Deadwood: Complete HBO Season 1 [2004] | ![Deadwood: Complete HBO Season 1 [2004]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZS65WJFCL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Walter Hill
Actors: Ian Mcshane, Timothy Olyphant, Keith Carradine, Robin Weigert, Powers Boothe
Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: £49.99
Buy New: £13.49
You Save: £36.50 (73%)
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Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 1667
Format: Box Set, Pal
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Region: 2
Number Of Discs: 4
Running Time: 639 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.7 x 1.2
EAN: 5014437863737
ASIN: B0009J2QEU
Theatrical Release Date: 2004
Release Date: July 4, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Go on you know you want one gZoop it NOW!! All gZoop products are dispatched from the Channel Islands & take approx 3-5 working days (excluding weekends) from order to delivery.
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The remarkable first season of Deadwood represents one of those periodic, wholesale reinventions of the Western that is as different from, say, Lonesome Dove as that miniseries is from Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo or the latter is from Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur. In many ways, Deadwood embraces the Western's unambiguous morality during the cinema's silent era through the 1930s while also blazing trails through a post-NYPD Blue, post-The West Wing television age exalting dense and customized dialogue. On top of that, Deadwood has managed an original look and texture for a familiar genre: gritty, chaotic, and surging with both dark and hopeful energy. Yet the show's creator, erstwhile NYPD Blue head writer David Milch, never ridicules or condescends to his more grasping, futile characters or overstates the virtues of his heroic ones. Set in an ungoverned stretch of South Dakota soon after the 1876 Custer massacre, Deadwood concerns a lawless, evolving town attracting fortune-seekers, drifters, tyrants, and burned-out adventurers searching for a card game and a place to die. Others, particularly women trapped in prostitution, sundry do-gooders, and hangers-on have nowhere else to go. Into this pool of aspiration and nightmare arrive former Montana lawman Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and his friend Sol Starr (John Hawkes), determined to open a lucrative hardware business. Over time, their paths cross with a weary but still formidable Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) and his doting companion, the coarse angel Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert); an aristocratic, drug-addicted widow (Molly Parker) trying to salvage a gold mining claim; and a despondent hooker (Paula Malcomson) who cares, briefly, for an orphaned girl. Casting a giant shadow over all is a blood-soaked king, Gem Saloon owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), possibly the best, most complex, and mesmerizing villain seen on TV in years. Over 12 episodes, each of these characters, and many others, will forge alliances and feuds, cope with disasters (such as smallpox), and move--almost invisibly but inexorably--toward some semblance of order and common cause. Making it all worthwhile is Milch's masterful dialogue--often profane, sometimes courtly and civilized, never perfunctory--and the brilliant acting of the aforementioned performers plus Brad Dourif, Leon Rippy, Powers Boothe, and Kim Dickens. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
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| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 Dark & Intriguing September 13, 2008
adieinfrance (France)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ian Mcshane is excellent in this Dark Drama........not a typical western....no blue skys, powder puff clouds, blue gingham shirts etc....but a dark, cruel rollercoaster of a ride ....that makes compulsive viewing..l was pleased to be rewarded with a fine set of actors in this thought provoking series.
Essential viewing September 9, 2008
C. Taylor (Flintshire)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Over the past few years, there have been a few very good TV shows such as Lost, 24 and Prison Break which have made compulsive viewing. Another name that fits alongside these shows is Deadwood. I won't run into the story as you will be well aware from other reviews what it is all about, I will tell you though that this is a must see.
Most of the main characters are loosely based on real life people who did indeed live in Deadwood and what great characters they are. Ian McShane won an award for his performance and it is very well earned, he is magnificent as Al Swearagen, the foul mouthed Gem saloon owner. My wife is even a massive fan of the show and she absolutely hates Westerns!! For the money you would be mad to miss out on this DVD set.....order it now.
Fantastic! June 18, 2008
Neil Weightman (London, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm amazed this series didn't get as much exposure as the Sopranos. The acting is universally terrific, the plot is great, dialogue totally convincing, sets and production excellent. Ian McShane and Timothy Olyphant are stand-out stars, but everybody does a wonderful job.
I hate Westerns March 3, 2008
John Callaghan (Lancashire, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
***Spoilers***
I hate Westerns. I really do. But in a quixotic, or maybe masochistic, mood, I bought the first season.
Well blow me down. It was the best damn thing I'd ever seen - watched all 12 hours of it in two sittings. Every character is fleshed out; humanity bleeds from every episode - not just the red stuff, but poetry. All the characters are strong, including even the relatively minor ones. Watch out for the doc, the preacher, and Jewel, the crippled female sweeper-up at the Gem bar-cum-whorehouse. I'm not ashamed to say that she made cry; but equally, laugh with joy when she got her new boot from the doc and took him for a twirl on the dance floor.
Ian McShane plays Swearengen, the devious, evil and manipulative proprietor of the Gem in such a way that we can see that he too has humanity, even as he smothers the preacher to death as if in answer to the doc's prayer for his suffering to be ended. Sure, it's a twisted, awful humanity, but so artful is McShane's portrayal that somehow we can understand it. We can understand too his deeply flawed love for the whore, Trixie.
There are more intertwining plots and subplots than you can shake a stick at, and maybe they'd have been difficult to follow with week-long breaks in between, but viewed in megasittings, they're easy enough to follow. I was completely absorbed into the World of Deadwood, never bored, entranced as a child listening to campfire tales.
It may be historically inaccurate, there may be anachronisms, violence and scenes of a sexual nature, but frankly, my dear, who gives a damn? It is what it is, and in its own terms, wholly absorbing. I never thought I'd say this, particularly of a Western, but it was better than the Sopranos by a considerable margin, and that in itself is a five-star feast.
I've barely scraped the surface. There are dozens of other characters to love, hate or love and hate, and one of those is the town itself. I will definitely be buying the other two seasons and know I will watch them all again and again.
HBO does it again! November 1, 2007
sean paul mccann (ireland)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Where to start!well let me start by saying that this is another example of televison at its best,this is stunning work,simple in many ways but very effective,this is deadwood.
Deadwood is a show that charters the rise of the real location in dakota,america,the show starts not long after the birth of the place deadwood,an ungoverned,a town with no law and few morals,series one charts its development and the rise of a local governement within.
That is just the smallest detail there that i have given,this is a show that is very character driven,packed with historical figures and truths but given a licence to stretch the truth and bring violence and moments that may or may not have happened.
The shows figurehead is Al Swearengen,played by ian mcshane,a foul mouthed,bad tempered,violent so and so who runs an illicit club,with no law he is the closest thing to judge and jury,and his role is vital to the brilliance of the series,the show stands on its own when he isnt there of course,but when he appears he steals the scenes.
There is a very strong cast around him as well and the show burns bright but never outpaces itself,it is slow and deliberate and very focused,a great script adds to what exists and makes sure that boredom never peeks its ugly head.
Deadwood is a town of greed and gain,where life is cheap and nothing can be taken for granted,i will say no more than that except that once again and it really shouldnt surprise me,that america lights the way in terms of gripping,chilling,superb television.
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