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In Re: Deadwood

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Rob sez (in comments, in my response to the claim that the 1st season of Deadwood, while plainly inferior to The Sopranos, seems better to me than Six Feet Under):

I could also see the argument that second season Deadwood is better than 6FU, but first season? I mean, the historical flavor is interesting, and the Machiavellian scheming is cool to watch, but that’s pretty much it; the characters are, until the second season, just scheming automatons. Not the faintest depth to any of them…

I admit that part of my preference for Deadwood (I’ve only seen season one, but the consensus seems to be that 2 is better at any rate) is that I just have a strong idiosyncratic taste for these type of Machiavellian scheming; not only do I revere good Mamet, I’ve seen even second-rate examples of the genre like Wall Street and Boiler Room far more often than I would prefer to admit. (And so, of course, The Sopranos–which has the scheming along with an astonishingly high caliber of acting and writing–is the best thing evah on TV.) But Rob has certainly hit on the key strength of 6FU: the characters. In particular, the it has an incomparably rich and strong female characters, which was virtually unique in TV (although the start of the season when Brenda left was consequently disastrous.) And I also agree with Rob that (unlike the Sopranos) DW does have deficiencies on that front; Bullock, in particular, is a dull cipher (the show’s biggest flaw), and while Swearingen and Tolliver are great one-dimensional characters, they are one-dimensional. (There are some supporting characters of considerable interest, Calamity Jane and Alma in particular.)

So I guess it’s kind of like Bill James’ invocation invocation of “peak” vs. “career” value in the old Historical Abstract (i.e. if you’re comparing Koufax and Spahn, Koufax was clearly better at his best, Spahn clearly better over his career.) When it’s at its best–when it knows what to do with its characters–6FU is a truly outstanding show. But (unlike Deadwood) it’s frequently undercut by a lot of annoyances: twee and pretentious dream sequences, excessively mechanical plots (especially starting in season 3, you can hear the gears creaking as relationships arbitrarily begin and end), Alan Ball’s apparent conviction that well-worn cliches about suburban life not being all Ward n’ June represent earth-shattering insights. So while when it’s on 6FU is arguably better, I like what Deadwood is trying to do more, and it achieves what it’s trying to do a lot more often.

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