Dead Ahead

Yeah, it's been a slow day, and not much to say or do. But I have been jonesing for the final season of Deadwood to come out today. And it better. Last week it was supposed to be in my hot little hands, but I got the hard truth after prowling the aisles at Best Buy. Last minute push-back my ass!

Deadwood was one of those shows that I didn't take interest in until I had the chance to watch the first season on DVD, and I've been a huge champion of it ever since. In fact, after watching the rental, I went out and bought it so I could turn friends onto the crude, raw joy of the frontier. Same with the second season and now the third and final. Anyone expecting John Wayne is going to be disappointed.

From the gritty, foul mouthed David Milch, Deadwood is as brutal and wild as the last days of the gold rush era. From the Black Hills of South Dakota, the series fused historical fact and violent fiction as the discovery of gold in the previously contested Indian territory drew together a dangerous group of adventurers, fortune seekers, and opportunists. Minor historical footnotes like Al Swearengen, Seth Bullock, and E.B. Farnum get the front stage along with Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, and George Hearst, and all are presented colorfully and compellingly.

Much of the success comes from the writing of the show, since it doesn't make any bones about the desparate and dangerous life that accompanies the expansion of a mining community into a town. Milch cut his teeth on Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, but this series was all his style, adapting the straight forward intensity of those cop dramas and infusing the dirt and dreams of cowboys at the end of their era. Credit must also go to spectacular acting by Timothy Olyphant (Go!), Ian McShane (Sexy Beast), Brad Dourif (Dune), and William Sanderson (Blade Runner), plus several other fine performances by lesser known actors like Molly Parker, John Hawkes, Jim Beaver, Paula Malcomson, and W. Earl Brown.

Due to what seemed to be the rising cost of production, HBO pulled the plug but promised to wrap the series up with a pair of two hour movies to be aired at some point in 2007. Sensing the difficulty to get the ensemble cast together and rebuild the struck sets, I'm not going to hold my breath on those getting made this year, or perhaps at all, but at least there were three years worth of hard living in the tiny town of Deadwood to enjoy.