Deadwood

Magnificently profane and entirely engaging, Deadwood remains one of TV's best character-driven dramas. [4 Mar 2005, p.W-45]

But this much is true: Deadwood is cocksure brilliant. David Milch, who put the glory into "NYPD Blue," is clearly and defiantly uninterested in political correctness. He just wants to make a great Western for TV. In that, he's succeeded. [4 Mar 2005, p.E1]

Not for the squeamish, the second season debut of this raw, unrefined Western takes about 10 minutes to get wound up and then it zips along with the first signs of civilization -- outside government and the telegraph -- threatening to invade. If the language doesn't make you wince, the stinking mud of the vice-filled mining boomtown will practically make your eyes water. What creator David Milch is saying about the foundation of U.S. expansion west isn't always easy to take, but it's often poetic just the same. And the performances led by Ian McShane, Brad Dourif and Timothy Olyphant are something to behold. [4 Mar 2005, p.57]

It's a shame that the coarse language used on Deadwood may put some viewers off the HBO show, which, as it happens, is television's most thoughtful exploration of morality. This richly textured, extraordinarily acted show... is a classic in the making, compelling even to those who might not necessarily be fans of the western genre. [4 Mar 2005, p.C1]

What is most riveting about Deadwood is the way it blows the dust off the Western to tell a contemporary story. [5 Mar 2005, p.14E]

Deadwood may not offer the vision of the Old West Americans have had for years, but it is a stunning, intelligent, almost poetic view of how we came to be a nation. [5 Mar 2005, p.1E]

The greatest dramatic series in the history of American television. [6 Mar 2005, p.1]

Deadwood has become one hell of a great gimmick-free Western.

Deadwood will never be everyone's cup of tea, but it stands as one of HBO's most fully realized dramas since "The Sopranos" and exhibits no signs of fading in the second leg of its run. [3 Mar 2005, p.4]

Deadwood is indeed small and brackish, and it is in its own way as absorbing and addictive as "The Sopranos."

As much as any other Western town in any other Western, Deadwood -- which is really a camp hoping to be a town hoping to be part of the United States -- seems really to exist, so vivid are the characters and so rich the texture. [5 Mar 2005, p.C01]

It's all kind of pleasingly thematic, alternately gritty and funny and caked with moral decay. Milch loves the wordplay; the show's language is one of its constant sources of pleasure. Not everyone's drunk in "Deadwood," but the liquor flows freely, lubricating the mood; the way the show is lighted, it always seems like late afternoon, and the set is a dingy, muddy Main Street with little side neighborhoods that function as slums. [6 Mar 2005, p.E28]

The second season of HBO's Deadwood gets off to such a sluggish start that fans can be forgiven if -- like saloon boss Al Swearengen -- they worry that change is coming all too fast to the raw, lawless Western town. [6 Mar 2005, p.F03]