THE RETURN OF DEADWOOD
DAVID MILCH HAD A DREAM. AFTER scoring successes as a scriptwriter for Hill Street Blues and as a co-creator of NYPD Blue, the Yale University-educated writer-producer wanted to launch an even more ambitious TV series about dedicated law-enforcers. The big difference this time, however, would be the beat these new cops would traverse.
Specifically, Milch wanted to mount a weekly drama about the Urban Cohorts, a group of freewheeling guardians who more or less improvised justice while patrolling the mean streets of ancient Rome during the time of Nero. As he would tell an interviewer for Salon.com years later: “I wanted to focus on that idea of how order is generated in the absence of law.”
When he pitched the project to HBO, the decision-makers were receptive, a period drama set during the time of Julius Caesar. Maybe, just maybe, Milch could shift gears and change the locale for his project?
