I know this may be Stuttaford bait, but can Washington Post TV “critic” Tom Shales be any deeper in the tank for HBO than in today’s “Deadwood” review? (If I didn’t know they were all screaming for some “sophistication” in their TV diet, I would swear the TV writers are all paid under the table the way they swoon over HBO.) Shales is even giddy at the oh-so-realistic constant profanity in the series:

Deadwood” is magnificently gritty in appearance and poetically obscene in language. No one ever says something as simple as “I’m hungry” without a notorious gerund between the first word and the third. But you get used to it, and it actually becomes kind of lyrical.