“Deadwood: The Complete Seasons 1-3” (Michael Almereyda, Timothy Van Patten)
Beth passed on confirmation of what we already expected, namely that Deadwood creator David Milch would never film the four hours of follow-up as promised by HBO and David Milch. Boo.
If you’ve been holding your breath about “Deadwood,” you can now exhale.
The HBO western drama is officially, categorically, absolutely dead — with no possibility of a movie to wrap up storylines that have been dangling for nearly two years.
“Deadwood” departed in August 2006 when creator David Milch, apparently weary of the project, moved on to “John From Cincinnati,” a truly bizarre sci-fi drama starring Austinite Austin Nichols that caught on with a few critics (including me) but very few viewers. It was deemed a gorgeous head-scratcher by most.
After “Deadwood” ended, HBO tried to calm frantic fans with the promise of a future movie that would address the conclusion of the violent goings-on in the Dakota Territory. But as time dragged on, the prospect faded. Actors moved on to other projects, and now Milch is working on another HBO series about a corrupt NYPD squad in the 1970s.
[From “Deadwood” officially dead … no movie planned | TV Blog]
Bummer, but not unexpected. Apparently too expensive a set, too many high profile (expensive) actors, and a high-strung creator with a recent high profile failure (John From Cincinnati). Oh well, another unresolved, flawed drama, just like real life.
Yeah, it sucks that Deadwood movies seem dead. To Milch’s defense though it was not him being weary of Deadwood that ended the show; HBO canned it for budget reasons, and Milch tried very hard to find a way to have it continue.
With it dead in the water, he adapted a previous idea of his, to HBO’s request for a surfing show and with Kem Nunn (who’d worked on Deadwood too) JFC was born.
Of course HBO didn’t get what they were expecting. I personally loved it; such a truelly original show, that deserved to be given a chance.
I guess I’ll have to just be happy we got what we did of DW & JFC, and hope that HBO give Milch’s new show a chance (seems unlikely though).
Yes, a real shame it didn’t work out, as Deadwood was probably my favorite television show of the last few years. JFC was odd, and interesting, but not great, and seemed like it either ran out of steam or the last few episodes were hurriedly rushed through. Deadwood, though, that was quality.
Yeah, the first series was supposed to be 12 episodes, but somewhere pretty late in the game, with Milch running behind, HBO decided they didn’t want to spend any more money, so set a hard cut off date to be done filming (which ended up only allow time to film 10)
So stuff for the last few episodes got squashed together, and it shows.