Is AMC’s Hell On Wheels Worth Tuning Into? (VOD Hidden Gem)November 18, 2011
AMC
Media savant T Tara Turk goes deep inside cable TV to reveal Video On Demand's Hidden Gems so even the busiest of our readers can get the most out of On Demand TV. Tell Tara what VOD shows you think deserves her attention.
HELL ON WHEELS (HOW)
Full disclosure: If HBO’s “Deadwood” had been a band, I would’ve been a Deadwood Head. I would’ve toured around each city watching it on a big screen and jamming to its Western Shakespearean mashed up language like I was at a concert The Roots put on spontaneously. Long before the Brolin/Damon/Bridges TRUE GRIT there was already a gritty, dirty wild west with complicated language, characters you loved to hate and hated to love, and storylines that would make a writer swoon. But, in true HBO fashion, “Deadwood” disappeared into the night without even a note, making Eddie and the Cruisers look like a nursery rhyme. (I’m still pissed about “Rome” ending before Rome even got to fall.)
So I did a jig when I almost barely heard about AMCTV’s “Hell On Wheels” (I mean every other word out of the TV world’s mouth when it comes to AMC is “Mad Men” and “Walking Dead”... what up with that?). The only person I recognized was the rapper Common who has been popping up like Where’s Waldo in movies that demand a gun with a backbone. I get it, Common. You want to be badass and so far it’s been a mixed review but this time he may have found his niche. As a former slave who never believed the Emancipation Proclamation would do anything to improve his life (and he was almost right), Common finally plays a character that kinda makes me scared. Now THAT’S acting!
“Hell On Wheels” begins with a brutal gunslinger murder in a church. From there we follow several mysterious, mostly unsavory characters, to “Hell On Wheels,” a town strictly devoted to creating the railroad in a way only Don Corleone would approve of. The pilot is so dirty and violent that you can smell the blood and the thick weeds growing around the cast as they all claw their way towards their various endpoints. I love the kind of shows where you can’t get attached to anybody and this is exactly that kind of show. Anyone could get an arrow in their throat at any time.
Deadwood fans will recognize an attempt to recapture the infamous “Deadwood” language but it doesn’t quite succeed and that’s okay as the focus in this show should be how the characters literally unravel in this post Civil War world full of scalping indians, sweat, rot gut whiskey and broken dreams. No good can come of this except for the good you’ll have watching it.
T. Tara Turk is a novelist/playwright/screenwriter, living in LA with her boyfriend and dog - all three successful TV addicts. You can find her at www.ttaraturk.com or follow her on Twitter @ttaraturk.
