ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes Deadwood and The Wire by taking advantage of the contemporary aesthetic of viewing which, Burgin's analysis is a technology-assisted, critical reception. The Wire takes place in Baltimore, an urban venue that is distinguished by diverse modes of violence and alienation the color line, tensions between governmental bureaucracies and citizens, between policing executives and investigators. In accord with that frontier moment, Deadwoods opening episode in season one begins with one of its main characters, Seth Bullock, setting out from the Montana Territory in 1876 toward Deadwood. The camera work of Deadwood and The Wire is thus more cinematic than televisual. Nevertheless, as series, both belong to the television rather than the cinema aesthetic. Once Bullock and Stars hardware business is underway, a telling encounter occurs between Star and Swearengen. Ultimately, both HBO series reveal a biopolitics that challenges the more progressive narratives applied to the American West and to the modern city.
