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Deadwood


Halfaloaf

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Sorry if there's already a topic for deadwood (did a search and couldn't find any).

I watched deadwood when it originally aired and enjoyed it, but have just finished re watching the first season and can't remember it being as good as good as that. The characters are brilliant, It's as funny as anything I can remember.

Anyone else think was just a brilliant piece of tv, although if I remember the second and third seasons weren't quite on the same level.

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It's awesome how they built to this "oh my God, the shit is gonna hit the fan" at the end of the third season and they never made another show. HBO not letting them at least do a two-hour wrapup is one of the biggest sins in TV history.

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Yeah, I keep flip flopping between this and Freaks and Geeks being my favourite show ever.

 

I think I mentioned in the shows that ended too soon thread, but I find the third season to be kind of rushed. Apparently they had planned for four seasons, but were cut off by HBO not wanting to spend so much per episode on a show (such a different world we live in now, where Game of Thrones basically makes a short movie every week) and David Milch wanting to do that fucking John from Cincinnati show. So they tried to cram as many ideas from season 4 into season 3 as they could. The acting troupe's arc I feel is the most hurt, other than Brian Cox's character being friends with Swearengen, I don't feel that they ever really got fully integrated into the show or that they were given enough time to get fleshed out like they would have with another season.

 

Completely agree with jstout. I spent two years of my life hoping for the discussed wrap up movie to begin production, but it never really got any traction beyond speculation by the cast and creators.

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Second and third better, brilliant I've been re watchingd and I've been getting my wife n a couple of her family into it. I was dreading them loving the first season then been let down by the last 2. But yeah after the re watch definitely one of the best tv shows I remember.

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From an enjoyment standpoint, i would take Deadwood over any of the other heralded modern cable dramas

I feel similarly. I don't know if I can really make a solid case for it being "better" than a lot of other shows, but for me, it's second only to BREAKING BAD in terms of pure enjoyment. I've rewatched more episodes of DEADWOOD than THE WIRE, probably 5 to 1.I could queue up an episode and listen to those guys talk any night of the week.
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The problem with season 3 wasn't so much the ending, because it was a fairly appropriate ending, so much as that it was just SO digressive with a bunch of story threads being introduced and then going nowhere. Everyone remembers the theatre troupe, but there was also the matter of Odell, as well as the Earp brothers. They all showed up, got a lot of screen time, and then shuffled off with none of it meaning much. And a lot of well-liked regulars got their screen time cut due to these false-starts. I think most people would have preferred the final season to have a sharper focus on the regulars. (Doc Cochran isn't in the final episode AT ALL.)

Anyway...

He gets overlooked a lot because his run was so short, but Keith Carradine is tremendous as Buffalo Bill.

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I've been rewatching it this year (currently mid-season 2; wife is watching for the first time) and there is so much amazing dialogue that I missed the first time, that it almost feels like my first time watching it. I'm sure I could just rewatch this show over and over again and always find something new. And it's not even just the major players. There's a scene where Alma Garrett dismisses her nanny, Ms. Isringhausen, as she doesn't feel she loves the child. There are no fireworks, no curses flying. It's so restrained yet filled with anger bubbling underneath. If anything, those scenes where the characters have to be polite, but also strongly getting their point across are some of the best.

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He gets overlooked a lot because his run was so short, but Keith Carradine is tremendous as Buffalo Bill.

 

 

Wild Bill Hickok, actually. And yeah, he was so awesome that even though I knew he was gonna be killed early, I was still upset and pissed when it happened.

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Garret Dillahunt and the Double Role of Doom deserves special mention as well. He's a goddamned wizard chameleon with how distinct he makes each. I know people that have watched the show and didn't realize it was the same guy.

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Probably THE most strip-mined cast in TV history, as both JUSTIFIED and SONS OF ANARCHY are in a nuclear arms race to see who can cram the most DEADWOOD alumni into their storylines. 

 

Hell, I even marked out a bit when I realized Trixie was Ray Donovan's wife.

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Garret Dillahunt and the Double Role of Doom deserves special mention as well. He's a goddamned wizard chameleon with how distinct he makes each. I know people that have watched the show and didn't realize it was the same guy.

 

I watched the series for the first time a couple years back, and just found this out about 2-3 days ago. Blew my mind. And I'm generally the "hey that actor played so and so in such and such" guy. Chameleon is spot on.

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Without a doubt in my top 5 shows of all-time, and on any given day it may be in my #1 spot. Personally I have no issues with the way it ended. While it clearly wasn't an intentional series finale, I feel like it's almost fitting for the tone of the show.

 

I agree, the ending itself was fine, and there was something very fitting about closing with that shot of Al scrubbing up another bloodstain (if I recall it correctly).

 

However, I do agree with EVA that season 3 suffered from introducing a bunch of story-lines and characters that never had much of a chance to go anywhere. I think if you had a time machine season 3, made with the knowledge that it would be the end, things could have been made a lot tighter, more satisfying, and befitting of the series as a whole.

 

Still, I loved all three seasons. Put me down for the "top 5 show ever, if not #1" list.

 

Also, you can mark me down as not recognizing the double role played by Dillahunt until I looked it up later on Wikipedia. Blew my mind, too. Both characters were so memorable, but in completely different ways.

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