Could wear the same jeans.

I think you're probably right. I still think it'd be hard to make Deadwood without the show making rather starker and more overt contemporary judgements on the characters. But tbh maybe it's that David Milch was unique, not that he alone was allowed to make the show he did.

This is somewhat true but they are politically incorrect by design, engaged with where the culture is but in a trickstery sort of way. Deadwood is different it seems to me, drawing on a sort of gritty world-historical humanism that stands apart from the current conversation.

The more I think about it though, the more I reckon Deadwood is just very unusual in its treatment of these issues, not necessarily stepping more over any lines of decency than a bunch of other shows.

Hmm, extending a long established show is a little different to making a new show in 2022. But point taken.

Regards movies about slavery, they're not anti woke but for the most part they centre the issues of racism and slavery and give them immense weight. They also tend to be either didactic or cartoonish in their morality (Tarantino). (These are generalisations admittedly.) This makes them a little different than Deadwood.

Dunno if that's quite the same -- a) three years ago, and b) an established property. Obv, Deadwood hasn't been cancelled.