DAVID MILCH

David Milch is about to embark on his third series for HBO (the first two being DEADWOOD and JOHN FROM CINCINATTI).

Per TV Week:

"The drama is set in the 1970s and involves the Knapp Commission investigations. The Knapp era gave rise to the story of patrolman Frank Serpico, whose revelations about corruption within the department were made into a popular book and film."


The show is currently untitled.

But, more interesting is what TV Week was able to gleam about the on-again, off-again DEADWOOD tv movies. HBO executives have recently stated that there are no current plans to make the two two-hour DEADWOOD movies that Milch had announced after the series finale. And then came reports that the Deadwood town sets were being dismantled, further casting doubt over the prospect of the movies getting made. But apparently, per David Milch, the movies would take place after the town of Deadwood is destroyed by fire and floods, thus deeming the sets unnecessary.

I won't hold my breath though. It's not likely that these movies will ever get made, more due to money issues than anything else. Which is a total crime in my estimation. DEADWOOD is easily one of the ten greatest television shows in the history of the medium. Nothing like it was attempted before it, and nothing in the future will ever match the brilliance of what was done over the three seasons of the show. And while JOHN FROM CINCINATTI was a failure, it was never boring or uninteresting; rather, it was too oblique and confounding to sustain interest.

But, to have Milch working on a cop show (he was one of the pioneers of that genre, with his revolutionary work on such shows as HILL STREET BLUES and NYPD BLUE), is a sign of great things to come. Any Milch is better than no Milch.