6 Fantastic U.S Drama Shows Worth Revisiting

3. Deadwood

America isn’t blessed with a long and colourful cultural heritage, it has to make do with the pilgrims (not overly interesting), the war for independence (pfft, we let them have it) and the frontier days, it’s fairly easy to single out which of those offers the most material for thrilling storytelling, they just have to sidestep the whole mass murder thing. Westerns famously took an extremely romanticized view of that time period and for a time televisual horse operas flared up like black fever (look it up) but Deadwood approached the whole affair from an entirely different angle.

For one thing it’s a historical drama, Deadwood’s a real place that you can really visit (although judging from the pictures you’d have wasted a journey) which famously remained outside of US jurisdiction for an unusually long time due to land ownership disputes and a startling abundance of gold. As such it acted as a kind of lawless microcosm initially with no government of any kind and then a kind of self-appointed one, how it took until 2004 before anyone had the bright idea to make a show about it is beyond me.  The first thing that will strike you upon first watching is that you have only the faintest notion what the hell anyone on screen is actually saying, the language is as dense as it is poetic and it takes a little time to acclimate yourself to it but once you do you’ll find yourself hanging onto every sumptuous sentence, peppered as they often are with delicious profanity (in a brilliant play by the writers the swearing is kept modern in order to properly convey how rough and unmannered the speech of most of the townsfolk is).

Each episode spans a day and each of the three seasons chronicles about 2 weeks worth of time in what begins as a camp and ends as a fully-fledged town. During that time you’ll bear witness to violence, drinking, foul play, drinking, shaky early iterations of small town government, drinking, nefarious backdoor dealings and some drinking. The characters are so slowly and carefully unfolded throughout this process that it plays out like Shakespeare (helped in no small part by the rich language) and you’ll find yourself second guessing, changing sides and questioning motives numerous times in each episode. It’s a funny, heavy, powerful show that demands every inch of your attention from start to finish. Ian McShane’s turn as the mercurial, scheming brothel owner Al Swearengen remains one of the most complete and masterful performances I’ve ever seen.

 

2. Six Feet Under

Six Feet Under is a show I find very easy and very difficult to watch at the same time. On the one hand it’s an often hilarious and equally often heart rending insight into the life of quite possibly the most bizarre family on earth (that isn’t animated) and on the other it’s a constant reminder that death is out there and it could take you at any time.

Six Feet Under was huge when it aired and received probably the best ratings of any show on this list but it still seems to have been strangely forgotten in recent years. Michael C. Hall is practically a household name thanks to his time playing serial killer Dexter Morgan but as far as I’m concerned he was so much better as David Fisher, the funeral director struggling with his sexuality. The setting was a family owned funeral home and each episode was framed around a death, some largely unrelated to the doings of the main cast and some crucial to it, it’s one of those shows where picking a favourite episode is very difficult because the plot just moves at a very even pace and highlighting one lonely segment of it feels unfair to the remainder.

Six Feet Under is an absolute master class in writing, every strand of the plotline is so carefully interwoven and even the most menial of character beats feels meaningful because every character is so complete, helped in no small part by the stellar cast. Another thing that I love about it is that it’s almost a who’s who of actors who would go on to make it big in other shows further down the line, Parks and Recreation’s Adam Scott, How I Met Your Mother’s Josh Radnor, Zachary Quinto of Sylar and Spock fame, Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris and Rainn Wilson of the American Office all make appearances at one point or another, just to name a precious few. Six Feet Under has perhaps the most consistent tone of any show I’ve ever watched and from so simple a premise it never feels anything less than rounded and complete, not to mention emotionally overwhelming when it needs to be.

 

1. The Wire

I’m really sorry. Honestly I am so sorry, I know you saw this coming, and I know you’re probably groaning like a Snorlax right now but this simply has to be addressed. For all the constant talk about The Wire’s status as the best of this and the ultimate that it’s still fairly rare that I encounter people who’ve actually watched it end to end. However much or little water this next statement holds for you, I cannot stress it enough, you should forget everything you’ve heard about The Wire except for this one solitary fact: it’s one of the greatest pieces of drama in history. Is it the greatest show ever? Who knows, probably not. Is it essential viewing? My god yes.

From the beginning it follows a pitched ongoing battle between the Baltimore City Police and the drugs trade being run through the city, but from there it evolves into a world unto itself, giving you an insight into each facet of Baltimore’s infrastructure season-by-season, keeping some characters relevant while eschewing others and weaving new ones in, it seems almost impenetrable at first but much like Deadwood you being to adjust to the way it presents itself and you learn to scrutinize it. The Wire really is a show you have to pay attention to, but you’re rewarded for it and then some.

If Deadwood is Shakespearean then The Wire is something akin to Dostoevsky, if only in terms of the sheer enormity of it, it takes a special kind of show to give you the measure of an entire city while still keeping you closely tied to a series of insular groups of characters almost uniformly played to perfection by a varied and often surprising cast (Method Man, anyone?). I honestly envy anyone who hasn’t watched The Wire yet because it stays with you in a way that no other show has stayed with me before or since, it’s not perfect and many argue that Homicide is actually the stronger of the two but the solidity of the writing and the strength of the drama demands attention. I imagine there are a lot of people out there for whom The Wire is ‘on the list’, that was me for a long time, to those people I say, don’t put it off any longer, find yourself a suitable amount of free time and just dive right in, just make sure you take a deep breath.