Deadwood

I should preface this post by writing a bit about our curious relationship with television. We have a 30 year old 13 inch TV set (yes, it's a colour set), and we don't have cable. We do have a set of rabbit ears, but since the American channels went digital, we can't pick those up anymore. We've aquired the very addictive habit of watching television series on DVD. Over the past couple years, we've watched The Wire, Homocide, The Corner, Prime Suspect, Cracker, The Sopranos, and now Deadwood.

I told a friend we were watching Deadwood and his comment was, "yeah, fuckin good show", referring to all the swearing. Swearing is so common throughout the series that hardly a moment goes by without it. The exceptions are some conversations involving the few women in the show who are not prostitutes. These conversations are spoken using a stilted, careful, formal language that reminded me of simultaneous translation of United Nations speeches.

Some of the characters in Deadwood, such as Wild Bill and Calamity Jane and Seth Bullock and Al Swearengen are based on actual characters who were in the Deadwood camp at that time. Others are composites or completely made up.

Deadwood is about life in a community which initially has no law, and how that community develops from a "camp" to a "town". We see how characters with cross-purposes learn to live and work together for the good of the community against a common enemy. It is set in an historical town in South Dakota in which prospectors set up camp on native land after gold was discovered.

At the core of the series is the relationship between pimp Al Swearengen and hardware store proprietor come sheriff Seth Bullock. Swearengen is a brutal murdering thug who sees the need to support a character like Bullock to front the town. As brutal as Swearengen is, he is depicted in complex humanity and we see sides of this character that include acts of kindness. Bullock is the good reasonable sheriff but he is also a hothead and a complex character in his own right.

I thought Deadwood was a splendid series, though there were sections of it I didn't think were as successful. The detail around the acting troupe was mostly lost on me. As well, I didn't think the character of Mrs. Garret/Ellsworth was so believable. What makes the series successful though was the ability of creator David Milch to deal with law and politics and power and at the same time all the personal relationships. Well done.

Did you see this series? Do you have any favourite charactors or actors or episodes?