The Sopranos or Deadwood?

Answer 1

Deadwood

There are few people in TV as lauded as David Milch. And while I believe the praise to be a bit exaggerated, Milch will go down in history as creating one of the deepest, most complex TV characters: Andy Sipowicz. Based on Milch, and inspired by his vices, Sipowicz is the type of flawed, human, troubled person the sanitized world of TV normally holds at arm's length.

Milch was burnt out by the time he left NYPD Blue. He had once again created another rich and complex character, Danny Sorenson, but his creative juice for that show was empty. He started a new cop show, the incomprehensible and painfully indulgent Big Apple, which failed miserably and was quickly canceled. Milch is back with a 180-degree project: a western for HBO called Deadwood.

Deadwood takes place in 1876 in the titular South Dakota town. Since Deadwood, a gold-mining boomtown, is on Indian territory, American laws do not apply. It's a lawless, ungoverned society.

The real Deadwood is steeped in old-west history. It's primarily known as the place where Wild Bill Hickok was murdered. Its cemetery holds Wild Bill, along with Calamity Jane, whose lifelong love for Wild Bill was unrequited, and whose last wish was to be buried next to him.

David Milch has done his homework, here in this world so far, yet so close, to his former world of modern-day cops and crooks, and what Deadwood ends up being is a dark, brutal-truth chronicle of the time. Its conditions, people, politics, ideals; the roughhewn, scattered-dirt first step of our current civilization.

Deadwood, the actual place, is about as colorful as it gets. Milch had reams of material to work his way through, and he puts together a really nice pared-down version of the truth in his pilot script. Our main focus is Seth Bullock, a former sheriff, who comes into town with his partner, Sol Star, to start a mercantile shop. Wild Bill, the renowned lawman and gunfighter, arrives about the same time. He's with his buddy/protector-against-himself Charlie Utter, and the nutty, belligerent Calamity Jane. Al Swearengen, a heavy-thumbed scamster, owns the Gem Theater, a saloon. He's currently running a con on Brom Garret, a wealthy boy from New York who's living on his daddy's dollar.

It's only two weeks after the disaster of Custer's Last Stand and the fear of the "savage" Indians has never been higher. When a man rides into town saying he saw a family, dismembered, limbs strewn along a road, and said it was the work of Indians, Swearengen immediately offers fifty dollars for every Indian head a person brings in. Hickok and Bullock don't much believe the man's story, and figure he's the one who did the killing. It makes matters worse for the guy when it's discovered that one of the daughters hid in the hollow of a tree and survived the attack. Knowing it's only a matter of time before he's busted, the man tries to escape using his sidearm, but Hickok guns him down with a faster-than-the-speed-of-sound shot to his eye. The thing guys like Swearengen feared most when they saw Hickok ride into town was that he might want to bring the law with him, to create some sort of order in the town, and this act certainly seems to confirm this.

The great thing about Deadwood for me, a fan of westerns, is that this is all true. Bullock is a real person; so is Sol Star, Charlie Utter, Al Swearengen (his saloon is real too), as are a number of other people here. That fifty-dollar bounty for the head of an Indian was something that happened. (There's a story about a guy riding into town with a head impaled on a stick.) Hickok, Jane, Utter, Bullock and Sol all strolled into Deadwood as they do here, and Bullock's store really was a hit, and Hickok did actually sit down with a fellow named Jack McCall and play poker with him. Certain people in Deadwood did fear Hickok setting the stage for some sort of law and paid McCall to kill him. Which was a mistake, because all it did was push Bullock into action. He would become Deadwood's first sheriff.

Milch sticks to the facts for the most part. Sometimes stretching the truth (it's true that McCall and Hickok played poker, but Milch has an antagonism form, with McCall beating Hickok and ridiculing him, which, as far as I know, there's no evidence of; Hickok is said to have taken McCall for a lot of money). What Milch adds to this history is wonderful dialogue -- sort of like second-generation Mamet -- that is interestingly much more appropriate for this antiquated setting than it ever was for Milch's contemporary cop drama. The characters' speech, filled with old-west lingo, is like a hostile song. Milch certainly got lost in his own accolades on Big Apple, but this, the type of thing worthy of the praise, is his sharpest writing in years. I don't know if the new location rejuvenated him or something, but the writing here singes; it's the type of thing you can completely give yourself over to.

It's hard to say for sure from the pilot script alone, but my feeling is that Deadwood will be an examination of morality. About men with an untouched world at their feet, with the power to turn it in the direction they wish. Some men, like Swearengen, want to spoil the land for their own gain. Law and order is a threat to his violent, corrupt existence. Other men, like Bullock, a smart, tough man born to lead, naturally gravitates to the exact opposite. He's inclined to protect, to aid, to do right by his fellow man. Deadwood is something of an analysis of the inception of law, and of how an insulated universe can numbly follow the rule of its sanctioned-or-not leader.

The tone of the show will probably be akin to one of my favorite movies, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. The script's locations are all saloons, wagons and crowded, unpaved streets. The climate is bleak and vicious. We see men who've been shot in the head; a prostitute getting choked; the aforementioned slaughtered family -- Deadwood is a town that bobs on an uneven mist of violence; it's right around the corner and its appearance is simply accepted.

Milch's style as a writer is a lot like breaking in new boots: it takes a while before you become comfortable. The same holds true for Deadwood, but once he really hits a stride, which occurs here midway, the life in the script doesn't quite glow hot but sort of does a steady, seamless, unbroken roll -- like film through a projector -- and you come to realize that Milch's over-complicated writing is really, in a sense, a spell. A trance.

I know the saga that took place in Deadwood, so I was pretty sure I'd enjoy the script. And I did. I can't guarantee this will hold true for everyone else. Deadwood's history is pretty common knowledge, but everyone might not smile when they read the little details -- such as hearing Wild Bill tell Utter this is his last town -- that sparkle throughout the script. It's also impossible to tell, with this thirteen-episode series, if the other writers on the project can possibly maintain this level of writing. Once Milch hands the script duties over to other scribes, will we lose his language? If we do, the project devalues by half. The tough-guy, big-swinging-johnson poetry Milch is so fond of crafting gives this show much of its propulsion. Another potential hindrance might be Milch's stunning pretension. While the epigrammatic, dirty-eloquent dialogue fires across the page (one guy says, "I may have f**ked my life up flatter'n hammered sh*t, but I stand before you today beholden to no human c*cksucker"), we also get things like this megaton bomb: "He drinks, in his element, widening his horizons to consider other impositions by Fate on the smooth enactment of his will." Dave, please, simmer down.

The interesting thing to see is if Milch stays with the facts and shows how, after the killing of Hickok, Bullock becomes sheriff and McCall has two trials for the murder (in the first, where he claims Wild Bill killed his brother, he's acquitted, but the jury was bribed by the people who hired him; he was retried and eventually hangs). I personally hope Milch does just that; his treatment of the stories in his pilot are so vivid and dynamic that I'd like to see him finish the tale.

Walter Hill, who already visited this material in the historically inaccurate Wild Bill, will direct the pilot, a few other episodes, and serve as a consulting producer. Timothy Olyphant, a talented actor on the rise, plays Bullock. The terrific Molly Parker is Alma Garret, Brom's wife. Ian McShane takes on the role of Swearengen, and Keith Carradine, who was in Hill's Wild Bill, plays Wild Bill Hickok.

Deadwood is certainly gloomy and soiled. It feels like an accurate depiction of the times -- the good and the bad -- and it does a splendid job of being a treatise wrapped in the cloak of an entertaining oater. It's the best of both worlds, and while Deadwood can never rise to the heights of its namesake, it does come pretty close. And with its unlike-anything-else-on-the-air milieu, its wicked mood, uncleanliness, and its paradoxical retrograde freshness, Deadwood can only mean good things for those of us who seek out intelligent television.

cheers pete

Answer 2

I prefer the Sopranos, even though, there are a lot of people out there that likes Westerns, so, to them, Deadwood is one of the best things about the West to ever come on.
Now, I prefer the Sopranos when they were really good. This last season was really bad. Hopefully, they will get back to their senses and become something worth watching again.

Answer 3

Sopranos became into very much disappointing. no longer something got here approximately. final season could properly be summed up as "the gay dies." Deadwood has revived itself with a clean turf conflict. that is truthfully thrilling lower back. large to work out a coach the place you certainly could use your suggestions to stay with the communique and the drama is impressive. Rome season 2 a 12 months away. That blows. in the event that they cancel Deadwood, i will finally end up saving funds on cable via no longer getting HBO.

Answer 4

The Sopranos

Answer 5

Deadwood. Did you see the one where that guy got his eye plucked out? FREAKING AWESOM!!!

Answer 6

Sopranos...

Answer 7

deadwood

Answer 8

deadwood

Answer 9

Sopranos!! It rocks big time!

Answer 10

1

Answer 11

the reeses peanut butter cup question...they are both most excellent.
depending on my mood, otherwise great together.