Cocksuckers! 
We’ll still see the upcoming third season ; it’s the episodes beyond THAT that are in dispute. This screams “contract renegotiation tactic” to me. Huh. We’ll see.
As long as the third season opens with an obscenity laden fellatiating soliloquy by Al Swearingen, all will be right with the world.
Deadwood is probably the first western I’ve watched regularly where I’m not rooting for the Indians to kill the cowboys.
That’s a bummer.
Speaking as someone who no longer gets HBO, just when in the hell are they going to release Season 2 on DVD?
I sure hope so. I was going to come in here and scream “What??? They want to get rid of Deadwood, but they’ll keep a stinker like…”
I couldn’t think of any of HBO’s current programming (except for crappy movies not made by HBO that they play over and over and over) that I would get rid of in favor of Deadwood. I never got into Carnivale or Oz (didn’t have HBO of my own at the time), but those are both gone and almost forgotten.
Damn.
Well, as long as the third season doesn’t end with a major cliffhanger, I’ll live. I won’t like it, but I’ll live.
I’ve read a little bit about Deadwood’s history, and whenever the series does end, the potential is there for a great final episode:
There was a huge fire in 1879 and a flood in 1883. And didn’t Cy and Eddie talk about Al setting a fire, when they first met?
Sopranos is ending. Six Feet Under is done (and had lost it’s original quality anyway). Carnivale got cancelled early. I haven’t heard anything about Rome’s status. Now Deadwood may be done? I might finally be able to ditch HBO. Ok, probably not, but I haven’t heard of anything to keep me watching on a Sunday night once Deadwood season 3 is over.
I think this says the opposite of what you meant it to say. Take show X /= Deadwood. Assuming you thought of X, what the sentence above says is that you would not get rid of X in favor of Deadwood. This means you would rather X be kept on and that Deadwood be cancelled.
What is it about this sentence that makes it hard for me to think through, I wonder?
-FrL-
I imagine they’ll wrap things up nicely. Season two seemed to end in a way that could go either way … setting up a few new storylines, but mostly wrapping up everything and bringing all of the major characters together at the end. To me, it very much had a Series Finale feeling to it. I imagine if they’ve already wrapped the end of season 3 that it would be similar.
The linked article did say this. . .
“Deadwood” creator David Milch is shifting his attention to “John From Cincinnati,” a one-hour project he is writing for HBO.
While I really like Deadwood, I also prefer my series to go away before they get stale, and I’d look forward to another Milch/HBO project.
Season two is filming now. It’s probably too soon to speculate about a third season.
Hello Ninja, that’s true. Season one ended nicely too.
I wonder about the “other projects” excuse. Hell, they’ve all had time to do other things. We saw Jim Beaver on Supernatural, Olyphant did My Name is Earl, John Hawkes did a movie.
I think Askia is right – some of them probably want more money.
I can’t imagine a Season 4 of Deadwood being as exciting as the first three (assuming season three is on par with the first two). The whole show is about civilization out of lawlessness… by a season 4 we’re going to have civilization. Fuck that.
I really love the show and am looking forward to the upcoming season.
However, I can sort of understand. The series is base on real people and real events - so keeping the series going on for much longer would turn it into Gunsmoke or something, with contrived plots and new characters that would most likely not be based on historical fact.
Deadwood has succeeded because it is telling a part of history in an earthy, gritty and very realistic format. To drag it on simply because of ratings would be unfair to the historical aspects of the series.
I would much rather see the same type of series done with another period of history - and I am sure there are even other Western stories that could be fleshed out in other towns, with other factual characters.
Actually, I was just thinking it would be cool if the same writers did an update of the Al Capone/Chicago mobster period. I think they would do that period justice - sort of Sopranos meets Deadwood.
Or it could get even better, watching them adjust.
Like this past season, Al’s machinations with Ms. Isringhausen – as confusing as that was, it was way more interesting than having Dan cut her throat.
How’s Al going to keep his thumb on everything? He’s going to have a lot more competition for the Deadwood dollar. He’s not the smartest guy in town anymore.
I’m psyched to see what’s up with E.B. this season. It looked like he was having a mental breakdown last time we saw him.
OK, let’s try this once more and hope it’s not a triple post.
I’m catching up on S2 with S3 coming up soon. I seem to be missing my recording of Ep 4, so it may have been explained there (don’t recall much about it), but episode 5 shows the Nigger General making use of a very large amount of money. Was it explained how he got this? I understand he is dressed poorly because he wants his position in the army to be known, but I figure it wouldn’t be very easy for any man, much less a black man, to get that much cash through legitimate means at the time.
It wasn’t explained. I checked the transcript, and he’s telling Hostetler that he’d been in San Francisco, delivering diamonds and emeralds for a dry goods big shot. 
Maybe he caught and sold some wild horses to the army. Isn’t that what he and Hostetler were going to do with that wild horse the General caught? Geld it and sell it to the army?
Gotcha ya, I hadn’t caught his mentioning the work in SF. Is that implying a relation to Hearst? I hadn’t caught that the first time watching the season, though this time I’m watching with a lot more attention and a lot more of the dialogue is sinking in.
Heck, the dialogue in that show goes by so fast – I’d be lost without the transcripts. As far as I know, the General and Hearst have no connection.
It’s so easy to miss stuff. I’ll bet I’ve watched the pilot ten times. Watching it again tonight, and just picked up on Brom telling Alma that the deal he made on his gold claim would be good material for an article. So Alma planned to write about their adventures?
I love seeing Rev. Smith again. He was so sweet.
It’s my fault. I’m jinxed. Every show I end up liking suffers an early demise.
I’m going to stop watching TV so I don’t kill off any more quality shows.