It has been over one year since Yellowstone came to a close on Paramount+, and another two months away from the next spin-off, Y: Marshals, premiering on CBS. For impatient die-hard fans of the Dutton Family Ranch and its countless offshoots, there’s only one substitute to hold them over: HBO’s all-time great revisionist Western series Deadwood.

What Is ‘Deadwood’ About?

Al holds a shot glass in DeadwoodHBO

Seamlessly weaving fact and fiction, historical truths and dramatic liberties, David Milch created Deadwood for HBO in the early 2000s. Premiering in 2004, the series is set in Deadwood, South Dakota, during the 1870s, charting the city’s evolution before and after its annexation by the Dakota Territory. T

The action follows Al Swearengen (a career-best performance by Ian McShane), a profoundly corrupt and unscrupulous American entrepreneur who becomes notorious for owning a popular saloon and operating a brothel at the Gem Theater in Deadwood during the late 19th century. The show also tracks Deadwood’s estranged new town sheriff, Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant), who causes quite a stir upon arrival.

Inspired by newspapers published in the era, Milch brilliantly marries real-life events and famous historical characters with fictional characters and storylines to create an unforgettable portrait of American frontier living. For instance, as soon as Sheriff Bullock and his business partner, Sol Star (John Hawkes), arrive in town, the real Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) is murdered in cold blood by Jack McCall (Garret Dillahunt), prompting one of many real-life investigations that helped shape the city.

Why ‘Deadwood’ Holds up as the Greatest TV Western of All-Time

Wild Bill and Seth pull pistols in DeadwoodHBO

Beyond the compelling fusion of fact and fiction, Deadwood remains a paragon of TV writing and acting. The brilliant balance of florid, profanity-laced dialogue and gritty realism pushed the limits of dramatic television forward in the western genre, just as The Sopranos had done for the mob drama. Al Swearengen is very much the Tony Soprano of his own story, a loathsome and lovable monster of a man whose flaws and foibles often match his virtues and vow to protect his own.

Unlike popular Western serials like Gunsmoke or traditional miniseries like Lonesome Dove, viewers had never seen the intense violence and sobering authenticity of the American expansion and settlement as depicted in Deadwood. The moral murkiness surrounding the characters and the granular, everyday decisions they make to survive the harsh nature of 1870s South Dakota adds to the story’s complexity in ways that Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone could never have imagined beyond mere melodrama.

With just 3 Seasons and 36 total episodes, Deadwood never overstays its welcome. Made well before the quantity-over-quality streaming age, every episode is a vitally integral, must-see appointment viewing that holds up incredibly well over 20 years later. Deadwood ranks as #142 on IMDb’s Top 250 TV Shows, while Yellowstone sits at #224.

In addition to winning 8 Primetime Emmys, Deadwood won back-to-back AFI Awards for Best TV Program in 2005-2006, a Golden Globe for McShane, and a DGA Award for Walter Hill. The show holds a score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes (with a 95% audience score), remaining popular enough over the past two decades to spawn the equally acclaimed Deadwood: The Movie in 2019.