Hacker Cinema
True Detective
2014 · TV series · 5 seasons
Created by Nic Pizzolatto, Issa López
An American anthology police detective series utilizing multiple timelines in which investigations seem to unearth personal and professional secrets of those involved, both within or outside the law.
28 positive4 negative3 mixed31 neutralfrom 66 commenters
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74 comments on Hacker News
True detective season 1. Easily.
The first one, the one based on the book, was great and did fly a good deal under the radar. But definitely one of those ones with a core fanbase that evangelized for it and good critical notices. Elsewhere in this discussion Jared Harris's role in Foundation has been mentioned; he's a major, consistent, and excellent fixture in The Terror.
Since they used the book's story already, they made a turn for the series to be an anthology of loosely thematically-similar stories (think American Horror Story). The basic setting of season 2 is Japanese internment during World War II in America, and it's from different writers than the first, and of course isn't adapting the novel anymore. It was much less popular both in terms of viewers and critics.
I'm a little surprised they think the brand still carries enough power to put another original story in there under its name for a season 3. It's also a bit of a double-edged sword: you do get name recognition and some built-in initial audience, but you're also taking on expectations and baggage from the original. This is a factor in season 2's tepid reception, and there have been other similar attempts to slide something unrelated in under an existing banner that backfired: True Detective Night Country comes to mind.
Famous American detective TV show True Detective had the hero annoying his colleague by referring to religion as "language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain" and thereby "dulls critical thinking". In other words, a lot people read shit and it fries their mixers. Et cetera.
Her fig tree metaphor is great-- I was reminded of it during a dialog in True Detective (season one). A line that felt like a response to the metaphor where Russ says, "Life is barely long enough to get good at one thing. Be careful what you get good at."[1]
https://youtu.be/fHmmR3GnGpU?si=Czu9o2yKfYQbmr6y&t=96
Such a fascinating book. I remember first reading it because of True Detective season 1. I was pretty into Lovecraft at the time. The first short story is still great
Disagree. All True detective have some plot holes. Yet all the seasons are still in highest tier of the genre. Every season has very different setting. Because its series very much about mood people were upset after season 1 that instead of rural occult mystery they got casino gangster corruption. But if you accept its all completely separate mini series each season is pretty good on its own.
True Detective was great, but the last episode of season 1 really was a crappy ending.
You should absolutely watch True Detective Season 1. It definitely holds up a decade on.
Seems like there is a multi-industry push to move into Texas; came across a video the other day of Matthew McConaughey & Woody Harrelson (and other big name actors) reprising their True Detective role calling for the Texas legislature to increase incentives that bring Hollywood productions over to Texas.
[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/matthew-mcconaughey-woody-harrelson-true-detective-texas-based-productions-1235250668/
[2] https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/matthew-mcconaughey-woody-harrelson-true-detective-true-to-texas-ad-1236290018/
We don't know this True Detective Season 2 that you speak of. It went from the first season to the third season. We've all agreed that season 2 never happened. You must have missed the memo. It should be pinned at the top of your Slack channel. It should definitely be listed in HN's policies.
I always thought the Alabama3 track was just a remix of Cohen's
It’s a common mistake, but this wasn’t him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke_Up_This_Morning
His song ‘Nevermind’ was used as the opening theme for season 2 of True Detective. It has a similar mood imo.
True Detective season 2 is the only time I've seen vaping on a show.
Lots.
10 years ago - house of cards [0] showed Kevin Spacey vaping.
Also True Detective season 2 [1]
[0]https://youtu.be/tduSghkW_UA
[1]https://youtu.be/EL3AuyOfBtI
The first site I checked has 317 pages of 50x 2160p listings per page going back seven years.
The most recent entry is:
How To Train Your Dragon The Hidden World (2019) 2160p 4K BluRay 5 1-LAMA
Format : HEVC
Width : 3 840 pixels Height : 1 634 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Near the top is a recent TV episode:
True Detective S04E04 Night Country Part 4 2160p MAX WEB-DL DDP5 1 DoVi x265-NTb
Format : HEVC
Width : 3 840 pixels Height : 1 920 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.000
What makes things problematic is the overbearing love for letterbox like aspect ratios, even pirates have standards and they're having to bundle a slew of aspect ratios together .. this comes from the production companies.
Somewhat related, True Detective season 1 is set in this area. Reading this article made me realize that the the cinematography is very effective in using the pollution as a metaphor for social decay. Some stills:
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/3FleEbfQmPxX0b0pXp--7OF3GlI=/0x0:1920x1080/1600x900/media/img/mt/2014/03/TrueDetective_church/original.jpg
https://gerryco23.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/true-detective-5.jpg
Even in animation, there are teams of people involved. Each team specializing in different aspects. This single person hollywood replacement dream is something to be really afraid of, at least as far as the quality of the content. I couldn't imagine watching something that only one person has ever worked on with no input from other people with suggestions/tweaks/edits to improve the product. We've already seen things like True Detective Season 2 that was produced and it had people involved that did not push back.
Clancy Brown or Glenn Fleshler (True Detective season 1) probably come closest in my view. Another one, if he were younger and bulkier, and hairless, who I think fits best with the book's overall description of the Judge would be Sid Haig.
The important aspect of an actor for the Judge wouldn't just be his physicality and baldness, it would also have to be a certain very particular type of sinister air. Few large actors have that.
This is a big problem I have with modern movies; they're unable or unwilling to simply show, they need to show and tell. It doesn't matter the theme, even wholly unpolitical themes are far too often explicitly laid out, multiple times, with blunt dialogue exposition to the audience who are presumed to only be half-watching the movie.
The smart writing (and smart audiences) have all moved to TV. The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, True Detective, Better Call Saul. These are the shows that respect their audience's intelligence.
The movie business has turned into Disneyland with guns.
> So if a netflix series get 2 seasons, 12 Episode. it is just starting
True Detective season one: 8 episodes and done => one of the most acclaimed TV shows in many years.
Mare of Easttown: 7 episodes and done => one of the most acclaimed TV shows in many years
If you make actual stories instead of trying to create ongoing scenarios, you can hit it out of the park in less than 10 episodes.
True Detective Season 5 then.
I've always liked this quote from True Detective Season 2.
“Sometimes a thing happens, it splits your life. There’s a before and after. I've got, like, five of them at this point, and this is your first. But if you use it right — the bad thing — you use it right and it makes you better.”
The character is talking to a kid who's dad was murdered.
I think everyone experiences something like this at some point in their life. Life changing doesn't always mean good. The constant is what life was before, and what life is after. People talk about these types of life changing events all of the time.
"Before I got divorced."
"Before my mom died."
But there are some good ones too...
"Before I got my driver's license"
"After I moved out on my own."
The milestones (from the source code):
//<10 seconds 'A single frame of a film': 100ms, 'It would take light to go around the Earth': 133ms, 'A blink of an eye': 400ms, 'The time it takes light to reach Earth from the moon': 1255ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 pit stop': 1820ms, 'The fastest 1/4 mile drag race time': 3580ms, 'The fastest Rubik\'s cube solve': 4221ms, 'The fastest 40-yard time at the NFL Combine': 4240ms, 'The fastest 1 liter beer chug': 4370ms, 'A skippable Youtube ad': 5000ms, 'A full bull ride': 8000ms, 'The fastest 100m sprint': 9580ms, //10 Seconds 'The Wright Brothers first flight': 12000ms, 'The fastest 200m sprint': 19190ms, 'The fastest 50m freestyle swim lap': 21300ms, 'The Westminster Kennel Club dog agility record': 28440ms, 'A typical television ad': 30000ms, 'The fastest NASCAR lap at Daytona': 40364ms, 'The fastest 400m sprint': 43030ms, 'The fastest NASCAR lap at Talladega': 44270ms, 'The fastest 100m freestyle swim lap': 47050ms, //1 Minute '"Just a minute"': 60000ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 lap at Monaco': 74260ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 lap at Monza': 81046ms, 'The fastest 800m sprint': 100910ms, 'The fastest 200m freestyle swim lap': 102960ms, 'The fastest Kentucky Derby time': 119400ms, 'An NHL penalty box time for slashing, tripping, or holding': 120000ms, 'How long it takes to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge (without traffic)': 135000ms, 'The duration of the "Millenium Force" roller coaster': 140000ms, 'The longest Super Bowl national anthem': 156000ms, 'One round of a boxing match': 180000ms, 'The average song length on Spotify': 183000ms, 'The fastest 1,500m run': 206000ms, 'The song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley': 215000ms, 'The fastest 400m freestyle swim lap': 220140ms, 'The fastest 1 mile run': 223130ms, 'The duration of the "Steel Dragon" roller coaster': 240000ms, 'The duration of "The Beast" roller coaster': 250000ms, 'The song "4:33" by John Cage': 273000ms, 'The longest sky diving freefall': 276000ms, 'The Any% speedrun of Super Mario Bros for NES': 294948ms, //5 Minutes 'An NHL penalty box time for fighting': 300000ms, 'The average duration of a typical sky dive': 330000ms, 'The average time for a drive-thru order': 356800ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $1 million': 402000ms, 'The fastest race car lap around the Nurburgring': 403300ms, 'The time it takes light to reach Earth from the sun': 500000ms, 'The time it takes a rocket ship to reach outer space': 510000ms, 'A typical marching band show': 515000ms, //10 Minutes 'The length of the first space walk': 600000ms, 'The longest a human has held their breath (non-oxygen assisted)': 695000ms, 'The average duration of popular Youtube videos': 702000ms, 'The time it takes an average human to walk 1km': 710000ms, 'The fastest 5K run': 757350ms, 'The average time to bake a pizza': 810000ms, '1% of the entire day': 864000ms, //15 Minutes 'A typical commute in the United States': 960000ms, 'The fastest superbike lap of the Isle of Man TT': 1002778ms, "MLK's \"I Have A Dream\" Speech": 1020000ms, 'An average baseball inning': 1200000ms, 'The song "2112" by Rush': 1233000ms, 'The first angels to appear in the movie "Angels in the Outfield" (1994)': 1275000ms, 'An episode of The Office, Seinfeld, or Rick & Morty': 1320000ms, 'The time it takes to drive the entire Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel': 1380000ms, 'The song "Octavarium" by Dream Theater': 1440000ms, 'A typical Super Bowl halftime show': 1500000ms, 'The fastest 10K run': 1584000ms, 'It takes for Bobby Boucher to get his first game snap in the movie "The Waterboy" (1998)': 1719000ms, //30 Minutes 'The average time to bake a cake': 1950000ms, 'The time it takes until the launch in the movie Apollo 13 (1995)': 2081000ms, 'It takes WALL-E to arrive at the Axiom in the movie "WALL-E" (2008)': 2164000ms, 'The shortest war in history (Anglo-Zanzibar War)': 2280000ms, 'It takes Harry Potter to arrive at Hogwarts in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\'s Stone" (2001)': 2381000ms, 'The album "Thriller" by Michael Jackson': 2539000ms, 'The album "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd': 2589000ms, 'An episode of Breaking Bad, House, or Firefly': 2640000ms, 'The boot camp sequence in the movie "Full Metal Jacket" (1987)': 2730000ms, 'The album "Abbey Road" by The Beatles': 2823000ms, 'It takes Simba to become an adult in the movie "The Lion King" (1994)': 2849000ms, '10% of a typical work day in the United States': 2880000ms, 'The album "Kid A" by Radiohead': 2996000ms, 'The time limit for the essay portion of the SATs': 3000000ms, 'The time it takes a standard ice cube to melt at room temperature': 3150000ms, '0.01% of an entire year': 3155692ms, 'The album "Fearless" by Taylor Swift': 3221000ms, 'The time it takes for the basketball game to start in the movie "Space Jam"': 3222000ms, 'An episode of Game of Thrones, True Detective, or The Sopranos': 3300000ms, 'It takes Harry and Lloyd arrive in Aspen in the movie "Dumb and Dumber" (1994)': 3394000ms, 'The album "Jagged Little Pill" by Alanis Morissette': 3443000ms, 'The fastest half-marathon': 3451000ms, //1 Hour 'An episode of Top Gear': 3600000ms, 'The inception of Robert Fischer begins in the movie "Inception" (2010)': 3847000ms, 'Riding the longest subway line in NYC from Queens to Inwood': 3900000ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $10 million': 4017600ms, 'It takes before Sean Connery says "Welcome to the Rock" in the movie "The Rock" (1996)': 4022000ms, 'A flight from Syracuse to New York City': 4140000ms, '5% of the entire day': 4320000ms, 'The album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John': 4580000ms, 'The album "Scenes From A Memory" by Dream Theater': 4626000ms, 'The movie "Primer" (2004)': 4740000ms, 'It takes to fully charge a Tesla (at 440V)': 4788000ms, 'The ferry duration from Long Island, NY to New London, CT': 4800000ms, 'The movie "Toy Story" (1995)': 4860000ms, 'A drive from Syracuse, NY to Rochester, NY (87.5 miles)': 4920000ms, 'The movie "The Lion King" (1994)': 5280000ms, 'The longest State of the Union address': 5280000, //Duplicate time... //1.5 Hours 'The movie "Mony Python and the Holy Grail" (1975)': 5460000ms, 'The movie "Monsters, Inc." (2001)': 5520000ms, 'An average duration of a soccer game': 5700000ms, 'The movie "Reservoir Dogs" (1992)': 5940000ms, 'The longest Innaugural address': 6300000ms, 'A drive from Orlando, FL to Tampa, FL (84.6 miles)': 6660000ms, 'An SR-71 flight from New York City to London': 6896400ms, 'The movie "Alien" (1979)': 7020000ms, //2 Hours //'25% of a typical work day in the United States': 7200000ms, 'The average duration of an NCAA basketball game': 7200000ms, 'The movie "Star Wars: A New Hope" (1977)': 7260000ms, 'The fastest marathon time ever ran': 7299000ms, 'The time it takes to listen to every studio album by Nirvana': 7667000ms, 'The movie "Dogma" (1999)': 7680000ms, 'The average duration of an NBA basketball game': 7860000ms, 'The movie "The Matrix" (1999)': 8160000ms, 'The movie "Fight Club" (1999)': 8340000ms, 'The movie "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)': 8520000ms, 'The movie "Forrest Gump" (1994)': 8520000ms, 'A drive from New York City to Philadelphia (94.6 miles)': 8520000ms, '10% of the entire day': 8640000ms, 'The movie "Inception" (2010)': 8880000ms, 'The movie "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018)': 8940000ms, 'The movie "Pulp Fiction" (1994)': 9240000ms, 'It takes Voyager 1 to travel 100,000 miles': 9360000ms, 'The movie "Avatar" (2009)': 9720000ms, 'The average duration of an NHL hockey game': 9750000ms, 'The movie "Saving Private Ryan" (1998)': 10140000ms, 'The movie "The Godfather" (1972)': 10500000ms, 'The movie "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001)': 10680000ms, //3 Hours 'The average duration of an NFL football game': 10800000ms, 'The total time limit of the SATs': 10800000ms, 'The movie "Avengers: Endgame" (2019)': 10860000ms, 'The average duration of an MLB baseball game': 11280000ms, 'The time it takes for a standard ice cube to freeze in a freezer': 11700000ms, 'The movie "Titanic" (1997)': 12600000ms, 'A drive from Boston to New York City (215.9 miles)': 13560000ms, 'Alex Honnold\'s free solo climb of El Capitan': 14160000ms, //4 Hours 'Half of a typical work day in the United States': 14400000ms, 'The flight time from New York City to Los Angeles': 19800000ms, 'The time limit of one session of the Bar exam': 21600000ms, 'It takes Voyager 1 to travel 250,000 miles': 23400000ms, 'The fastest swimmer to cross the English Channel': 24900000ms, //>8 Hours 'A full typical work day in the United States': 28800000ms, '0.1% of an entire year': 31536000ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $100 million': 40173000ms, 'The time it takes to assemble a car': 57600000ms, '1% of an entire year': 315360000ms, 'It takes for the Lōʻihi volcano to rise above the surface of the ocean becoming a new Hawaiian island': Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER //285,616 years
> the quality of films/TV produced in the west has been in steady decline for quite some time
I could agree the average quality has dropped. But surely you agree that the sheer volume of high-quality content has ballooned. How many high-quality TV shows can you name from the 90s?
Compare that to the last 10 years of shows like: Succession, Ted Lasso, The Queen's Gambit, The Handmaids Tale, Better Call Saul, Ozark, House of Cards, Stranger Things, Silicon Valley, The Crown, Fargo, Mr. Robot, True Detective, Veep, and even (controversially) Game of Thrones.
Clerks - $27,575 [0]
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night - $56,000 [1]
Butt Boy - $100,000 [2]
The Blue - <$100k [3]
Call Me Brother - <$100k [3]
Frances Ferguson - <$100k [3]
Greenlight - <$100k [3]
Love in Dangerous Times - <$100k [3]
Man in Camo - <$100k [3]
I'm going to stop now but I hope I've made my point. I've watched many of the above. I've heard about most of the above.
Your tone is pretty snarky so I'm not sure if it's worth responding but here is a list of TV shows, all within the last decade, that I believe are exceptional and not limited to "just the Sopranos":
* Chernobyl
* Rick and Morty
* True Detective
* Fargo
* Severance
* 1883
* Mindhunter
* Westworld
* The Knick
* The Peripheral
* Succession
* Years and Years
* Orange is the New Black
* Halt and Catch Fire
* Insecure
* Watchmen
* Atlanta
This is only from 10 minutes of searching. You'll note that many of them are produced, directed, written and star high profile artists. The subject matter that they deal with can be done at a pace and care that's impossible to do with a 2-3 hour movie. The quality of the above series or mini-series was virtually non existent, maybe with some very few exceptions, before 2000 and only began to pick up pace in 2000 to 2010.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerks_(film)
[1] https://byrdtheatre.org/news/2019/10/a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-brings-beauty-to-vampires/
[2] https://www.cautionspoilers.com/film-reviews/butt-boy/
[3] https://musiccitydrivein.com/2021/02/19/film-threat-award-this-announces-2021-indie-film-nominees-for-drive-in-event-virtual-ceremony/
This symbol was also in the TV show True Detective. Attributing that to this article is kind of ridiculous though.
Very much agree. Lately, I’ve been watching The X-Files as back in the nineties, I’d only ever seen the odd episode here and there and never saw them in order. It turns out that many of the monster-of-the-week episodes are quite superfluous and not really worth watching – though you don’t know until after you’ve watched it). Likewise, I’d be reluctant to (re)watch old Star Trek, Stargate or other shows that don’t focus on a well-developed story arc.
Some of my favourite shows of recent years have been stories that get wrapped up in one season: True Detective, The Terror, Shining Girls.
I pay for all the streaming services but purchase Blu-rays when it’s something I really love. (True detective season 1, Chernobyl). I especially like exploring certain eras of film - I just watched “Get Carter”, “Point Blank” (w/Lee Marvin), and “The Outfit” (all of these are late 60’s/early 70’s genre movies). I bought the last two on blu-ray. These kind of movies don’t usually stick around on streaming. “The Outfit” was absolutely terrific and I’m so glad I own it now.
We have a movie room with a 140 inch projected screen that really brings these films to life. And when I travel for work (I’m a photographer/producer) I have an RV with a wonderful blu-ray setup for when I’m off grid (which is frequent).
In my work I’m producing in 4K or 5k and edit in these resolutions. But for my home, I’ve never expanded beyond standard 1080p which looks terrific at 140 inches.
I do love physical media and have vinyl, cassette, reel to reel, minidisc players. The audio quality is not as good as CD (which I also collect) or streaming - but I find it remarkable and stimulating when interacting with these archaic machines.
Writing isn’t there for Marvel sure. But to me the achievement is reliably producing B grade movies. Entertaining, worth a chuckle, easy on the eyes. None deserve an Oscar, but none (or few) are really very bad. Even if that were easy to do with one movie, and I’ve watched a lot of real garbage, doing it with a string of 20 interconnected films? Culminating in Endgame? That required the steady hand of a few really solid people. It was the first of its kind by an absolute mile, a totally new achievement in cinema. Spielberg and his ilk have been obsessing over all the CGI and sleeping on the real achievements.
For reference my favorite movies would be No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Fury Road. I like The Wire, Breaking Bad, True Detective season one. But I think Marvel is a different sort of thing altogether. The sheer reliability of it is unrivaled. Which is why I say that’s what Rings of Power lacks for me. The writing doesn’t have to be groundbreaking. Just keep the thing competent despite all the cooks in the kitchen. Many pieces of media seem to fail at this.
Lately I will say the formula has worn thin. I consider their run to be from Iron Man to Endgame.
Compare it to the first to episodes of Game of Thrones, House of Dragon, Breaking Bad, Firefly or any number other good shows.
Its also not really a good slow burn either. If you want to see that done expertly check out True Detective Season 1. That story draws you in.
And this episodes were very long and all the story lines are slow.
- A Story: Galadriel wanders around without doing much in the first episodes and swims around not doing much in the second episode. She has basically 1 expression, her motivation is the most basic revenge story plot ever and its totally clear that she is right and everybody else is dumb. The scene of going to Valinor standing on boat in full armor looked dumb and it was totally clear she would not go, but I guess show runners wanted to drop a couple million on special effect.
- B Story: Hartfoots mostly slice of life and some interaction with a mysterious wizard that amount to nothing so far. Kind of cute but not interesting and totally different tone then everything else. Including with slap stick humor.
- C Story: Basic Elf-Human love story with neither of the characters being very interesting and they have little chemistry. Also evil is rising, but I don't really care about those characters so I don't really care, for now its just random orcs. Nothing to connect to, no large conflict or the other characters. This is even worse then the love-story the added to the hobbit.
- D Story: Elron goes to the dwarfs and we get lots of exposition about (mostly nonsensical) backstory that is required for the current plot to make sense and some character setups for the dwarfs. Honestly maybe the most interesting part of the first 2 episodes, but not actually that interesting.
The tournament/birth sequence in the first episode of House of Dragon had more interesting character moments, character development, story progression then all of the Rings of Power had in the first 2h.
Or compare it with the story that happen in the first 2h of Lord of the Rings (~10h) total vs Rings of Power (10h).
> Looking at the imdb page this seems like a corporate driven project rather than a creator driven project with lots of different directors that haven’t don’t anything remarkable and seem to have just done other Amazon shows.
With the exception of, say, the first season of True Detective, most TV shows use multiple directors. The director on a TV show is usually in charge of the technical execution of the writers script - they’re not making many creative decisions the way a movie director does. The creative authority on a TV show generally rests on the lead writer(s), not the directors. When people talk about the Sopranos, they talk about David Chase; Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan. And in both of those cases they had teams of writers under them who would write different episodes. This didn’t stop those shows from having a strong auteur-driven vision.
In the case of the LotR show, the lead writers are JD Payne and Patrick McKay. I think they’re passionate about Tolkien from what I’ve read. Look them up if you want to know more.
It's a poor approach for people like me. My main thing is video games, youtube, and reading. But I like really good TV series. I've enthusiastically watched Peaky Blinders as soon as it's available after I heard about it and picked it up after season 4. I didn't start watching Breaking Bad until Season 4 finished airing. Same with a bunch of other shows, Blacklist (S6), Game of Thrones (S4), Sherlock(S5), Mandalorian (S2), Ozarks (S3). That doesn't give a lot of shows time to catch my eye.
The ones I recall watching after S1 aired over the past decade are Fargo, Better Call Saul (because I saw BB), True Detective, House of Cards, Atlanta (because I'm from Atlanta), Lupin, because they got truly rave reviews. I'm even more conservative with Netflix shows now because it's pretty much a given that anything I even attempt to watch is going to get cancelled after a season or 2.
true detective, season 1
I'm the opposite of you. From age 20 to about age 45, I did not watch TV at all. Part of that was because I grew up in the UK, and the experience I had with the BBC (and a bit of Channel 4 and very occasionally ITV) made US TV just look stupid to me. Endless stupid ads, laugh tracks, completely unrealistic characters, dumb plots, and more endless stupid ads.
Then ... Netflix arrived. I started watching a few of the shows that people raved about from their days on network TV, and I realized that the biggest problem was ... endless stupid ads. Which Netflix did not have. I became willing to try out HBO from time to time, got in Battlestar Galactica, and of course in 2014, True Detective showed up on HBO. In 2019, I discovered Deadwood (at that point nearly a decade old), a more or less Shakespearian epic of 19th century US history. Over the past decade, I've discovered so many truly worth shows - and I haven't event started on The Wire yet!
On top of that, Netflix has given me access to several UK shows (Luther, for example, but also Grand Designs (now, thankfully, on Youtube)) that have rounded out the menu.
I understand that aesthetic choices with TV shows are very personal, but I can honestly say that I now absolutely believe that "TV" (ala the new streaming services and/or their presentation of material without ads) can be a medium for stellar story telling. I would like it if we had a few more defined "limited series" where there's a story already known, with a beginning, middle and end (True Detective and Mare of Eastttown are great examples of this (as long as they do not ruin Mare by making a sequel). And sure, there are some TV series that really would have been better as a film. Nevertheless, the ability to spend 8-16 hours with compelling characters is big positive to me.
Weird article
> How much do we need to know about a TV detective to be invested in a whodunnit?
There are tons of shows that do exactly that. Turn on a random CBS procedural and you will get exactly that- 40 mins of by the numbers crime solving with a smartass quip thrown in every once in while.
On the other hand there are options for those who are bored by the repetitiveness of crime solving in these shows and get more invested when the characters in the show are full blown people not just vehicles for crimes to happen or be solved (say True Detective (Season 1) or Broadchurch).
I am sure there is a market for both these things and options for viewers that are interested in either option (or even both depending on their mood). Let the free market sort it all out. Not sure why the author of this article is so outraged.
> As one of the showrunners of Lost, Damon Lindelof was as responsible as anybody for the backstory epidemic, creating a time-hopping narrative tangle that concluded with a crushing disappointment.
> On his next show, The Leftovers, he learned his lesson and leaned into his characters’ reactions to the mysterious disappearance of 2% of humanity rather than the reasons for the event. Trauma was the cake rather than the icing, and therefore taken seriously. In becoming so comfortable with complexity and ambiguity, Lindelof made one of the finest shows of the decade.
Another strange argument, even if some people were disappointed by the LOST ending it was still one of the most popular shows of its era and is to this day considered to be one of the best shows ever made both in the critic and regular person circles.
On the other hand The Leftovers was widely panned in its first Season and was never a popular success. While it has its ardent fans, it's never going to come close to having the popular success or impact on tv as LOST did.
I like both shows. Like everything else it is not one or the other, you can have both and let people choose.
This entire article comes across as: "these are the things I like and anyone who likes what I don't like is wrong and everyone should only make art that fits my personal sensibilities" eventhough nothing is stopping the author to keep liking the things he likes and let others enjoy things they like. There is no shortage of content out there.
There's a scene in "True Detective" season 1, where one of sheriff's in the show is driving a Maserati to the country club he golfs at, and says he, "Seized it off some good old boy last year." I'd been aware of civil forfeiture for years before seeing that show, but just the way it was presented really stuck with me for some reason; just how much the system can be abused by "bad actors."
This is a good thing. No matter what the lunatic fringe on the left might believe, sexual dimorphism among humans is real and is visible in our physical characteristics. Guns help narrow that physical gap between men and women.
The sanest view on this topic I ever saw out of Hollywood was in Season 2 of True Detective.
Ray: What's with all the knives?
Antigone: Could you do this job if everyone you encountered could physically overpower you? I mean, forget police work. No man could walk around like that without going nuts.
Ray: So, they're equalizers. Makes sense.
Antigone: No, I'd still wear them even if I wasn't on the job. Fundamental difference between the sexes is that one of them can kill the other with their bare hands. Man of any size lays hands on me, he's gonna bleed out in under a minute.
The last good American indie film I've watched was Hereditary (2018) [1] and before that 'Blue Ruin' (2013) [2].
They weren't exceptional but when you're awash in 'swords & sandals', 'comic book' crap and Adam Sandler formula-thons, even middling fare seem great.
On the TV front, True Detective Season 2 [3] is sorely underrated. Though fictional, it gives you a glimpse into the many possible dimensions of California graft and corruption that are all too close to real life developments surrounding the recent California High-Speed Rail mismanagement junket [4].
I agree with the sentiment expressed in this thread that well-financed, movies for adults with good casting and talented filmmakers have become very scarce.
[1] Hereditary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditary_(film)
[2] Blue Ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ruin
[3] True Detective (season 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_(season_2)
[4] California High-Speed Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
I said the exact same thing with my partner, I was watching true detective season 1, not one scene where the lead pair is not in office is without smoking or beer in hand.
I agree with your core sentiment on movies - but I couldn't disagree more on the topic of TV having reverted to the mean.
It may not all be "Sopranos", but I've seen so many TV shows in the past decade that have pushed boundaries and delivered experiences that frankly, have hit me much harder than almost any movie - and certainly much harder than pre-netflix era TV.
I know everyone has different taste, but I think we've seen a lot of maturation in the past decade specifically in the form of more interesting TV anthology series / single-season narratives (True Detective, Fargo, Watchmen) and dark-ish comedies (Rick and Morty, Barry, American Vandal, Succession). I think networks in general are giving show-runners more space and budget for trying weird stuff, because even if they end up with a show that's too niche for a general timeslot - there's at least the possibility of selling it to a streaming service later (like Arrested Development, The Expanse, and Community did).
Great work and I am glad this show is building a cult following. I consider the later 3 seasons of the show as the third best TV series I have seen in the past decade (behind only True Detective S1 and Chernobyl). If you have been struggling with the first season, consider sticking with it!
"fluff" padding is much worse than "can we get an extra season or three out of this show", IMO.
[ EDIT: d'oh, I meant to write this in reverse, as "fluff padding is much less bad than .... oh well. ]
I prefer stories to be told that already have a beginning, middle and end at their outset, not just some fingers-crossed "we might get 5 seasons, we can decide how it unfolds once we get to season 3" stuff that has dominated way too much TV.
Granted, the purely episodic shows (e.g. Star Trek, LA Law and the like) are immune to this, mostly.
But give me more True Detective, where the story ending is known before they even start filming, and the only question is "do we get to try another story?"
I think this is an exaggeration. Short/Long takes are an artistic decision. We have recent movies that are a few long takes (sometime pretending to be a single take) 1917, Birdman, Russian Ark (true single take) all shot in recent years. Same with TV: True Detective has a famous long take scene, Mr. Robot, BCS.
This doesn't work well in apps but games do incredible things to hide that state; and it's partially a consequence of avoiding a patent on minigames inside loading screens.
e.g. back in the 90s with Resi 1, the loading screen was hidden by a slow and tense animation of a door opening. It totally fit the atmosphere.
Plenty of games add an elevator or a scripted vehicle ride, or some ridiculous door locking mechanism that serves the same purpose without breaking immersion, especially as those faux-loading screens can be dynamic.
It's pretty much the exact same technique used in cinema when a director wants to stitch multiple takes into a single shot (e.g. that episode in True Detective; that other one in Mr Robot; all of Birdman).
See, I feel exactly opposite here (funnily enough - TDK is also an all-time favorite of mine).
Opening night super hero movies, and Star Wars movies - are the only things I've bothered to go see at the theater for in the last 5 years now.
I like that they are events to experience with friends. We buy our tickets together and chat beforehand about predictions. People dress up and take pics in line. The crowd knows when to cheer and laugh. The visuals and sound effects take advantage of the medium.
I don't know any millennials who actually enjoy the watching the type of movies that Scorsese is talking about. The price per head at most theaters is too high for the entertainment you get. If I want to watch something with depth, then I can find television or streaming series which are far more enjoyable and actually have enough time for character development. I think the resurgence of shorter-run series and anthology shows (Fargo, True Detective) has addressed the primary issue TV shows had of not resolving storylines completely to keep you hooked another season. Movies just seem too short in comparison.
The creators of Lost claimed they new exactly how that series was going to go, but watching it definitely felt like they were stringing things along to get to the 100 episode syndication threshold more than telling a fulfilling story.
I've been enjoying the limited-series shows, or shows that do not attempt to correlate multiple seasons together like Fargo. The first season of True Detective was done in the right number of episodes to get the story told without stringing it along. The studios forced a rushed second season that I pretend doesn't exist. HBO's Sharp Objects is another example of using just enough episodes to tell the story.
Off the top of my head: Succession, VEEP, Barry, Big Little Lies, Sharp Objects, True Detective (seasons 1 & 3), Chernobyl.
Big Little Lies was probably the worst of that bunch, and is still lightyears ahead of any recent Netflix drama.
On Prime, The Man in the High Castle is a guilty pleasure despite its flaws. The bizarre spy drama Patriot is absolutely excellent.
I like that with Prime, I can subscribe to HBO within the app, and also buy seasons of some cable shows, like FX’s Legion, Fargo, What We Do in the Shadows.
I prefer that experience much more than Netflix. With Netflix, the original content has to be so good that it offsets the lack of being able to purchase non-Netflix content, and frankly Netflix originals have just not been good enough to cut it for a while.
wasn't a large amount of corruption surrounding this deal specifically a major plotline in true detective season 2?
> I'm surprised its not higher.
Likewise. There are many titles available through Netflix DVD that are not available through Netflix streaming. Just off the top of my head you have Game of Thrones (seasons 1-7), The Wire, True Detective, Fargo and The Expanse.
> GoT is a tentpole show with a rabid audience but it's not especially good (it's no The Wire). Deadwood and the Sopranos are from a different era of TV. Veep is great, but True Detective, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Enlightened, and The Newsroom would all be in the middle of the pack at Netflix.
As The Dude once said "Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man"
Objectively speaking, there isn't a single Netflix-original TV show rated over 9 on IMDB: https://www.justwatch.com/us/provider/netflix/tv-shows?rating_imdb=9
Compared to 7 titles on HBO: https://www.justwatch.com/us/provider/hbo-now/tv-shows?rating_imdb=9
But I think your point is that when we're talking about "The Wire" level production, others have caught up (AMC, FX, etc) and Netflix can simply license those titles. But, there's notable downsides to that (you have to wait, there's a significant cost to purchase, etc). Also, AMC, FX, etc have yet to establish a long-term credibility for consistently creating high quality content...until they do, HBO as the "premium offering" in light of others is still there.
At the end of the day we're talking about whether HBO's content can sustain the justification of paying $15/month. You just need rabid audiences for that to happen, not "one dude on the internet thinks The Wire is greatest thing ever created".
It boils down to preferences. I personally feel the quality of HBO’s shows & series is dramatically higher than even the peak quality of Netflix or Prime original offerings. They are simply nowhere close. They’re not even playing the same sport.
Pretty much every Netflix darling I’ve spent time to watch (Stranger Things, House of Cards, Russian Doll, Maniac, Bird Box, Roma) has been a huge disappointment.
By comparison with HBO, I only feel that way about True Detective Season 2 and Crashing (the Pete Holmes show). Other shows have variation of course and some are more interesting or less to me, but none of them have been sincerely big disappointments, while nearly every single darling that Netflix puts out is pretty crap.
Of all the shows you mentioned the only ones I have watched is, OITB (left it at after watching S04 I think), Master of None (both the seasons), I realise that its a drama that leans toward being a rom-com but I do not watch rom-coms at all. Kudos to Mindhunter, indeed that was entertaining and right in my ballpark. Liked House of cards till the time Spacey was there, S06 disappointed me. Season 1 of Making a Murderer was outstanding, season 2 didn't catch my interest. Also the last comedy I watched end-to-end I think was Entourage (which was produced by HBO), The Office (US) and Parks And Recreation, not surprisingly Netflix doesn't stream any of these in my region, Prime Video does the last two and Hotstar streams Entourage.
These are good shows not great ones like The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, BB, Six Feet Under you know about the stuff that critics rave about etc. I don't care if Birdbox was watched by all of Netflix's subscribers, thats precisely the sort of thing that I don't watch the majority of the time, you watch that thing once and you forget that you ever watched it again. I'm now on probably my sixth or seventh rewatch of The Wire, that should tell you something about my viewing habits and why Netflix's content just doesn't work for me. I don't expect a network to consistenly churn out shows like that but at least some of the shows should be somewhere close to that level which HBO continues to do with The Deuce, Succession, True Detective(I know they fucked the dog on S02) etc.
Also you have the time to watch ALL of that, I don't. I work in tech too, I have an hour on weekdays and maybe 2-3 on weekends for leisure, so its only natural that I would be picky about what I watch, the absolute best, currently that would mean shows like The Americans, Escape from Dannemora and shows from the past like Halt and Catch Fire(from AMC), Six feet under, Deadwood which not surpisingly were also made by HBO. Netflix doesn't stream any of that.
I also don't understand how you think AMC won't exist, are they going to be insolvent ? Doesn't look like it, they have a cash-cow in The Walking Dead(I only watched till S06 then got bored) They got two of the best TV shows I liked BB and BCS, BCS is gonna kill it in the next season. They also produced The Terror, a brilliant mini-series which Netflix didn't stream as well and again Prime Video did. As a viewer I don't care about Netflix's subscriber numbers or HBO's lack thereof, I want to watch content I like which sadly Netflix doesn't produce on a consistent basis, this is entirely subjective and I realise that I might be one of the edge-cases in all the millenials when I say Netflix don't tickly my fancy.
I'm not biased towards HBO, hell HBO doesn't even stream in my country, I'm incredibly picky about what I watch since I'm short on time, Netflix churns out a LOT of shows, its only natural that some of them turn out to be brilliant and some of them indeed are, but the rest, like 90% of the shows are just average, they don't work for me, I simply do not have the time to watch them.
In that sense, Netflix is like the Y-Combinator of producing original content. You produce(invest in) hundreds of TV shows(startups) and hope one of them makes it big (becomes a unicorn) and the rest of them, well they would be probably cease to exist after some time.
On morality and atheism, I'm reminded of this dialogue from the show "True Detective", Season 1 Episode 3 (emphasized part of it) [1]:
Rust Cohle: "If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of shit. And I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible. You gotta get together and tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the goddamn day? What’s that say about your reality?""
[1]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/True_Detective#The_Locked_Room_[1.3]
True Detective Season 1. Don't watch Season 2.
Watch True Detective Season 1 if you haven't already. McConaughey and Woody Harrelson both put on amazing performances.
Recalls True Detective Season 2 when they infiltrate a similarly described (but likely dramatized version) party with Politicians instead of Tech players:
[Midseason spoiler warning]
"Bezzerides goes undercover, posing as Athena to infiltrate one of the secret elite parties in Monterey. With no phone, transmitter or weapon, she is forced to rely on Woodrugh and Velcoro for support. At the party, she is drugged and taken to the guests with a busload of other girls. Her attempts to search the party are hampered by the male guests (Geldof, Holloway and Tony Chessani among them) and hallucinations of a strange man from her childhood, implying that she was sexually abused"...etc
True Detective Season 1 is a very deep, nuanced study of exactly what you describe in the South.
>The changes to the media landscape make great shows less likely. Companies simply stopped aiming for mass appeal in the same way.
Hmmm? The mass appeal shows were not great by any stretch of the imagination precisely because of aiming for "lowest denominator" mass appeal.
At best they could be good despite going for mass appeal, but aiming for the more tame and universal themes.
By going for smaller audiences the creators can take chances, what some church lady from Iowa or SJW from Portland might find offensive is not as much of an issue, and the storytelling and directing can be more demanding (as it doesn't have to aim to please any average Joe).
Shows like GoT, HoC, Breaking Bad, True Detective (season 1), etc are so much better than the "mass appeal" crap of yesteryear (with some exceptions, like MASH) that it's not even funny.
For one, they don't use "tv actors" as much, but Hollywood a-listers. Second the production values are 10x and 100x those older "mass appeal" shows.
The Prisoner (1967-1968) is mesmerising.
Le Voyage dans la lune - Georges Méliès 1902 (link provided) holds up after 115 years. Don't be so surprised! Timeless storytelling and design transcends it's delivery medium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrdVdKlxUk
To the people questioning whether good television is still being made, yes of course it is, it might just take you a few years to find it. True Detective, Fargo, Utopia are all great. A la carte streaming (eg select any 10 shows, 10 movies, $10/month) is the future for media consumption. Which platform will deliver this first only time will tell. At the moment original content is the model and there are some evident growth pains.
"There are not many shows taht are better than the Wire; my favorite part about Omar is that he doesn't curse."
I loved the wire - truly.
However, I think I would rate the first season of true detective as being better than all of the seasons of the wire except for season 2, which was my favorite.
I was surprised to learn that s2 (dock workers, etc.) is not very well liked - I thought it was by far the most interesting.
EDIT: WIRE SPOILER: also, as long as we're talking about it ... the resolution of the omar character in the last seasons of the wire was incredibly anti-climactic and just downright weird. I understand they got the rug pulled out and had to quick wrap up the show but that was really just the worst and most useless bookend to his character arc...
To be fair, the mini-series format has recently proven to be quite successful. Examples include Fargo and True Detective.
Honestly, I'm more concerned with the scale of the Foundation universe and timeline. If it's not well written and presented, viewers will easily lose track of the where and when.
I quote Martin "Marty" Hart from season 1 of "True Detective":
"there was a time when a man kept his bullshit to himself"
Indeed. They need to cut a lot more if I were to watch any more than the first few episodes. The show feels a bit like the first season of true detective, except it's boring and nothing happens...
I'll provide a counterpoint: I really love listening to podcasts (quick plug for the "Keepin' It 1600" podcast as my favorite recently) and often in the crime and justice genre. I mostly got to listening to Serial because I've been listening to This American Life for a decade; I consider TAL to have about 70% good content with occasional really good ones (ex: the one explaining the financial crisis) and occasionally truly terrible ones (ex: the one with the guy trying to find the origin of a particular hold music tune). Just stating this so you know where I'm coming from, a background of my tastes.
I found Serial to be grating and and not very good at keeping my attention. I really didn't understand the hype at all and I really had to force myself to sit through the last couple episodes just so I could say I finished (I got a similar feeling when approaching the last episode of the second season of True Detective). I didn't find the story compelling at all.
I guess it depends what you're in to and how much you consume. I really like dramas and avoid reality tv. I also tend to watch one episode of something only during weeknights. The last few series I've worked through have been: * The Knick * Parks and Rec * Orphan Black
Next I plan to catch up on the most recent seasons of: * Orange is the new Black * Silicon Valley * True Detective
I seem to find new shows faster than I can catch up to old ones.
Just saw this film. High caliber stuff. Highly recommended.
Quick fun fact: It was directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, director of S1 True Detective
Sorry, I meant that I have already read this article a long time ago, and the title of this post got me excited to read about some new developments.
As for your second point, I think you mentioned a lot of the main reasons. But I disagree that new media is unlikely to be better than everything made in the past. In fact, I would say that it's very likely that a new movie or TV show will be far better than something made in the past, simply because they have much bigger budgets now, better technology, and even a better understanding of filmmaking and storytelling. Especially with recent TV shows such as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, True Detective. The bar has been raised very high.
Kind of want reply both to you and @pjc50:
I think moving images with sound as part of hypertext/hypermedia is a given -- and has been since (at least) the 60s. That's not just "TV". And "TV" isn't just video.
We've only recently entered the era where users can reasonably make live and recorded video, and use that as a form of expression (from video chat, to youtube/vimeo to snapchat etc). And just like you could take a tv camera and use that for video conferencing in the 60s[1] -- video-the-medium is much more than "TV".
"TV" is indeed very pacifying. For myself, I can on days off, do two very different things that are very immersive: watch tv series, or play Star Wars: Online Galaxies. Now, I mostly play SWTOR solo, so for the purpose of this discussion, lets just use "play a single-player computer game". I enjoy both, but if I read a book or play a computer game -- I'm mentally invigorated. If I watch a TV series, even something interesting like "Humans"[h], "Mr. Robot"[r] -- or more interesting drama like "True Detective"[t] -- I always end up more passive. Even watching documentaries, or news -- TV ends up a very passive medium.
And that's (IMNHO) just the good "TV". I find that a good movie is usually between "book" and "TV" -- something with the format/runtime that drives a different expression both in writing and directing.
> We've been trending away from the 'web as a collection of books' to 'the web as a series of TV channels' for many years now.
I don't think the web has ever been much like a "collection of books". It might have been "a collection of essays" -- and I don't think we're really trending towards "a series of TV channels". I think we'll still see video expression and communication evolve, and I think user generated communiques ("content" is more something that oozes from a (corporate) organization) will continue to dominate.
It is my impression that young people (~3-20) are much more inclined to use video than I am -- I don't much like it. But I expect rich media images/sound/video will continue to increase, as bandwidth/storage gets cheaper.
I think that trend in media is different from the trend in centralization, commercialization though. There's nothing wrong with videologs (other than that I prefer a well-written text...) -- as long as we can host them in a more distributed manner than we do today.
I think we'll see interesting times ahead, as the people that are now 5 years old grow up to master both rich media and various forms of programming/automation as a natural part of their life. We've seen nothing yet. Nothing.
A post-script on quality: I think many of us want quality. And I think we'll continue to make it, and find it. Be that small Internet radio-stations that do curated music (as opposed to things like soundcloud that I also like, but unfortunately is just as hopelessly centralized as youtube) -- or "real" blogs -- or whatever.
It remains to be seen how/if this will all be funded. Maybe we won't have as much paid-for content/art -- maybe we'll all have more free time -- assuming we don't kill each others as jobs are automated away, and those who own the robots keep all the riches.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY
[h] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans_(TV_series)
[r] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Robot_(TV_series)
[t] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Detective_(TV_series)
I think the problem may be that people will have more and more binge watching alternatives in other platforms too. For example, right now in HBO and AMC I could watch The Brink, True Detective, Vice, Halt and Cath Fire and Humans, a few weeks ago I could add Silicon Valley and Games of Thrones, so I'm definitely consuming less Netflix right now, actually I'm considering joining only when House of Cards or Lillyhammer have a new season.
The constitution was meant to be a living document. That is why it is amenable.
Also the idea that the framers could have seen anything like digital data collection is preposterous. Just because they had records doesn't mean they had any sort of access to the monitoring of your documents like we do today. The scale just want there.
There is an episode on true detective where one of the detectives goes through old case files. He has stacks of then and has to search them onelaw at a time. Compare that to a key word search or a elastic search.
Could the third party law apply to Dropbox or Google drive. Those are my documents, but stored by a third party. I sure hope warrants are needed for officers to go through my files on Google servers.
We need to look at the constitution with new eyes and re work it for a digital age.
Sorry for any Grammer issues I'm on my phone.
It is about damn time.
Welcome to the present, HBO. I am assuming this move is in part to the massively high piracy rate for Game of Thrones episodes. As an Australian resident with no real access to current episodes of Game of Thrones without getting cable TV, I hope they do come through on delivering the service overseas (especially Australia), because if the price is right, I will gladly pay for HD episodes of Game of Thrones (amongst other great HBO shows like True Detective).
There are benefits and drawbacks to multi-writer teams. I say this as someone who spent the first half of his career in TV development and production. (In fact, I briefly interned on a Trek series back in college.)
One of the benefits is, for lack of a better word, scalability. A single writer would take forever to write 100+ cogent, consistently great, full-length episodes of a TV show. Since TV series' fates are always in flux, you can't afford a primetime series with only one writer, who becomes a crushing bottleneck if any changes in volume need to be made. Writing a great TV episode is hard, hard work and takes time. Now imagine writing 12, or even 22 of them on an insane production deadline!
On the other hand, some shows and formats work really well with a single writer/auteur. True Detective is famous for having been entirely written and entirely directed by just one writer and one director. Now, True Detective was a miniseries of only 8 episodes, and at that scale, a single writer is more realistic. I doubt you could have produced a primetime Star Trek series with only one writer and one director.
An interesting hybrid approach is what I'd call a staff structure with a clear "visionary" at the helm. This is sort of like what we saw on Battlestar Galactica: a show with a full writing staff, but one or two writers who basically dominated the process and authored the bulk of the series. MASH is another good example; Larry Gelbart clearly exercised strong, authorial control over the show, even though he didn't write every episode.
This latter approach tends to work the best, in my experience as a fan and as a former TV person. But it can have its difficulties and drawbacks, all the same. Sometimes there are limits to the imagination of even the most creative individuals. If you're relying too much on a strong auteur type, and he or she gets writer's block, or gets sick, or becomes extremely difficult, you're SOL.
> I never cease to be amazed at the creativity of piracy apologists in coming up with new scenarios where piracy is the only solution.
It doesn't need to be the only solution. It simply needs to be the most economically viable solution to the consumer.
Joe Bloggs is an Englishman. He likes high-quality US television imports - Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, True Detective. He wants to obtain them for his viewing pleasure.
His options:
1. Go old school. pay £100-£150 for all the box-sets.
2. Go new school. Pay £7/month for Netflix (BB, HoC). Pay £30+ a month for Sky TV subscription with Sky Atlantic for the others. Plus £x, plus £y for everything else he needs - not even to mention movies, which are very inconsistent across streaming services. (I fear that we Limeys get less out of our Netflix subscriptions than you.)
3. Go illegal. Spend an upfront cost of time, electricity, bandwidth and risk of malware apocalypse/getting caught to get all this stuff on his hard drive.
Forget the morality of the issue. Never mind the legality: if Joe is a driver, it's a statistical near certainty that he speeds; if he doesn't take drugs, it's not because they're illegal. It's simple economics. If three is cheaper - in terms of time plus risk plus money - he will do number three.
As long as The Pirate Bay offers real advantages over legal services - principally, beyond the monetary price, everything you could possibly want is there in one place - then people will choose it. And just as it's unrealistic to expect media conglomerates to share the EFF's view of DRM, so it's unrealistic to expect media consumers to put up with the enormous inconveniences for the sake of some mythical starving artist grubbing away at the bottom of the Hollywood food chain.
The 'Red Wedding' episode of Game of Thrones was the best single show rating I could find - 9.9! http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0944947
The 4th episode of True Detective was 9.8. http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt2356777
Check out this outlier on Dexter's last season lol http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0773262
With the invention of the telephone and email, the art of writing long well thought out letters has all but vanished.
It sucks, but with progress we sometimes (often?) lose some nice things.
In my opinion, it's worth it, in this case. I love having the freedom to watch a show when I want. I hate it when I have to wait for the next episode, especially if its release is delayed due to some football game (I'm looking at you True Detective).