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By contrast, former slave-owner and Confederate veteran Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) enters Hell on Wheels when he shoots a Union veteran in the face while the man is in what he believes to be confession. We met Bullock in Deadwood when, in an act of mercy and justice, he sped up a man's execution to save from him a vastly more painful lynching. Marshal on FX's Kentucky Western Justified. Similarly, Timothy Olyphant's turn as store-keeper-turned-Deadwood-sheriff Seth Bullock has been so influential that he's essentially reprising it in a contemporary setting as a U.S. The Genius of Doug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy Gay Marriage Gets the Mad About You Treatment The Secret to the Success of Mad Men and Modern Family The Walking Dead Still Has an Identity Crisis
#Hell on wheels tv#
For all his bombast, he's a much smaller man.ĭoes Charlie Sheen's New TV Show Stand a Chance? But where Swearengen struggled to balance his personal concerns with his plans for Deadwood's future, Durant talks about history but acts mostly in his own interests. The construction of the railroad is an event that will profoundly change the country, wresting control of territory from Indians and connecting disparate enclaves to established American cities.
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But he's left to monologue about his place in history and dictate portentous telegrams. He has some fine moments, notably when he sticks extra arrows in a corpse to make for a more dramatic massacre photograph. In Hell on Wheels, Colm Meaney, by no means a bad actor, tries to summit the same peak as businessman and Swearengen surrogate Doc Durant. Ian McShane's profane, hilarious, fearsome performance as saloon-keeper and Deadwood founding father Al Swearengen already shows its influence in another new show this fall: Kelsey Grammer's turn as Chicago Mayor Tom Kane in Starz's Boss. Some of the problem lies with the shadow cast by Deadwood's two main protagonists. But the show is badly overmatched everywhere it goes head-to-head with its venerable predecessor. Only Hell on Wheels has the sight of the rapper and actor Common digging railroad cuts in a top hat and vest, which I suppose counts for something. They both tell that story via men with handsome sideburns and a talent for violence, unexpectedly resilient widows with interfering older male relatives, prostitutes who pal around with reverends, and unscrupulous businessmen, setting up essentially similar dynamics between them. Both shows involve the rough process of bringing organization to the American West, and try to struggle with race, class, and the consequences of capitalism.
#Hell on wheels series#
It might feel unfair to compare Hell on Wheels, AMC's new show about the race to span the United States with railroads, to Deadwood, the great HBO series that ended its run in 2006, if the former didn't so aggressively invite comparisons to the latter.