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Celebrating 1,000 NCIS-franchise episodes

The Gem: General Discussion Welcome Here!

Wilowy

By Wilowy
in Deadwood [V]

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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Ha ha! Well, I'm an action figure girl from way back, have the Buffy Library set up in my living room populated by all the characters, so I'm always appreciative when I see figures from other shows I love, especially when they aren't mass-produced. I think they're nifty!

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Catherinewriter

Catherinewriter

Really, you have all the figures from the Buffyverse? Cool. Are there any from Deadwood out there apart from the two pictured here. Probably now. Unlikely that Deadwood saga would make for very appropriate "Happy Meals" figurines. Their loss.

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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I do. Here's one shot, but I have dozens of others. 

 

uZoo6tr.jpg

 

And no, I haven't seen ANY Deadwood figures, other than those, unfortunately. Sorry. 

 

And I reeeallly need to put this in the Buffy thread. 

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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Here's an unusual thing; half the cast came out for a Q&A at the actual Bullock Hotel in Deadwood in 2005. It's a little awkward, and the sound sucks, but it's cool to see them out of costume and character.

 

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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Even given all the fuckin' givens. :)

 

Maybe after the Memorial Day Band of Brothers rewatch, we can organize one for Deadwood here if all you hoopleheads would be up for it? 

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walnutqueen

walnutqueen

You know damned well I'm hoopleheaded enough to be up for it, Willowy - even though I'm a quasi-Luddite unable (and unwilling!) to watch anything my DVR can't record.   I just won't be able to quote accurately from memory; y'all must take up the slack in this thread!   :-)

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Catherinewriter

Catherinewriter

I'm up for a rewatch, but if HBO isn't reairing it, how would that work? Forgive my fuckin' electronic illiteracy, but I don't how to watch it online.

Sad and wholly enraged response to the final episode. If there had been a Season 4, I fear what would have become of our favorite characters:

1. Doc is dying

2. Trixie is being hustled out of town, lest Hearst see here around and about. Don't know what that means for Sol, as he is necessary for the hardware store.

3. Ellsworth is dead, and that puts me emotionally flatter than hammered shit.

4. Alma and Bullock cannot be together, so not sure what she will do in Deadwood.

5. Would like to see Bullock and Martha grow closer, as someone mentioned above.

Still would like to have episodes with good scenes with Charlie, Jane, Joanie, Richardson, Aunt Lou, Tom Nuttall, a strike by the Gem's whores, demanding higher pay and time off during the day to do girl things.

Just don' know. Am so very, very sad.

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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Deadwood is on Netflix, also you can check the dvds out of your local library for free - even putting a 'hold' on them if they aren't in stock - or transfer from another library. Other solutions that have worked for me before I had my own dvds were to borrow from a friend, or have someone more savvy send me a streaming link. Occasionally youtube will have an entire episode, but they get taken down regularly. 

 

I do feel your pain regarding the ending. It just wasn't enough. And Ellsworth dead? Flattened me for a week, at least. 

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Iguana

Iguana

Hey, all you pussy lickers and c**********!  I loved this show back in the day, once I got past all the swearing and grossness.  It became so Shakespearean in nature for me that I ended up hearing the fucks etc as the equivalent of a "bodkin" or "forsooth" when watching Hamlet or Macbeth.  I will always rue the day that HBO and Miltch abandoned this show after the third season in favour of that horrid John from Cincinnati.

 

I still can't look at a can of peaches without snickering and wondering if there's any cinnamon around.

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walnutqueen

walnutqueen

Iguana - you had me at pussy-lickers and c**********.  :-) 

 

I fucking loved John From Cincinnatti, so my pain is doubled at losing both shows, and I curse Milch's name to this day (and will watch anything he does in spite of my ginormous butt-hurt).  Can anyone say "Luck"?  He's the bad boyfriend personified.

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Iguana

Iguana

"I'm sorry, baby. It will never happen again. You can believe me this time." David Milch, to fans.

I was once able to use the phrase "unauthorized cinnamon" at a coffee place. Many confused looks but one guy cracked up so I figured he was a fan. I have yet to find an opportunity to legitimately use the phrase "pussy half-price for the next 15 minutes" so it still on my bucket list.

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Iguana

Iguana

"Given all the fuckin' givens" is one I have been able to work into my everyday conversations quite easily.

I've had opportunity in the last decade ( god how time fuckin flies!) to get other people to watch Deadwood. Most people end up loving it but a number were turned off by the swearing or couldn't follow the ornate and oblique speech. But most who didn't watch past the first ep or two said it was just too dirty for them. Literally too much filthy bodies and gross clothes and such. What has been the reactions for y'all?

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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I haven't had the same problem because those very adjectives are what I use to lure prospective obsessives in! Ha, I tell them how profane and Shakespeareian the dialogue is, how filthy and gritty the town is, how you can almost smell everyone, and practically feel the grit in your teeth... it's actually been a successful selling point! :D

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walnutqueen

walnutqueen

I'm still waiting to use the always golden "I'd sooner touch the moon than take on a whore's thinkin'."

 

 

Willowy - when someone tells me they're into horticulture, I tell them you can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think.  :-)

 

iguana -  I could never convince any of my friends or co-workers to watch Deadwood back in the day (nowadays I don't have friends & co-workers, so it's moot).  I did get my Mum to watch with me - she is used to my foul language, so was not shocked. 

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Lucille

Lucille

I'll just put this here.  The Deadwood discussion starts at about 22:00.

 

Vulture Festival: David Milch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_d88cgee6Q

 

Milch is really slowing down.  He looks good, but his long pauses and shaky voice were kind of shocking.  He sounded more spry just a few years ago, but he did say on Ferguson that he was having health problems.  They must have taken their toll.  "Declining years spare us no fucking indignities." /Al

 

So Boss Tweed.  I wonder if the Faulkner project is still on.  Anyways, when HBO killed The Money (and previously Luck, Last of the Ninth, and JFC) I was hoping for a Deadwood resurrection, but I'll take whatever Milch I can get.  Not that I expect HBO to air anything he does ever again!  But hope springs eternal.

 

I fucking loved JFC too, walnutqueen.  "It had dozens of fans!" /DM 

 

But nothing can top Deadwood for me, man.  Nothing.

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walnutqueen

walnutqueen

It is very sad hearing about Milch, Lucille.  Nothing will ever match Deadwood, of course.  But JFC had a magical promise of great things to come, and, it made me very happy, philosophical in a mystical way, and left me wanting so much more.  It was almost as if Milch was starting to explore death and the greater meaning of life and the universe - perhaps more cognizant of his own mortality and failing health?  I went all in on that one, too.  :-(  Luck, on the other hand - I just knew it was doomed from the start, and I love horses, so I managed to stay totally detached.  :-)

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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Hoping this doesn't break our bond, walnutqueen, but I fucking HATED that bullshit JFC and saw it as nothing but a murderous death knell for Deadwood.

 

It's widely known that Milch stopped paying attention to Deadwood well into the third season in favor of his shiny new object, and to me, that self-indulgent, pseudo-existential tripe is what KILLED any kind of future Deadwood might have had for the movies or ANY continuation. ARGH!!

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walnutqueen

walnutqueen

Willowy, nothing could break our bond (HANG DAI!) - especially not a self indulgent c********* like Milch, who is a cheating cheater who cheats.  Fuck him for making me love and hate the characters he writes, and the stories he never fucking finishes.

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Pallas

Pallas

True Blood episode tonight used Melody Ranch for a flashback, featuring the thoroughfare and the Gem -- exterior and the interior (soundstage).  Flashback indeed.  Poignant to see that staircase: every fuckin' step an adventure.   

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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What? Wow! I thought they had dismantled all the Deadwood sets. Keone Young made a blog post about how sad it was to see everything being taken down. 

 

Was True Blood being meta? Were they actually going inside The Gem? Or was it supposed to be some generic saloon? 

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Pallas

Pallas

It was a generic saloon -- in the show's hometown of Bon Temps, I assume, circa 1860, so 18 years earlier. (I am new to True Blood; true blue to Deadwood). First shot of the thoroughfare hit me in the fuckin' gut: that street, those shops, that balcony.  And then the very familiar interior views of the Gem -- soundstage, actually located behind the Bella Union.

 

I went online to confirm: yes, True Blood has shot there previously -- in the last two years -- along with Django. The thoroughfare was redressed, of course, but very recognizable; the Gem seemed barely changed, other than the bar's being  moved to the side by the staircase, on the left coming in.  There was even a mounted buck above the bar, though I did not have a chance to count his points...  

 

Little changed, of course, except the only things that matter.   

 

I too recall hearing Mr. Young and Mr. Brown's writing of the sets being dismantled.  They may have meant the soundstages (for the Gem, some of the Grand Hotel, some of the other interiors) and the dressing of the shops on the thoroughfare: the structures remain.  Not yet burnt, not yet flooded...not yet living, either.  

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mizkat

mizkat

It's widely known that Milch stopped paying attention to Deadwood well into the third season in favor of his shiny new object, and to me, that self-indulgent, pseudo-existential tripe is what KILLED any kind of future Deadwood might have had for the movies or ANY continuation. ARGH!!

 

So that's what happened to the third season? There was some good stuff, but some of it was beyond boring (theater troupe, anyone?). Ellsworth's death was a cheap stunt too, IMO.

 

I'm late to the party but I love this show. I had to get past the language, too, but that quickly faded into the background due to the story and the dialogue--and the fact that the cast was so perfectly, uh, cast.

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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The language itself never shocked me, but the frequency did! I mean, to hear nearly every other word in a paragraph being some form of fuck or c********* just wasn't done then. I still don't think any other show has matched the total number of cuss words used throughout the show's run. Heh heh.

 

What started out as a pleasant shock quickly became something to celebrate, for me. I loved the usage. 


Also, don't get me started on Ellsworth's death. Argh.

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Iguana

Iguana

Every time I think about how season 3 ended, it makes me angry and sad that they didn't keep on with the series.  So much potential!  The only thing I really didn't like was Langrishe and the theatre troupe, as they were not terribly interesting to me and sucked time away from the characters I cared about.  While I liked the concept of Al having an old friend to reminisce and confide in, I don't think it worked the way they wanted it to for me.

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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(edited)

This is neat! At the ATX Television Festival this year, I got to exchange words with Matthew Zoller Seitz (and met our own @Tara Ariano!) about mutual Deadwood love, and I must say he is an astute fellow! ;) He even talked about his Deadwood fixation while on the panel! Truly cool.

 

Wondering what you mean @Catherinewriter about "Will miss Roger Ebert."? That brilliant soul passed away last year. 

Edited by Willowy
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Catherinewriter

Catherinewriter

Well, I still miss him. And the Ebert reference in the piece I posted just reminded me of that. Perhaps I should have said I'll continue to miss him. I wonder what he would have thought of all the good TV series that have come across the boards in the past decade and a half. Don't know if he ever covered TV.

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Pallas

Pallas

In each of the last three summers (2011 - 2013), Alan Sepinwall led a Deadwood re-wind in his "What's Alan Watching?" page on Hitfix.  New recaps, great commentary, and best of all, frequent posts by Jim Beaver, Earl Brown and Keone Young.  Jim Beaver's account of learning Ellsworth's fate, and of his final day on the set, was one of the most moving, eloquent narratives I've ever read by any actor about the job.  (Scroll down the comments: it begins, "This was a tough one.")

 

Season 3 rewinds also included Sepinwall's and the cast's speculation about the reasons for the cancellation, which all laid at HBO's door.  The cast was enormous (the show's hilarious Season Two blooper reel, which WIllowy linked in the Season Two thread here, makes that joke on itself); the lead actors had three-year contracts up for renewal and inevitably, increased salary demands; the production remains one of the most expensive shows ever made: shot entirely on location with period costumes and props, horses, wranglers, cowboys-not-exactly-wranglers and more, with costs increased by Milch's brilliant but eccentric and untiring mode of writing and re-writing.  In what seems not especially good faith, HBO offered Milch a greatly truncated fourth season, which even so would probably have included budget and working conditions he found unacceptable. 

 

Watching season three again recently, I saw it as a parable in which Hearst stood in for Big Bucks/Big C*********, and the community of Deadwood for Deadwood. Turns out Earl Brown thinks so too...

 

What a show, what a labor of labor and love, to live as it does in these hearts.   

 

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Catherinewriter

Catherinewriter

Pallas, thanks for the links.

I still think it's completely unbelievable that Deadwood's budget compares in any way to that of Game of Thrones, which films on four or five f--kin' countries, etc. And given that this is ten years later, which means prices have skyrocketed since the takedown of the economy.

Funny the way we continue to look for reasons why the show should not have been cancelled and should have been continued. Wish fulfillment and cinnamon.

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Wilowy

Wilowy

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(edited)

I do often wonder why Milch turned down the six-episode season, then later agreed to what amounted to almost the same thing; two, two-hour movies. And I'll always believe that he was too distracted by his shiny new JFC to fight for Deadwood any longer. :/


Catherinewriter, is that cinnamon authorized? 'Cause that's ALL we fuckin' need...

Edited by Willowy
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Wilowy

Wilowy

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Pallas, thanks for those, nice! At the ATX TV FEST, IIRC Matt Zoller-Seitz said he and Alan Sepinwall used to work together and their love of Deadwood is what solidified their friendship. 

 

How hard did I love it that he couldn't help but bring up Deadwood, still. And this was just a couple of months ago! It gets in your blood, it does. 

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Pallas

Pallas

I still think it's completely unbelievable that Deadwood's budget compares in any way to that of Game of Thrones, which films on four or five f--kin' countries, etc. And given that this is ten years later, which means prices have skyrocketed since the takedown of the economy.

 

Game of Thrones now, for sure, leads the list!  But Deadwood cost $4.5 million per episode, and never became that kind of subscription-producing juggernaut.  Did HBO err nonetheless, given all the fucking givens?  I think so, since after The Sopranos ended, the network didn't manage to create another great Sunday-night-at-Niner for nearly a decade.    

 

I do often wonder why Milch turned down the six-episode season, then later agreed to what amounted to almost the same thing; two, two-hour movies.

 

Milch wanted to extend the saga over several years, through (1) the fire that burned down the Gem, and (2) the flood that followed, a span during which Al slowly lost his prominence.  Milch may have had in mind ending the show with Al's demise, alone on the road out of town.  He's said that the two movies would have allowed for that kind of timespan -- allowed us to experience it -- in a way that six concurrent episodes would not.  

 

And thanks for the thanks for the links!  Through that forum, in a way, the community rallied and the saga continued.  

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