On Demand Weekly

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)

By T. Tara Turk

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!