Deadwood - The Complete First Season (2004)

Complex and fascinating series, with a small "but"

My wife and I really like the first season. Set in a mining camp in the Dakota territory, the series brings together good guys, bad guys, and others whose ultimate motives are revealed in very clever ways. The 'feel' of the series is authentic, with muddy streets, realistic clothing and dialog.

One thing we love about the series is that the characters are extremely complex. I said earlier that the series has its good guys and bad guys and while that's true, the actors bring out layers of complexity in their characters that at times you empathize with the bad guys while the good guys reveal through their actions and words a kind of hypocrisy. It's fascinating.

Case in point is the character of Al Swearengen, a blood soaked, larger than life criminal and owner of the Gem Saloon who adheres to the "knowlege is power" credo....his informants seem to be everywhere. Brutal, profane, and cruel, the writers use clever devices to bring out his backstory with its own take on the nurture versus nature debate. He is also capable of surprising compassion. Ian McShane's portrayal of this complex character is masterful.

On the flip side is Seth Bullock, one of Deadwood's `good guys.' Yet there is no white hat here....the former marshal possesses a hair trigger temper, a streak of brutality, and a moral code that can get rather muddy.

Many of the secondary characters are just as riveting as the headliners. E.B. Farnum, owner of the town's hotel and Swearengen's lackey, is like gum on the shoe that you can't scrape off. He pokes his nose into everything and after a while you wonder about who is playing who. Farnum isn't revealing everything he knows or what his ultimate motives are. Dan Dority, Swearengen's heavy, is another character who, despite his thuggish trade, is capable of tenderness and mercy.

The bottom line here is that all of these characters feel fully developed and full-blooded. It's a fascinating study of life in the old West.

The "But" here is the language....one of the hot topics in these reviews. Unfortunately, I've noticed that the reviewers who take umbrage at any critique of the profanity do so under the unthinking assumption that objections to profanity must be morality based, and that's not always true. My wife and I are not prudes and we understand that the mining camps were wild and profane places. But sometimes it feels like David Milch, finally free of network television's constraints, writes like a kid joyfully spewing swearwords because his parents are nowhere around. At times it feels forced and overdone. We get that the camps were profane places....but the swearing sometimes is more of a distraction than a needed tone setter. It detracts from some otherwise great dialog.

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