Fur is big. Bill Clark is big. Deadwood may be small.

In case you missed it on the comments to the "John From Cincy" finale post, HBO has, not surprisingly, pulled the plug on the adventures of Butchie, Cissy, Freddy, Palaka-y and the rest. Meanwhile, HBO has signed David Milch to a development deal.

But even though Milch is both freed from "John" and signed to stay with HBO, I don't think the "Deadwood" reunion movies are any closer to reality. This story in Variety says that the first project he hopes to work on is another Bill Clark-inspired cop show, this one a period piece based on Bill's experiences coming home from Vietnam and being recruited by the NYPD to go undercover in the anti-war movement of the early '70s. It's an idea Milch has had in his head for a while (I remember him telling me about it shortly after the first season of "Deadwood" ended), and the premise is far enough removed from "NYPD Blue" that it wouldn't feel like a retread. (Plus, Milch's writing style has changed quite a bit since those days.)

As for the "Deadwood" movies, I just think there are too many logistical hurdles for them to ever happen. The cast is huge, and while "John" showed that Milch can get a lot of the supporting players if he wants them, Ian McShane has been working non-stop since "Deadwood" ended, Molly Parker's committed to a new series (CBS' "Swingtown," though who knows how long that'll last), Tim Olyphant seems focused on his suddenly-thriving movie career, etc. Finding a window when all of these people will be available, not to mention reconstructing all the sets that were dismantled and/or sold, just seems impossible to me.

I've said before and will say again that "John" shouldn't take the blame for the demise of "Deadwood," as it was really HBO's alibi for cancelling an acclaimed but prohibitively expensive show. ("You see, we would've loved to keep 'Deadwood' around forever, but David had this idea about surfers, and he was really excited, so...") But once they let all the actors out of their contracts, that effectively killed any future movie prospects. This isn't the kind of thing where Milch can grab three actors and film it in his basement, you know?

Over at Time, James Poniewozik thinks he'd rather see Milch do something new, anyway, and I can see some merit to that. Even though it wasn't intended that way, the season three finale worked surprisingly well as a series ender, I thought. I would never object to more Al Swearengen, but I don't think we're ever going to get it, and I'm okay with that.