Need feedback on the show "Deadwood"

Jack Tabbs ^ | 5/26/06 | Jack Tabbs

[PISANO]

ONLY 6? That's got to be several hours a week.

I have cable tv mainly for BOXING, Football and visiting Children & Grandchildren.

The LAST comedy series I watched on TV was TAXI.

[mugs99]

Their language and issues aren't well represented in Deadwood

The langauge and issues are very well represented as they were in the mining camps of the American west. This show is not presenting the culture of the aristocracy of New York or San Francisco. I collect artifacts and photographs from the American west. My great granddad was a trick rider with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Deadwood is the closest thing I've seen of that era he so well described to me.
.

[Mike Darancette]

Is it worth renting?

It's worth stealing, it's that good.

[dodger]

There certainly was a more elaborate, even baroque, mode of speaking and writing among many in the 1800's. The script writing is often amazingly testured.

As for the foul language, it is hard to believe it was THAT bad. I am told that in one 40+ minute episode of Deadwood the F-word was used more than forty times not to mention the C-word about ten times plus countless sh-ts, c-cks and all the rest.

It is a great show but -- yikes!

[Hildy]

I know what you mean about the language...and let's not forget about the graphic sex. The first season I was truly shocked and I didn't like the first few episodes...but it grows on you...and I don't know if that's such a good thing. Remember the 1980's movie "VIDEODROME?" Remember the message of that movie?

[Mr. Jeeves]

As for the foul language, it is hard to believe it was THAT bad.

Well, Al Swearingen and Cy Tolliver (and Trixie) account for about 95% of it - it's not like everyone in town talks that way. Such educated Easterners as exist in town speak very differently. It sounds shocking to Americans who grew up on the romantic ideals of Gene Autry and John Wayne, but all of that language was in common use at the time. I found the 19th century technique for dealing with bladder stones a lot more disturbing than the language! ;)

Deadwood is probably the best Western ever made.

[Pietro]

nice photos, but what's missing?

It's the same thing that's missing in every western or period piece.

Here's a hint: it's the subject of most of this thread.

[Pietro]

"However, I have never seen so many creative uses of the F word in all my days."

As a lad I worked a while in a steel mill on the Monongahela River. I can assure you that the language used there daily by everyone/everywhere/all the time would make the writer's of Deadwood blush.

Creative obscenity was an aspiration and stringing together consecutive insults of the most pungent profanity the mark of a master. The language was clearly a time honored affair stretching back beyond the memory of even the old timers.

[bk1000]

I have no %^%$$# idea what all the ^%#^% fuss about the &%$7 &%^$ language is. I mean *&%^! Can't some *%$ people ^%$ lighten up? &%$^!

[BunnySlippers]

Seth Bullock wasn't a gentleman? He married his childhood sweetheart and Alma Garret was fictious. He later became a protege of Teddy Roosevelt and rode in his election entourage.

[BunnySlippers]

Also, David Milch was a fraternity-mate of Bush's at Yale ... same time. I've watched seasons one and two several times. I'm hooked!

[mugs99]

Seth Bullock wasn't a gentleman?

No, he was a tough guy...In a time when tough guys were needed. He had the reputation of being able to stare down the meanest of desperados, and never killed a man in his entire time as sheriff...But he did kick ass! The gunfight on the show is bogus. Wild Bill was killed the day after Bullock arrived and they never knew each other. Bullock divided the town. The lowlifes were free to run wild on lower Main Street but were not welcome on the decent side of town.

He married his childhood sweetheart and Alma Garret was fictious.

That's true. He was a family man totally devoted to Martha and would have never have had an affair with the fictitious Alma Garret.

He later became a protege of Teddy Roosevelt and rode in his election entourage.

They were close friends. Seth Bullock was the one who convinced Roosevelt to make the Yellowstone a National Park. Bullock was one of the great men of the American West and the show does not do him justice.
.

[Hildy]

This year, it's almost to the point where I can't understand anything they're talking about. I get the gyst, but the specifics...NO.