From PRX.

This podcast contains language that may be inappropriate for some listeners.

I'm Kurt Anderson, and this is the Studio 360 podcast.

In 1982, when David Milch, age 37, was teaching literature at Yale, he wrote a spec script for a TV series, sent it to Hollywood, a police show called Hill Street Blues.

It's old right away, and Milch promptly abandoned academia for show business.

He went on to create NYPD Blue and one of my favorite shows ever.

Deadwood on HBO.

He had me at the setting.

Some of my earliest memories are from summer vacations in the Black Hills in South Dakota and hanging out in the real-life town of Deadwood.

The TV series is set in the 1870s during the gold rush that centered on Deadwood

and conjured that violent, body, anarchic place with what I take to be deep truthfulness.

Away from your second's view, the captain's pistol was trained at your head.

Do you believe yourself enough an adept, Mr. Sweringen, to overcome your disadvantage, or will you walk with us inside?

The show was abruptly canceled in 2006 after its third season. Milch developed a couple of short-lived

shows for HBO, John from Cincinnati, and Luck,

and co-wrote an episode of True Detective. Deadwood is his masterwork, which finally, 13 years later,

has an ending. The two-hour Deadwood, the movie, just premiered on HBO.

Oh, Jesus, you should me, Doc.

Name the day of the week, Al.

What's the difference is the day made?

I'd have you but say the name.

Tuesday, then, you half a scarecrow-looking Godzucker.

...