After watching Justified, I tried Deadwood, and found it almost unwatchable. Boring plots, uninteresting characters, and gratuitous nudity, sex, and profanity (I don’t mind this if it is necessary for the story; but in Deadwood’s case, it seemed to just be a substitute for a story). I made it through the first season, and half the second, before cutting my losses. Even Olyphant’s character was only a pale imitation (I guess pale precursor, would be more accurate) of his role in Justified.
The portrayal of eastern Kentucky was about as authentic as a soft-shelled crab from Kansas. The characters were all exaggerated stereotypes. It would never be confused with a documentary on the daily life of the US Marshall’s service. But, somehow, it all worked, and worked beautifully.
Justified will be missed. It probably had run its course, anyway, but it was a real gem.
The language in Deadwood was hard to cut through.
One episode was literally characters going across town talking about the meeting they were going to have and that was it. I don't even remember if they ever had the meeting or what they talked about.
All the pimps and prostitutes stuff was also hard to put up with, too. Brutal.
But I liked the effort to be historically accurate and to recreate a lost world. Seth Bullock and Sol Star were decent guys trying to do an impossible job.
Raylan Givens overdid the whole "attitude" thing and was kind of a jerk.