"Hell on Wheels" is the newest original series from AMC, the same network currently committed to gripping, intellectual shows about the living dead, ad salesmen, a terminally ill high school chemistry teacher making meth and an unsolved murder of a girl from Washington state.
One aspect that all these shows have in common? A certain edge-of-your-seat tension, an aspect that "Hell on Wheels" doesn't stray far from.
However, due the season's slow-moving development and lack of interesting characterization, comparing "Hell on Wheels" to the greater AMC shows would be like predicting who will win at next year's Oscar ceremony — it's too early to tell.
This new series explores the building of the Union Pacific Railroad shortly after the end of the Civil War. The main character is Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount), a former Confederate soldier looking to start a new life. Cullen is stalking and killing a group of men who wronged him sometime during the war while also seeking revenge for his murdered wife.
His search for a new life takes him to Hell on Wheels, a tent city run by a corrupt dentist-turned-railroad businessman, Thomas "Doc" Durant (Colm Meaney). When we are first introduced to Thomas, he's bribing a United States senator to win government support and money for the railroad.
Arriving at the tent city in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Cullen begins to work for the supervising formers slaves working on the railroad, including Elam Ferguson (hip-hop artist Common), who doesn't try too hard to conceal his contempt for his white bosses.
The first episode is also filled with a couple of meanwhile moments. In between the events at Hell on Wheels, Thomas' chief surveyor is attacked and killed by Cheyenne Native Americans. A search is ordered for his wife Lily (Dominique McElligott), who has essential maps that will help Thomas establish the railroad's route.
While it's difficult to write about the overall plot of the series after only the pilot, I can say the episode itself moved as slowly as the construction of the railroad to establish the plot. The revenge plot especially isn't brought to light until the end of the pilot.
In some cases, the characterization is lacking and too familiar. Case in point: Cullen, the typical hard-drinking, cigar-smoking Western character who doesn't take smack from anyone. Still, Mount still manages to pull off this squinty Clint Eastwood-type character and works fine opposite Common.
Meaney, however, is a different case. His flat performance as Thomas fails to be convincing, and his character comes off as more caricature than charismatic hustler. At the end of the pilot, writers Joe and Tony Gayton give Thomas a long, strange monologue in which he expresses his willingness to become a villain, talking about how "history is written by the zebra, for the zebra."
But where the show fails in characterization, it makes up for with production value as no detail goes unnoticed from the costume design to the set design to the location. This solid attention to detail instantly grabs the viewers and sucks them into the story. Even the levels of graphic violence and medical practices add a hint of realism into the series.
As I noted, it's difficult to determine whether the story will pick up speed as the series moves along. The first episode basically just introduces a number of characters and themes, and veers dangerously close to being a traditional "cowboys and Indians" kind of show.
"Hell on Wheels" doesn't establish itself as one of the greater shows in AMC's lineup, but neither is it a bad show. However, if the story development picks up speed and more characterization is shown, then maybe it will eventually reach that level. For now, "Hell on Wheels" is good enough.