Published on February 28th, 2014 in: Current Faves, TV |
By Luke Shaw
I’m increasingly wary of new TV recommendations, especially after the all that post-meth cook smoke was blown up so many collective asses that it got tiresome to even be involved in the show’s culture (Disclaimer: I like Breaking Bad but it isn’t the be all and end all of TV drama). It’s also because to even participate in conversations around that show without either being buffeted by so much screeching enthusiasm or labeled a disgruntled naysayer for having one bad word to say about any of its many elements was an absolute impossibility. So I tend to try and distance myself from the new stuff.
However, HBO have gone and put out something that piqued my intrigue so much that I just couldn’t stay away. So I am going to spend the next couple of hundred words blowing smoke up the collective asses of those of you who read this. I love the series format on TV, though I often regret the time investment, especially considering the way it’s frequently so reliant on commissioning and meeting episode quotas. It often feels like creators are wrestling with network and fan expectations and thus things pan out in uneven and bizarre ways. Sometimes this is good (it was great to see Jesse’s character evolved into a fuller role in Breaking Bad than showrunner Vince Gilligan had intended) and sometimes this is bad (cancellation of shows like Deadwood, shows being dragged on past their sell by date like The X-Files and many others). It’s an obstacle that few shows can guarantee that they can surmount.
True Detective is a familiar beast, but of different breeding. It has this prestigious idea of “authorship” behind it. It has a fixed writer with novelist Nic Pizzolatto and a fixed director in Cary Joji Fukunaga. It has brevity, with the first season being only eight episodes long, It has closure and finality; the show adheres to the anthology format so each season will be about a different scenario, with new faces, possible new locations. None of these are entirely new ideas, but the combination of all of these elements into one show is novel, to me at least. I may have missed a show; with millions of hours of TV it is entirely possible that I have, but that’s a task I can set myself later, with American Horror Story looking like an admirable starting point.
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