago)

"I'd Rather Be Watching Ian McShane" would be a good T-shirt.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 3 March 2005 06:31 (twenty-one years ago)

or erotic tattoo

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 3 March 2005 06:32 (twenty-one years ago)

They should take advantage of the hype and show Lovejoy on American TV. It's very strnage being a brit in the US for a while and seeing all the british actors on TV playing Americans - i haven;t seen Deadwood, but i have seen a medical drama starring....Hugh Laurie! Actually, its not bad. I wonder if Steven Fry will get all bitter and resent his fame - sort of Pete and Dud style, if you know what I mean.

Of course, the worst is Catherine Zeta Jones and her terrible American accent in the T-Mobile ads. Horrible!

― Robin Goad (rgoad), Thursday, 3 March 2005 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

cunts

― Chris 'The Nuts' V (Chris V), Thursday, 3 March 2005 16:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I just finished the second season of The Wire yesterday. That's, along with The French Connection and Prime Suspect, one of the best police procedurals ever. In fact, it's really almost exactly like The French Connection extended over a dozen hours.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 3 March 2005 16:35 (twenty-one years ago)

"Ain't things cloudy enough? Don't we already enough fucking imponderables?"

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 7 March 2005 06:31 (twenty-one years ago)

oops..."...have enough fucking imponderables?"

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 7 March 2005 06:31 (twenty-one years ago)

"We're joining America -- and it's full of fucking lying thieves and people you can't trust."

Welcome to fucking Deadwood! I'm glad it's back.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 7 March 2005 06:33 (twenty-one years ago)

This basically just set the stage. I understand that Swearengen is gonna have to deal with kidney stones and they'll pull back the character... Milch suggested that he had to find some way to pull McShane back so that people would be willing to pay attention to the other characters and this is it.
God, I love this show.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Monday, 7 March 2005 06:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Whee! What a fight, tonight!

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 07:48 (twenty-one years ago)

This last episode? Trixie is quickly becoming my favorite character. And Starr has something to do now. Brilliant. Dorrity's gay! Hands down best hour of televison this year. Hands fucking down.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Monday, 14 March 2005 05:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Trixie, Jane, Alma, Joanie...the female characters in the show are maybe more interesting and better written than the men. Plus now Alice Krige! And Bullock's wife. It just keeps adding these layers of characters and interactions and entanglements.

Also, in case anyone hasn't read it yet, Frank Rich had interesting things to say about the show this week:

Its linguistic gait befits its chapter of American history, the story of a gold-rush mining camp in the Dakota Territory of the late 1870's. "Deadwood" is the back story of a joke like "The Aristocrats" and of everything else that is joyously vulgar in American culture and that our new Puritans want to stamp out. It's the ur-text of Vegas and hip-hop and pulp fiction. It captures with Boschian relish what freedom, by turns cruel and comic and exhilarating, looked and sounded like at full throttle in frontier America before anyone got around to building churches or a government.

... It reminds us of who we are and where we came from, and that even indecency is part of an American's birthright. It also, if inadvertently, illuminates the most insidious underpinnings of today's decency police by further reminding us that the same people who want to stamp out entertainment like "Deadwood" also want to rewrite American history (and, when they can, the news) according to their dictates of moral and political correctness. They won't tolerate an honest account of the real Deadwood in a classroom or museum any more than they will its fictionalized representation on HBO.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:05 (twenty-one years ago)

(and The New Yorker had a 'Deadwood' cartoon in this week's issue too -- I guess the show's having its media moment)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, I also love Jewell!

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i think that westerns tend to reflect the moral situtaion of the world it is made--more then anything else

(cf The Searchers, Red River, bonnie And Clyde, Heavens Gate)

the lack of white hats, heros, honour, etc--is perfect for the bush era.

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, but I also think that because they're so utterly moralistic they're frequently over-simplificatory and reappropriate the tableau more for the purpose of manipulation than historical representation. Not that I'm a historical pedant - generally I could give two shits about anything beyond the raw drama - but one of the things I love the most, most, most about Deadwood is that it really gives me a fuller (if not necessarily more accurate) sense of the shittiness of day-to-day existence in the Old West.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, and the show also has the newspaper publisher (Ferris Bueller's principal, no less) trying to tidy up the history as it happens. There's some nice little media criticism mixed in with everything else (I loved the scene in the first episode where they were arguing over how best to report the news of the plague).

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:20 (twenty-one years ago)

(first season, I mean, not first episode)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:21 (twenty-one years ago)

What was his line tonight? Something like, "I want to report the truth, with the bounds of decency."

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:21 (twenty-one years ago)

within the bounds, sorry, can't type tonight

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:22 (twenty-one years ago)

And the line about "I consider the bounds of decency to be those which more fully report the truth" was pretty nice, too. My roommate, FWIW, won't watch the show because he feels it's appealing to a low-class, bigoted demographic. I don't think I could disagree more but I DO feel that I understand his point. There's something strangely nasty about the show. To make a shoddy metaphor: much of the violence on the show is similar in character to Tarantino's use of the word 'nigger' inasmuch as it's 25% gleeful, 25% in-your-face offensive, 25% over-the-top, and 25% honest-to-god progressive.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, I think it's an interesting thing because it seems to me to have a sort of fundamentally liberal perspective -- more political than Tarantino, who seems to lack politics (that's not a criticism, just an observation) -- but it also seems like a new kind of liberalism. A deliberately not-nice kind, unconcerned with giving individual offense, rooted in an insistence on a certain amount of honesty about how things work in the world. It's a kind of liberalism I'd like to see and hear more, not least because I think it has a hell of lot more to say about the current state of things than John Kerry or John Edwards. (The Wire is another example of this strain, I'd say. But it's hard to come by.)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I totally agree. Did you get to read the Milch article in the New Yorker a few weeks back? If not drop me an email w. your address and I'll send it to you; I made a copy for posterity.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, it's true abt. the liberalism -- Milch (and the current position he embodies) are markedly unconcerned with allegedly 'viceful' social behaviors - drugs, sex, consensual violence - and a Western TV show on a rare network which privileges artistic intent more than their competitors is the perfect soapbox from which to preach. God bless him, AFAIC.

― Remy (null) (x Jeremy), Monday, 14 March 2005 07:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 328 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

those 2 sentences need about 200% more “fuck”s but otherwise yes, agree

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 3 October 2025 05:38 (eight months ago)

Best thing prestige tv ever gave us.

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Friday, 3 October 2025 08:33 (eight months ago)

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