I will admit I'm not certain that the quality didn't drop because the creators were already thinking about their new show, rather than thinking about a new show because the quality was dropping. But season 3 was not as good, and stopping the show at that point avoided the letdown of watching a formerly great show become trite and formulaic, which is my point after watching the last few episodes of Game of Thrones.
Victor Laszlo, August 28, 2017, 08:14:08 am
So, I've never actually seen Game of Thrones so I apologize in advance for the shitpost, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
Deadwood was unceremoniously canceled because it was expensive. This came as a surprise to David Milch, who thought he had HBO's blessing because Deadwood was a big part of HBO's branding at the time, except the
other big shows they wanted to advertise (Six Feet Under, Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm) were significantly cheaper to film than a period piece involving a shitload of horses and a fake town that had to be built in a place that wasn't a gulch and then greenscreened to make it look like it was a gulch. In the case of Rome, they actually were able to get the BBC to foot part of the bill, Deadwood was all theirs, and they pulled the plug.
Which is exactly what makes the third season so anticlimatic. The first season is anarchy, the second season is them trying to forge some sort of government by themselves, and then the third season is The Establishment moves in and, after not being greeting with the supplication they were expecting, prepares to burn the entire fucking city to ash. That season spent a significant amount of time building to that, Dan Dohrity gouges out Heart's Giant's eyeballs, George Heart cuts off Al Swearengen's finger. In the end, the New York Woman marries a propsector she doesn't like, and Heart's Pinkterton's ride into town with torches.
That's not how you end a show, and that's certainly not what they were intending. Had they known they only had one season left, they would have framed things a lot differently and probably sped up the whole Hearst thing to happen sooner.
Sorry, I just like Deadwood a lot. Now back to your dragontalking...