Two More Things I Don't Quite Get (Part 1)

While on vacation I had the opportunity to persuse something I don't normally get a chance to see: Pay TV.

No, not that kind of Pay TV, I'm talking HBO. Our condo was equipped with HBO, so I was able to catch a couple movies here and there. I saw the last half of Titanic, which was nice because I hadn't seen the ship sink in a while...

Hm, that was kind of a bad thing to say.

Anyway, I also saw two other things I'd never seen, and I'm a bit puzzled by their popularity.

1) Deadwood - I've heard of this original HBO series about an old Wild West Town and its citizens, but never caught an episode. I know it's old news to anyone who's watched or even heard of this show, but the swearing was....well, it was beyond uncomfortable to the point I actually started to get used to it. When every other word out of the characters' mouths was f- this and f- that and shut your f-ing mouth or I'll beat the f-ing s- out of you...blah blah blah - by the end of the episode, I hardly noticed it.

Maybe that's a good thing? I don't know, but I doubt it. Is it authentic to the time and era? Maybe so, but we have 80+ years of cowboy movies and TV shows without swearing that tell me it's not a necessary convention of the Western.

I have a whole big long post about swearing just itching to get out (I'm sure Becky's looking forward to it) and maybe one day I'll write it.

Meanwhile, was the show any good? Well, not knowing the characters and situations it was a bit confusing because there were a lot of them. Characters and situations, that is, all running together. There was tension, and some comic bits, plus some nice interaction I might like to explore more of. But did it make me want to see another episode? Not really. And it doesn't matter now because we're home and don't subscribe to HBO. And I'm not planning on wasting a Netflix queue on it.

Puzzling HBO Show #2 will be in the next post, so y'all can comment on Deadwood in this one.