Hell On Wheels does attempt to head in a different direction than Deadwood and there is a feeling of experiencing the people who are living in a time of rebuilding and reconstruction. It's a promising landscape and saga that I hope proves fulfilling. Sure, the premiere was rather slow, but it picks up speed in the next few episodes.
Blood will be spilled. Lives will be lost. Fortunes will be made. Men will be ruined.
These are the promises made by the sprawling epic that is AMC's latest attempt at another hit drama. Hell On Wheels might not be groundbreaking, but it is captivating and eager to tell multiple stories of the men and women struggling to find purpose after the end of the Civil War.
Between Deadwood and Hell on WheelsDominique McElligot: "I know that comparisons are being made between Deadwood and Hell on Wheels, and having watched Deadwood, I think that the comparisons are going to stop, after a couple of episodes, and the show is going to be seen to be so much more than a Western. It’s so much more than that. You don’t get the diversity of characters in a Western that you get in this show. The authenticity of it, and the fact that it’s not stylized like the Westerns are, makes it much more complex. There are social issues being dealt with. There is such a diversity of characters that you wonder, “How are these people going to relate to each other? How are they going to converse?” There’s going to be conflict. There’s going to be a lot of tension. How is that going to be resolved? What’s the interaction like? Basically, it’s a question of survival, and who’s going to survive and who’s going to die. It’s so much more than just a Western."
