Fans of the neo-Western drama seriesYellowstonemay already be looking forward to the show’s latest spinoff, but in the meantime, there’s alwaysDeadwood. HBO’s three-season Western show from the mid-2000s is quite simply one of the greatest examples of the genre ever produced for the small screen.
Taylor Sheridan’s TV shows share more with neo-Western moviesmade in the same vein than they do with this David Milch series starring Timothy Olyphant.Deadwoodisn’t aWestern show set in modern timeslikeYellowstone,Landman, orThe Madison. However, it is a beautifully stylized period drama with as much depth and real history as it has grit.
Milch’s Western series was canceled prematurely by HBO back in 2006, but it’s more than stood the test of time as television has evolved in the two decades since then. With the Western genre currently experiencing something of a revival on the small screen,there’s never been a more opportune moment to come atDeadwoodfresh.
Deadwood Is One Of The Best Western TV Shows Ever Made
Its Realism & Period Details Remain The Yardstick For Other TV Westerns
Deadwoodfirst arrived on our screens long after the golden age of classic TV Westerns had passed, and 14 years before Taylor Sheridan first made his mark on television. Yet, the series has still gone down in history as one of thebest Western showsever made.
While it might have bucked the early-noughties trend of serial action shows with contemporary settings,Deadwood’s realism and attention to period details make it comparable with the best modern showsof its day. In fact, the show serves as a yardstick for every historical Western series or movie that’s been made since, including Taylor Sheridan’s1883and1923.
What Made Deadwood One Of TV’s Definitive Western Shows
Timothy Olyphant & Ian McShane’s Performances Set The Series Apart
This 20-year-old show features somesublime camerawork to complement its meticulous set designs, as well as a powerhouse performance from Ian McShane as real-life pimp Al Swearengen. McShane’s character is one of21 historical figures to feature inDeadwood, the most prominent of which is Timothy Olyphant’s hot-blooded sheriff, Seth Bullock.
Olyphant’s captivating performance as Bullock is a major reason why he’s generally considered one of thebest Western TV actorsof all time. Between them, Olyphant and McShane elevateDeadwoodfrom being a well-crafted screen rendering of the American Gold Rush to a level of greatness few other Western series have ever attained.
Deadwood And Yellowstone Might Be More Similar Than You Think
They’re Both Shows About Lawless Land-Grabs Set In Adjacent States
On the face of it, aside fromDeadwoodhaving been the best Western show on TV beforeYellowstone, the two series don’t have a lot in common. The shows are set almost 150 years apart, with vastly different characterizations and storylines. If you dig a little deeper, though, the similarities betweenDeadwoodandYellowstonebecome clear.
Firstly, the town of Deadwood is close to South Dakota’s border with Montana, the state in whichYellowstoneis set. The fictionalDutton ranch is located just 400 miles from where Al Swearengen and Seth Bullock set up campin the late 1870s. In fact, Bullock lived in Montana before he arrived in Deadwood.
The old West and the new West are still essentially the same Wild West, where disparate social elements come into conflict.
What’s more,both shows center on a struggle for control over local resources. In the case ofYellowstone, the main struggle is over agricultural land.Deadwood, meanwhile, is about the struggle to appropriate the precious metal buried in the ground of the Black Hills, where the titular town was established.
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Despite their different eras and locations, key elements ofYellowstoneandDeadwoodare fundamentally the same. The old West and the new West are still essentially the same Wild West, where disparate social elements come into conflict and the law fails to maintain order.
Deadwood
Cast
Deadwood is a western drama series created for HBO by David Milch. The series takes place in Deadwood, South Dakota, where corruption runs rampant in the gold-mining era as the settlement existed outside the U.S. territory expansion following the Civil War. As the town was the site of a major gold find, it continues to attract people from all walks of life - especially opportunistic criminals.
Yellowstone
Yellowstone follows the Dutton family, led by patriarch John Dutton, as they defend their expansive ranch against external threats from land developers, an Indian reservation, and America’s first national park. Released on Jun 23, 2025, this series examines the complex dynamics and violent conflicts surrounding the largest contiguous ranch in the United States.
