Deadwood - The Complete First Season

Director: Davis Guggenheim, Michael Almereyda, Timothy Van Patten
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Product Description
(HBO Dramatic Series) 1876. In the Black Hills of South Dakota lies Deadwood, a lawless town inhabited by a mob of restless misfits ranging from an ex-lawman to a scheming saloon owner to the legendary Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. The richest gold strike in American history provides the backdrop for HBO's next great drama.

Format: DVD MOVIE
Amazon.com
The remarkable first season of Deadwood represents one of those periodic, wholesale reinventions of the Western that is as different from, say, Lonesome Dove as that miniseries is from Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo or the latter is from Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur. In many ways, HBO's Deadwood embraces the Western's unambiguous morality during the cinema's silent era through the 1930s while also blazing trails through a post-NYPD Blue, post-The West Wing television age exalting dense and customized dialogue. On top of that, Deadwood has managed an original look and texture for a familiar genre: gritty, chaotic, and surging with both dark and hopeful energy. Yet the show's creator, erstwhile NYPD Blue head writer David Milch, never ridicules or condescends to his more grasping, futile characters or overstates the virtues of his heroic ones.

Product Description

(HBO Dramatic Series) 1876. In the Black Hills of South Dakota lies Deadwood, a lawless town inhabited by a mob of restless misfits ranging from an ex-lawman to a scheming saloon owner to the legendary Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. The richest gold strike in American history provides the backdrop for HBO's next great drama.

Format: DVD MOVIE

Amazon.com

The remarkable first season of Deadwood represents one of those periodic, wholesale reinventions of the Western that is as different from, say, Lonesome Dove as that miniseries is from Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo or the latter is from Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur. In many ways, HBO's Deadwood embraces the Western's unambiguous morality during the cinema's silent era through the 1930s while also blazing trails through a post-NYPD Blue, post-The West Wing television age exalting dense and customized dialogue. On top of that, Deadwood has managed an original look and texture for a familiar genre: gritty, chaotic, and surging with both dark and hopeful energy. Yet the show's creator, erstwhile NYPD Blue head writer David Milch, never ridicules or condescends to his more grasping, futile characters or overstates the virtues of his heroic ones.

Set in an ungoverned stretch of South Dakota soon after the 1876 Custer massacre, Deadwood concerns a lawless, evolving town attracting fortune-seekers, drifters, tyrants, and burned-out adventurers searching for a card game and a place to die. Others, particularly women trapped in prostitution, sundry do-gooders, and hangers-on have nowhere else to go. Into this pool of aspiration and nightmare arrive former Montana lawman Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and his friend Sol Starr (John Hawkes), determined to open a lucrative hardware business. Over time, their paths cross with a weary but still formidable Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) and his doting companion, the coarse angel Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert); an aristocratic, drug-addicted widow (Molly Parker) trying to salvage a gold mining claim; and a despondent hooker (Paula Malcomson) who cares, briefly, for an orphaned girl. Casting a giant shadow over all is a blood-soaked king, Gem Saloon owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), possibly the best, most complex, and mesmerizing villain seen on TV in years. Over 12 episodes, each of these characters, and many others, will forge alliances and feuds, cope with disasters (such as smallpox), and move--almost invisibly but inexorably--toward some semblance of order and common cause. Making it all worthwhile is Milch's masterful dialogue--often profane, sometimes courtly and civilized, never perfunctory--and the brilliant acting of the aforementioned performers plus Brad Dourif, Leon Rippy, Powers Boothe, and Kim Dickens. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

South Dakota.......2007-07-04

Except for the language, this is a great series. Very well acted and the location is a great place to visit. All the names, Bullock, Wild Bill, Calamity Jane, etc. are there on buildings, saloons, etc.

It's an interesting but not entertaining drama........2007-06-25

The acting is so good it makes me feel very angry with Gem Saloon owner, Al Swearengen. He's evil, smart and manipulative. The scene that showed him abusing the hooker is very disturbing and yet it's so realistic it's scary.

The gun fighting scenes are below average compared to movies shown in theaters.

I did not watch all the episodes of season 1 because they're depressing even though they're deep and engaging.

Yuch.......2007-06-18

Why did I ever get my husband "Deadwood"? I dread watching it. It is simply depressing Yuch

Deadwood is no Sopranos.......2007-06-14

We'd heard a lot about Deadwood being just as good as the Sopranos. Well, it isn't. The constant foul language seems out of place, there doesn't seem to be a character to root for, and the story lines are weak and underdeveloped. Slightly more entertaining than summer reruns.

We gave up Deadwood for John in Cincinatti ?.......2007-06-12

Milch has entirely lost his mind. He gave up Deadwood because he wanted to do JIC. What a total bonehead of a choice.

Anyway, Deadwood, the "Soprano's of the old west" is one of the best series ever on TV.

Isn't it odd that the complete 3 season set is $40 MORE expensive than buying each season separately? Who prices these things?