The first season of the HBO television series Boardwalk Empire premiered on September 19, 2010, and concluded on December 5, 2010, consisting of 12 episodes.
The series was created by Terence Winter and based on the book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City by Nelson Johnson.
The first season takes place between January and November 1920, beginning with the start of national prohibition and ending with the 1920 presidential election.
[4] Terence Winter, who had served as executive producer and writer on the HBO series The Sopranos, was hired to adapt the novel Boardwalk Empire on June 4, 2008.
"[15] The casting of Buscemi was soon followed by Michael Pitt, best known for his roles in the Sandra Bullock film Murder by Numbers and in the television series Dawson's Creek.
[16] He was soon joined by Kelly Macdonald, Vincent Piazza and Michael Shannon, who had just received an Oscar nomination for his role in the Sam Mendes film Revolutionary Road.
Says Glenn Allen, visual effects producer for Boardwalk Empire and co-founder of Brainstorm, "It's our most complex job to date.
"[20] "Anytime you get to work on a period piece, it's more fun," comments visual effects artist Chris "Pinkus" Wesselman, who used archival photographs, postcards, and architectural plans to recreate the Atlantic City boardwalks as accurately as possible.
Dunn's designs were meticulously detailed, including a collar pin for Nucky's shirts and even going so far as to incorporate specially ordered woolens for suiting.
Dunn told Esquire magazine in a September 2010 interview, "With Marty and Terry Winters, I developed the feel for each of the characters.
"[21] These tailors were supplied by textile importer HMS fabrics and Gladstone ltd. Martin Scorsese was involved in the filming even before creator Terence Winter.
[4] Another aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes, gave the first season a 94% rating, based on 67 critics’ reviews with an average score of 8.4/10, with the site consensus stating "Thought-provoking, violent, and filled with lush period detail, Boardwalk Empire is a gangster drama of uncommon depth and scope.
"[36] David Hinkley of the New York Daily News awarded the series five out of five, saying "Watching HBO's new 'Boardwalk Empire' is like sitting in your favorite tavern and hearing someone say, 'Drinks are on the house.'
[38] TV Guide's Matt Roush praised the marriage of Scorsese and Winter, saying it "... brilliantly marries Martin Scorsese's virtuosic cinematic eye to Terence Winter's panoramic mastery of rich character and eventful story", and finished his review by stating "It's the most purely—and impurely—enjoyable storytelling HBO has delivered in ages, like a movie that you never want to end.
"[39] Variety's Brian Lowry praised the show for returning network HBO to top form, saying "This is, quite simply, television at its finest, occupying a sweet spot that—for all the able competition—still remains unique to HBO: An expensive, explicit, character-driven program, tackling material no broadcast network or movie studio would dare touch ... For those wondering when the channel would deliver another franchise to definitively put it on top of the world, Ma, the wait is over: Go directly to 'Boardwalk.
'"[12] "One of the unexpected joys of 'Boardwalk Empire,' though, lies in the way the show revels in the oddities of its time, peeling back the layers of polite society to reveal a giddy shadow world of criminals and politicians collaborating to keep the liquor flowing", says online magazine Salon's Heather Havrilesky who went on to call the pilot "breathtaking".
[44] On its original airing, the pilot episode gained a 2.0/5 ratings share among adults aged 18–49 and garnered 4.81 million viewers.