There was a time when Westerns dominated the big and little screens, when Clint Eastwood and John Wayne brought in millions at the box office and Gunsmoke was the longest-running show on television. As the turn of the millennium approached, the popularity of Westerns waned like the setting desert sun, but the genre didn’t die off completely. One of the best Western films of all time was released this century , along with arguably the best Western television show of all time: HBO’s Deadwood .

Set in the 1870s, the show follows the growth of the real life Deadwood, South Dakota from humble camp to bustling frontier town, centered on two prominent historical figures: Sheriff Seth Bullock ( Timothy Olyphant ) and saloon owner Al Swearengen ( Ian McShane ). Using real newspapers from the time, the show blended history with fiction as it focused on how civilization forms out of chaos; this theme carried over from the original idea of the show, which was set in Ancient Rome .…