“Deadwood” Ain’t So Dead After All

[[T U B E]] * Sometimes long shots really do pay off, and that seems to be the case with creator/executive producer David Milch’s bid to extend the life of Deadwood, HBO’s wonderful, Emmy Award-winning, and profanity-packed Western drama. Less than a week before that show’s third season is set to debut (on Sunday, June 11), The Hollywood Reporter brings news that Milch has reached an agreement with HBO CEO Chris Albrecht to produce a pair of two-hour TV movies that will wrap up the gritty, character-rich, and pricey historical serial. HBO had previously tried to talk Milch into an abbreviated fourth season (just six episodes, rather than its usual 12), and when he turned that proposal down, Deadwood looked to be on its way to the last round-up. This compromise movie deal appears to make everyone happy. According to the Reporter,

Milch was said to have not been in favor of a six-episode final season because of the show’s emphasis on each episode representing a day in the life of the lawless camp in late-1800s South Dakota, where the show is set. The shift of the final Deadwood installments to a two-hour movie format will allow for a clean break with that day-in-the-life format and allow the rest of the story to unfold on a broader narrative canvas.

While I’d still prefer to see Deadwood run out a complete fourth season (which was evidently as long as Milch intended the series to run, anyway), a couple of double-hour wrap-up episodes will at least give him, as well as his outstanding cast, the chance to tie up loose ends and send his characters--both fact-based and wholly fictional--off into the sunset in proper style. No word yet on when those two movies might show, but season three of the series is scheduled to run through August 27.