10 Reasons You MUST Finally Watch Deadwood
If you haven't seen Deadwood yet, why not? Here are 10 reasons why you MUST finally watch it.
By the time Deadwood first aired in 2004, HBO was enjoying a fantastic run of success, having already produced three of the best television shows of all time: Band of Brothers, The Sopranos and The Wire.
Any one of these shows would have been a tough enough act to follow but with both The Sopranos and The Wire still firmly in their stride, it would take something special to win over an audience, quite frankly, spoiled on quality.
With David Milch at the helm (co-creator of the critically acclaimed NYPD Blue) and with Ian McShane in a starring role (alongside an incredibly strong ensemble cast), the show was in safe hands. Deadwood ultimately reinvented the period drama, delivering three powerful seasons of gritty, foul-mouthed television set in a fictionalised version of the famous gold-rush settlement of the 1870s Wild West.
Despite winning 8 Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe, the renewal of Deadwood for a short fourth season was instead replaced by the promise of two feature-length films, and rumours over the next few years would lead to fears that the series was dead. After an excruciatingly long wait - of over a decade - a standalone movie finally arrived in 2019 to conclude the story.
With all three seasons of the show, and the film, now available on a variety of streaming services, there's never been a better time to watch this groundbreaking show for the first time. Not convinced? Here's why you should take notice.
10. Over A Decade Later, There's Finally An Ending
This might seem like a fairly obvious reason, and it is, but it's also a very important one.
For a decade after the end of Season 3, anyone deciding to watch the show for the first time would be setting themselves up for disappointment, joining millions of other viewers in Deadwood limbo.
For those lucky enough to be joining the party now, there's no excruciatingly long wait full of hopeful hearsay and devastating rumours, there's simply a perfect conclusion to the story, ready to watch immediately after the credits for Season 3 start rolling.
10 years after the events of the original series, Deadwood: The Movie brings back the majority of the show's wonderful ensemble cast to meet the return of the ambitious and vengeful George Hurst.
The story is as gripping, tense and heartwrenching as is to be expected and it's ultimately a fitting conclusion to the Deadwood story. Most importantly, you don't need to wait another 10 years to see it!