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

You've seen your Ford westerns, Your John Wayne Westerns. Your Spaghetti westerns. Simply put this is Shakespearian Western. With lots of modern profanity. Why not? Shakespeare told human interest stories modernised for his then sophisticated Elizabethan audience. So it is with Deadwood. You can watch it as a very entertaining high adventure or enjoy the powerful subtext and character interaction. Monologues from the characters worthy of Macbeth or Hamlet or Richard III lace the tales and give a rich tapestry to the story of Deadwood. True love mirrored in moral abiguity. The profanity is as much of poetic license as used in many a 'foul' Jacobean drama. Contrasted with the almost Jane Austen politeness in certain interactions this is a powerful use of language in every sense. Best of all, it never patronises the audience in presuming you are not grown up enough for this. Potent.

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.

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.

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.

***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.