One can’t think of too many TV series that were made into successful films – and no, Sex and the City most assuredly does not count – so the omens for a particular saga that was cancelled the best part of a decade ago, after just three seasons, are not encouraging.

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However, the Deadwood movie should, as has been tantalisingly mooted in the past few days, be made. In fact, the Deadwood movie MUST be made. Hints have been dropped by at least one major cast member – and frankly, Garret Dillahunt, if you had an ounce of humanity in you, you wouldn’t tweet teasers about something like that and then yank the rug from under us. It has to happen now, because Deadwood is – here we go – the best drama series HBO has ever made. Its inexplicable pull from the schedules – with its storyline left thoroughly unresolved – remains hanging there like a rustler’s corpse, strung up as a warning.

You may well be familiar with the series but, if you’re not, it’s the fictional tale of the actual town of Deadwood, at the very frontier of the Gold Rush, and the lawful and awful folk who flocked there to milk the hills dry. As a period piece, it is astonishing, reeking of animal dung and illness, ankle-deep in sucking mud and spilled blood. The plate-spinning act it pulls off with its huge cast is arguably as deft as that of The Wire, without the safety net of the latter’s “themed” seasons. Which means that, by necessity, it has an incredible cast, cast incredibly. I fail to see how there will conceivably be a better gathering of magnificent character actors: Powers Boothe, Brad Dourif, Ricky Jay, Brian Cox, Jeffrey Jones, Paula Malcomson, John Hawkes, William Sanderson, Titus Welliver, Robin Weigert – astonishing as the ravaged, hammered, indomitable Calamity Jane – and, of course, Ian McShane.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Ravaged, hammered, indomitable’: Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) in Deadwood. Photograph: HBO

It’s easy to forget that, before Deadwood, McShane was “Ha, ha! Lovejoy!” But, as the diabolical, psychopathic taverner Al Swearengen, he gave a masterclass in greasy, vulpine shitheelery. Characters such as his can’t be allowed to perish on a studio bean-counter’s spreadsheet. Swearengen deserved what was surely coming to him – indeed one hopes that, before the plug was pulled on the show, he was destined for the same one that befell him in Western folklore: cleft in twain by a freight train. A neat metaphor for the destructive march of progress if ever there was one. The reality is that Al Swearengen was probably savagely beaten to death, and that would do, too. Swearengen simply must die.

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A decade is a long time to stew but, for obsessives of the show such as myself, stew is all we can do, because there was and is nothing even approaching a resolution – just an endless stream of Deadwood alumni showing up in inferior endeavours. It feels as if half of the town took a time machine to 21st century Charming to slum it in Sons of Anarchy, reminding us of that abject absence of climax.

One thing we’ve discovered in the nine years since the stage rolled out of town is that, to put it kindly, HBO is not the best at providing a happy finish. The Sopranos is the obvious example; Boardwalk Empire was pretty underwhelming; while the whole fifth season of The Wire felt a bit like a misty-eyed tribute to the sanctity of good journalism; and many hold the view that True Detective is stretching out its own disappointing finale across an entire series. A Deadwood film could afford HBO the chance to provide a grand finale that those other shows failed to deliver.

My message to HBO would be simple: the show only improves with age, not least because of the ever-growing “Ooh, wasn’t he/she in…?” value, it’s short enough for the uninitiated to get up to speed on the box sets, and the 10-year anniversary of its plug-pull would be the ideal time for the righting of the worst decision – the one major incontrovertible balls-up – HBO ever made. And, on a personal level, I want to see Al Swearengen die shrieking magnificent profanities on a railway line as his spilled intestines gleam like the gold in them there hills.