Deadwood is Dead?

A score or so years ago I watched the last episode of MASH with a bunch of fellow grad students, along with the original movie which was shown afterward.  Everyone in the room seemed to agree that movies were, for the most part, much better than tv shows, and that when a movie became a tv show it was always dumbed down.  That certainly seemed to be true at the moment.

But over the last ten years or so the opposite has clearly been true.  Shows like Star Trek Next Generation (at its height), Babylon 5, Buffey the Vampire Slayer, its spinoff, Angel, were far better than anything showing at Carmike.  But I think that HBO's Deadwood may well be the best piece of film making I have ever seen.  In dialog and plotting, it achieved a perfection not expected from human art.  Maybe the gods are jealous, for Deadwood appears to be over.  From Townhall.com:

It may be high noon for "Deadwood," HBO's gritty Western drama.

HBO has allowed options on the cast to lapse, freeing the actors of their obligations to the show. But a spokeswoman for the premium cable channel said Friday the door hasn't been shut on the possibility of another season.

The series, about life in the infamous 19th-century mining town, returns for its third season June 11. The ensemble cast includes Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant, William Sanderson and Molly Parker.

David Milch, the creator and executive producer of "Deadwood," is focusing on another series in development for HBO. "John From Cincinnati," its working title, is a surfer drama that Milch is creating in collaboration with author Kemm Nun ("Tijuana Straits").

Last month, Milch told the Boston Globe that he expected his involvement with "Deadwood" to go four years and no more.

"If a series is successful, the commercial interest is in keeping it on, even after the creative interest is in ending it," Milch told the Globe. "With `Deadwood,' my intention is to end at the end of the fourth season. I can't speak for anyone else, but that's where I'm getting off the bus."

This seems to leave faint hopes for a fourth season.  Actually I think that would be about right.  It would be hard to keep the sharp edge of the series much longer than that.  Moreover, the theme of Deadwood is the creation of civilization out of chaos.  It is a very Machiavellian interpretation of that theme.  But it ought obviously to end when the goal has been achieved, and law and order more or less takes over and road agent ruffians join the Kiwanis club.  My big fear now is that the third season will be the last, and it will leave the story unfinished.  Okay, Lord, I know I should have been more diligent in attending Sunday School.  But please give me one more good season of Deadwood.