Things I Have Learned From Deadwood

My roomie and I are quite fond of movies. More precisely, we are fond of spending our evenings parked on respective couches watching DVDs (and sports, to be fair). Recently we expanded our evening line ups beyond your typical movie fare to that of the television show ilk.

What we found when we explored this avenue was pretty interesting. Just about every show has its own season on DVD. The great thing about these programs is that you get to watch them without any commercial interruptions. unfortunately, this has an adverse effect on some shows.

Alf, for example, I remember from my childhood as being a terrific show. It was full of yuks, had a great plot and there was Gordon Shumway! Now, as I have watched the show, its not so good. For one, the plot is pretty threadbare. I think my liberal arts degree may have a part in this portion of my critique, and I hate myself for being so hoity toity over the plot holes in Alf. (Conversely, as a side note, i absolutely LOVE watching Walker, Texas Ranger) But Alf is kind of lame, really, and Alf without commercial interruption just magnifies this fact to uncomfortable proportions.

On the other end of the spectrum there are the HBO shows, which were designed without commercials in mind, and are thus more cogent when viewed as a whole. Also, jsut about every show that HBO has ever shown is on DVD, so the library is quite extensive. So, of course, given my fondness for Westerns I had to vote that we rent the first season of DEADWOOD. We were not disappointed, as this proved to be a very entertaining programme.

For those of you unfamiliar with DEADWOOD, the plot revolves around life in the booming town (at this point little more than a camp) and its various characters as they come and go. Being that I'm only 2 episodes in I am pretty certain that there will be many more characters yet to appear. Thus far I know the following:

Wild Bill Hickock: Schnazzy dresser, will shoot the hell out of you pretty fast.

Seth Bullock: He'll shoot the hell out of you, too. Probably jsut as fast as Wild Bill.

Al Swearengen: This guy will stab the hell out of you, call you a cocksucker and then beat up one of his whores

Sol Star: Good business man. If you mess with him, Seth will likely shoot you.

Calamity Jane: Rough bitch. Al pushed her around, which is likely to come back to haunt the both of them.

At this point it is safe to say that I am thoroughly hooked on the show. I was actually upset last night that we didn't have another two episodes to watch. *sigh* We watched some flaky Western with Dwight Yoakum and Billy Bob Thornton instead. I couldn't tell you what it was about, really, as I lost interest pretty fast and just read stuff about DEADWOOD on the internet after that.