Deadwood : Complete HBO Seasons 1-3 (12 Disc Box Set) [2004]

Average customer rating:

Fantastic!!

Superb series, frustrating package!

HBO strikes gold - again!

Deadwood : Complete HBO Seasons 1-3 (12 Disc Box Set) [2004]
Starring: Brad Dourif , Robin Weigert , Timothy Olyphant , Ian McShane , and Keith Carradine
Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

All Action & Adventure | Action & Adventure | Categories | DVD | Video
Westerns | Action & Adventure | Categories | DVD | Video
All Television | Television | Categories | DVD | Video
DVD | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
Box Set | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
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The Wire: Complete HBO Season 2

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ASIN: B000V7ZML4
Release Date: 2007-10-29

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic!!.......2008-01-28

As said before, there are already plenty of reviews for the season box sets, however this is a fantastic value collection, although I agree about the annoying packaging, it looks very smart on my shelf, one just has to have an afternoon free to extract a disc. Still, fully deserving of 5 stars.

Superb series, frustrating package!.......2008-01-28

Having heard rave reviews and high praise for this series I thought I'd take a chance and invest in this box set of all three series and I'm glad to say I wasn't disappointed! I'm not going to review the series as there are enough reviews around already, but I just wanted to review the packaging of this box set which is probably the worst designed DVD box I've ever come across! I know it's difficult to package 12 discs adequately but the way this has been put together makes me wish that I had just bought each individual series box set as it's that difficult and frustrating to get into! Why do distributors insist on using complex and elaborate cardboard designs for packaging that are easily damaged, creased and in some cases start disassembling themselves! For this box set I can see no reason why they couldn't have used plastic double-disc slimcases, it would only have meant having 6 cases for heaven's sake! It's very annoying when you spend this amount of money only to be let down by the flimsy packaging, maybe it's cheaper to produce in general but this box must have given somebody a headache when it was being designed, it certainly gives me a headache! 5 stars for the series, 3 stars for the cruddy box!

HBO strikes gold - again!.......2008-01-17

1876. The Black Hills. A gold-rush attracts the desperate, the greedy and the vicious to a frontier town called Deadwood, a two-street mining camp dominated by saloon bar owner and pimp, Al Swearengen. Against this simple but deadly backdrop, plays out a story so rich in character, detail and incident, that most other dramas seem pedestrian by comparison.

HBO seems to have hit on a winning formula but the outcome is anything but formulaic. Like Oz, The Sopranos and The Wire, Deadwood is another stunning production that this reviewer finds outstanding, especially in light of the fact that I am not overly keen on the Western genre.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Deadwood (at least for British audiences) is that the character who dominates the series, around who all things seem to revolve, cut-throat Al Swearengen is superbly acted by Ian "Lovejoy" McShane. No, really. McShane steels every scene he is in; a brutal, profane man, who talks to a box containing the decapitated head of a dead Indian, who verbally abuses his prostitutes and other employees with an acid tongue, McShane is a revelation. Around him orbit a stellar cast. I shall mention no names because each and every one of them turns in an amazing performance. When taken together, the whole ensemble shines.

The writing, too, is again full of character and subtlety, almost too much to take in at one sitting. It is both heart-felt and honest, laugh-out-loud funny and yet brutal and savage. It takes a little time for the ear to adjust to the syntax employed; the lexis, too, seems of a particular age but once attuned, this particular writing style allows a range of expression that doesn't seem permissible in contemporaneous writing.

If you have enjoyed other HBO productions but are not sure about this one because you are none too keen on the genre of cowboys, shootouts, Stetsons and cattle-rustling, Deadwood has none of it. Over the three series (and hopefully at least one full film, just to round the story off), the story is as much about encroaching civilisation on a pioneer town - the first tentative steps of the law, the advent of the telegraph, the bicycle and elections - as it is about the people who actually lived and died in the town.

The only negative aspect to this series is the lack of a full conclusion at story's end. Sure, life goes on and I certainly don't expect a trite, all-loose-ends-tied-up kind of ending but the climax just leaves so much hanging open, it is begging for another series (or possibly even a film). That said, it's about the journey, not the destination and when the ride is as memorable as Deadwood, then an open-ended conclusion is a small price to pay.

Do yourself a favour: roll the dice and take a chance on Deadwood and you will enjoy every minute that you spend in the town, every racist drunk, every plague, every tombstone. Life in the muddy quagmire was never so enjoyable.

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