I've been recommended by some folks online and in general decent ratings to watch and I thought (after really liking westworld) that maybe an actual western TV show would be nice.
I can get why people like this slow western and its shakespearean dialog (seriously you're gonna need subtitles to understand anything in this show). But that's where all the redeeming qualities end.
Directing is decent, not great but serviceable. Some weird zooms and close ups that didn't match the scene.
Acting is iffy all around the board with big offenders like Calamity Jane and Charlie Utter, except for Ian Mcshane who its outpreforming everyone by a high standard. And one of my only hooks that kept me through these episodes. Sadly not enough though. Timothy once again gives a stiff performance, as expected.
Story is really nowhere to be found, I thought with episode 3 when the belle union came in it would get interesting but instead the show decides to focus on funerals of people we care none about. It's a slow show but not in a good way, it drags out interesting story lines over its entire seasons and fills up the rest with incredibly boring side stuff.
And this is not to say I don't love slow shows, I do. Sopranos is a good example, probably my all time favorite show at that. But Sopranos has one thing that Deadwood doesn't and that's top of the class actor performances and great dialog writing. Now I'm all up for profanity, that's fine, and I rarely get annoyed but this show managed to make curse word(s) sound silly and without intend.
What people say is valid, the amount of cursing is overdone and unrealistic even, and the use of one specific word, I swear they used it more than a hundred times already in just the 7 episodes I've seen. Now as I mentioned before, if this was done appropriately, no problem, sopranos is famous for its amount of profanity... but here it's not done well. So regarding users saying it took them IN to the world, it took me OUT. Make of that as you will.
I'm not wasting more time on this show, especially with its 50 minute runtimes so...for now... 6/10 for the effort of recreating an accurate setting and some good performances.
I can get why people like this slow western and its shakespearean dialog (seriously you're gonna need subtitles to understand anything in this show). But that's where all the redeeming qualities end.
Directing is decent, not great but serviceable. Some weird zooms and close ups that didn't match the scene.
Acting is iffy all around the board with big offenders like Calamity Jane and Charlie Utter, except for Ian Mcshane who its outpreforming everyone by a high standard. And one of my only hooks that kept me through these episodes. Sadly not enough though. Timothy once again gives a stiff performance, as expected.
Story is really nowhere to be found, I thought with episode 3 when the belle union came in it would get interesting but instead the show decides to focus on funerals of people we care none about. It's a slow show but not in a good way, it drags out interesting story lines over its entire seasons and fills up the rest with incredibly boring side stuff.
And this is not to say I don't love slow shows, I do. Sopranos is a good example, probably my all time favorite show at that. But Sopranos has one thing that Deadwood doesn't and that's top of the class actor performances and great dialog writing. Now I'm all up for profanity, that's fine, and I rarely get annoyed but this show managed to make curse word(s) sound silly and without intend.
What people say is valid, the amount of cursing is overdone and unrealistic even, and the use of one specific word, I swear they used it more than a hundred times already in just the 7 episodes I've seen. Now as I mentioned before, if this was done appropriately, no problem, sopranos is famous for its amount of profanity... but here it's not done well. So regarding users saying it took them IN to the world, it took me OUT. Make of that as you will.
I'm not wasting more time on this show, especially with its 50 minute runtimes so...for now... 6/10 for the effort of recreating an accurate setting and some good performances.