All Yellowstone Fans Should Watch HBO’s Western Classic With 92% On Rotten Tomatoes

Fans of the neo-Western drama series Yellowstone may already be looking forward to the show’s latest spinoff, but in the meantime, there’s always Deadwood. HBO’s three-season Western show from the mid-2000s is quite simply one of the greatest examples of the genre ever produced for the small screen.

Taylor Sheridan’s TV shows share more with neo-Western movies made in the same vein than they do with this David Milch series starring Timothy Olyphant. Deadwood isn’t a Western show set in modern times like YellowstoneLandman, or The Madison. However, it is a beautifully stylized period drama with as much depth and real history as it has grit.

Milch’s Western series was canceled prematurely by HBO back in 2006, but it’s more than stood the test of time as television has evolved in the two decades since then. With the Western genre currently experiencing something of a revival on the small screen, there’s never been a more opportune moment to come at Deadwood fresh.

Deadwood Is One Of The Best Western TV Shows Ever Made

Its Realism & Period Details Remain The Yardstick For Other TV Westerns

Deadwood first arrived on our screens long after the golden age of classic TV Westerns had passed, and 14 years before Taylor Sheridan first made his mark on television. Yet, the series has still gone down in history as one of the best Western shows ever made.

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While it might have bucked the early-noughties trend of serial action shows with contemporary settings, Deadwood’s realism and attention to period details make it comparable with the best modern shows of its day. In fact, the show serves as a yardstick for every historical Western series or movie that’s been made since, including Taylor Sheridan’s 1883 and 1923.

What Made Deadwood One Of TV’s Definitive Western Shows

Timothy Olyphant & Ian McShane’s Performances Set The Series Apart

This 20-year-old show features some sublime camerawork to complement its meticulous set designs, as well as a powerhouse performance from Ian McShane as real-life pimp Al Swearengen. McShane’s character is one of 21 historical figures to feature in Deadwood, the most prominent of which is Timothy Olyphant’s hot-blooded sheriff, Seth Bullock.

Deadwood | Trailer

 

 

 

Deadwood – Season 1 | Trailer

 

 

 

Olyphant’s captivating performance as Bullock is a major reason why he’s generally considered one of the best Western TV actors of all time. Between them, Olyphant and McShane elevate Deadwood from being a well-crafted screen rendering of the American Gold Rush to a level of greatness few other Western series have ever attained.

Deadwood And Yellowstone Might Be More Similar Than You Think

They’re Both Shows About Lawless Land-Grabs Set In Adjacent States

On the face of it, aside from Deadwood having been the best Western show on TV before Yellowstone, the two series don’t have a lot in common. The shows are set almost 150 years apart, with vastly different characterizations and storylines. If you dig a little deeper, though, the similarities between Deadwood and Yellowstone become clear.

Firstly, the town of Deadwood is close to South Dakota’s border with Montana, the state in which Yellowstone is set. The fictional Dutton ranch is located just 400 miles from where Al Swearengen and Seth Bullock set up camp in the late 1870s. In fact, Bullock lived in Montana before he arrived in Deadwood.

The old West and the new West are still essentially the same Wild West, where disparate social elements come into conflict.

What’s more, both shows center on a struggle for control over local resources. In the case of Yellowstone, the main struggle is over agricultural land. Deadwood, meanwhile, is about the struggle to appropriate the precious metal buried in the ground of the Black Hills, where the titular town was established.

Despite their different eras and locations, key elements of Yellowstone and Deadwood are fundamentally the same. The old West and the new West are still essentially the same Wild West, where disparate social elements come into conflict and the law fails to maintain order.

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