Deadwood - The Complete Third Season (2007, DVD)

The third, and possibly final, season of HBO's critically acclaimed Deadwood had it's share of slow moving moments to be sure, but the series as a whole lived up to the excellent precedent set by the previous two seasons of the show. As the third season opens, sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) makes a run for re-election, which gets side tracked by forging an uneasy alliance with Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) against the vendictive George Hearst (Gerald McRaney) who comes to the camp with some deadly plans for everyone involved. The lives of newly weds Alma Garret (Molly Parker) and Whitney Ellsworth (Jim Beaver), as well as Sol (John Hawkes) and Trixie (Paula Malcomson) are in jeopardy as Hearst prepares to wreak bloody havoc, which is mainly what this season of the series is focused on. Also during this season, we witness the recovery of Cy (Powers Boothe), as well as bonding between Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) and Joanie (Kim Dickens), and the debilitating health of Doc Cochran (Brad Dourif). If you've been a fan of the show for some time, you know what to expect with Deadwood in terms of it's vulgarity and violence, so if you're new to the show, you won't really be won over by anything here. That being said, the third season of Deadwood is some truly great TV regardless, and the ensemble cast as usual is superb; with Olyphant, McShane, and McRaney being the best of the bunch. As the previous reviewer stated, if this is indeed the final season of the show with no other kind of resolution, there isn't any real cliffhanger that leaves the viewer cursing at the screen (a la Carnivale). That being said, hopefully this isn't the last hurrah for Deadwood, and there will be another chapter before these characters ride off into the sunset