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Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. So these critiques shouldn’t be taken as full TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the new shows coming your way.As we noted earlier today, AMC is suffering some growing pains: negotiations and behind-the-scenes maneuvering at its signature shows Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead have become very public, and The Killing practically caused an audience revolt with its season finale. The best cure for these kinds of problems is a new hit, and AMC will take its next shot at the brass ring with HELL ON WHEELS, in some ways its most ambitious to date, which launches (with Walking Dead as lead-in) on November 6.
AMC has become HBO’s biggest competitor in recent years in the all-important category of Emmy glory, with multiple award winners Mad Men and Breaking Bad taking the honors that used to belong to The Sopranos. Hell On Wheels escalates the competition, aiming itself directly at HBO’s wheelhouse of large-scale historical drama. Specifically, Hell is pretty clearly AMC’s version of the late lamented Deadwood. We’re once again in the Old West at that moment when the frontier was being pierced by railroads, a time where savage violence and the beginnings of modern American society were balefully co-existing. There’s even a stand-in for Ian McShane’s epic villain Al Swearengen: Colm Meany as Thomas Durant, a loquacious railway magnate who expounds on his theories about evil and good as he ruthlessly pushes his tracks forward. And our hero Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount), while not a sheriff like Timothy Olyphant’s Seth Bullock, carries a similar don’t-mess-with-me vibe.
But this, alas, isn’t Deadwood. Which is to say, Hell On Wheels creators Joe and Tony Gayton are very far from being David Milch. (The Gaytons’ previous credits include Uncommon Valor and the recent Dwayne Johnson flop Faster.) Instead of filthy, poetic eloquence, we get stretches of clunky expository dialogue; instead of gasp-inducing plot turns, there’s a standard story of vengeance. A lot happens in the Hell On Wheels pilot–a couple of murders, a brutal Indian attack on a railroad scouting party–but there’s very little in the way of a gripping storyline. The best scene in the entire pilot is the pre-credits teaser, which raises expectations the rest of the show can’t match.
As the producers of Cowboys and Aliens could tell you, westerns are a tough sell. Deadwood itself, however acclaimed, was never one of HBO’s most popular shows, and it was cancelled before its time. Hell On Wheels is launching into a very tough timeslot, against the new Homeland on Showtime, the Hung/How To Make It In America duo on HBO, and the new Pan Am on ABC. AMC is giving it their best lead-in, but that’s no guarantee people will return after trying the premiere. The show is interesting, hardly a total loss… but the network should really close its deal for more Breaking Bad.
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