I rented some Deadwood episodes on DVD this weekend; it's another one of those shows which I've heard good things about, but never got to see on TV because it screened about three hours after I'd gone to bed.
Despite the exuberant swearing throughout the show (not to mention watching a dead man being fed to pigs), it's not so unpleasant that I couldn't enjoy it.
Deadwood is loaded with characters to love, hate and pity; the ruthless saloon owner and his unwashed cronies, the ex-state marshall and his Jewish business partner, the doctor who apparently spends most of his time "up to my elbows in snatch", the foolish townie who's been duped out of twenty grand for a used up gold claim and his laudanum-addicted wife.
It was interesting to see their take on Calamity Jane; the character I saw seems a zillion miles away from how Doris Day played her. She's coarse and loud and vulgar and not at all pretty. But put a sick orphaned child in her care and she's all tender and vulnerable (maybe she has an inner-Doris).
I'll be looking forward to seeing the rest of Season One, though it's going to be hard fitting it in with watching Desperate Housewives, House and Lost, as well as getting my blog fixes.
4 comments:
So the Old West wasn't really like Blazing Saddles?
apparently not. The token "Chinaman" even has short hair, and no-one sings.
Shouldn't the Chinaman be a coolie with long hair then or something? So does the extra profanity make the show better than the old ones or worse? You'll probably never receive this question seeing as how I'm commenting months after the post. I'll have to look for an opportune moment to bring it up again.
glomgold: the liberally-applied foul language doesn't make it more interesting or more fun, but I can only assume that it's a more realistic interpretation of the language used by men in those times. Apart from one character, the only women in the show were whores and Calamity Jane - it really wasn't a welcoming place for women.
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