Well 4 episodes in, and although it's not a bad series, for some reason it feels like its lacking something; excitment. I mean so far it's been focused on a lot of conversation and what not, which is preety good in its own right, but I feel as though the show wants to engage heavy and deep material, but just doesn't quite do it. But the intensity, action, and dynamicism seems scarce to say the least; as I mentioned before, a show called Hell on Wheels sounds like a fast paced ride, but so far it seems that the train is moving too often at a slow and steady pace. But again, that doesn't make the series bad per se, it's good in its own right, but I've heard from others how Hell on Wheels is just a shoody clone of Deadwood (note: I have never seen Deadwood).
Also, I want to be nit-picky about this, the plot revolving around Collin getting revenge for his wife, is somewhat pointless. I mean it could have been compelling, but there's several things the writers have done wrong with it that keeps me from being satisfied with it. First and for most, we the audience have never seen Collin ever interact with his wife at all. We haven't seen their relationship, haven't seen their loves, haven't seen anything besides a very brief flashback of her. Hell, for that matter I don't even remember her name; there's no established character behind her for me to care about, so her death means nothing to me. Had we be given at least some more flashbacks of Collin and her interacting together, I might feel more sympathy for the both of them, and of course it would harden Collin's resolve for vengeance. Also, the men that he is hunting down, don't really mean anything either; its already been established that most of them have been killed already, so where's all the excitment in finding and killing each one? I mean I think there's a grand total of two or three more guys for Collin to kill; seems kinda boring especially when I don't give a rats-ass about his wife or their relationship at all. And if Durant turns out to be one of the killers, so help me god I will foam at the mouth with anger. But thankfully the show has shown itself to be generally intelligent and mature, and probably won't resort to such childish plot turns in order to move the story.