True Detective Season 3

Umm... this kind of came out of the blue. I had no idea that a trailer had been released... Looks like we will be getting season 3 in January.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzd1iFu84k

I wonder if it will suffer due to proximity to the third season of Twin Peaks?

The second season lacked everything that made the first season unforgettable. I'd be more interested in a new show from this writer, but maybe it will be good. The casting is promising.

James said:

The second season lacked everything that made the first season unforgettable.

Click to expand...

I disagree, the first season was derivative (although i really liked the shootout in the tenements) - Semyon made the second season - I liked the calling out on louche, the back story where he always thought he may not have gotten out of the basement (touched a chord), his belief he had to hold a line and even his death - none very subtle but I certainly found it watchable




[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9odAqQYAs4[/ame]

Vince Vaughn wasn't bad, but the material was pretty iffy, a potentially interesting mystery soon reduced to an overcomplicated muddle of ersatz James Ellroy cop-conspiracy shenanigans.

The first few episodes were definitely watchable, and held more than a little promise of interesting developments. But then something unbelievably stupid happens around the third or fourth episode, a development so excruciatingly inept that I knew immediately the show could never recover from it, and unsurprisingly everything slowly turned to crap after that.

I don't remember S2 enough to criticise, while the cinematography and performances of the initial episodes of the first season are clearly etched into my brain. It was derivative, but a TV buddy cop show is the last place I expect originality. It was involving, atmospheric and memorable.

I loved both seasons. Neither of them were perfect. I think I liked season 2 a bit more because I found it to be more devastatingly pessimistic. A lot of people acted as if season two insulted them on just about every level imaginable. I must have been watching a different show or perceiving from some different angle I suppose. There were hiccups but many things to like. I connected strongly with Velcoro's struggles. And the overall aesthetic was a gloomy, old, tired and hopeless sadness. I liked the mood, sense of place and overall atmosphere of season one but I didn't find it as satisfying as a whole. The main plots for both seasons are convoluted and flimsy but so is the plot of humanity. The meat and potatoes of this show are the sad creatures writhing in the muk and how they deal with it.

As for this season three trailer.. I don't know.. looks like True Detective with a black protagonist. Not much more to tell at this point. With all the negativity surrounding season two, I'm not sure what we will be getting intellectually and existentially speaking. And the question still looms; Will the majority ever even try to accept anything other than season one? I'm not convinced they will. But I'm just glad we're getting a third season. Hope its good. I'll definitely be giving it a chance.

I can't say I took it as a personal insult on any level, but yeah, when a certain dumb thing happened within the first few episodes, I pretty much stopped caring about any of it.

To be fair, I probably should have stopped watching at that point.

James said:

I don't remember S2 enough to criticise, while the cinematography and performances of the initial episodes of the first season are clearly etched into my brain. It was derivative, but a TV buddy cop show is the last place I expect originality. It was involving, atmospheric and memorable.

Click to expand...

The cinamatography was good enough that it brought depth to an otherwise flat and derivative script, yes. Power of the image.

Case in point, the final sequence outside the hospital: horribly cheesy dialogue about 'the light is winning,' camera pans up to...absolute darkness.

It's filled with such moments, visuals working in great counterpoint to the text.

I prioritise the visual storytelling as it's a visual medium and extended cinema. The writing was mostly good, and the visual storytelling was so strong it made the simple story iconic. Cary Fukunaga did an amazing job.

If S2 was any indication though, that run was lightning in a bottle, and Nic Pizzolato is better off moving on.

Ibrahim said:

Case in point, the final sequence outside the hospital: horribly cheesy dialogue about 'the light is winning,' camera pans up to...absolute darkness.

Click to expand...

HAHAHA... no, no, it's the little sparkly lights, can't you see them? Keep looking. They are working hard at winning.

Nevertheless, I liked the first season, overall, and that initial excitement at hearing a sympathetic main character expressing a Ligottian, antinatalist worldview is still memorable to me.

Ibrahim said:

James said:

I don't remember S2 enough to criticise, while the cinematography and performances of the initial episodes of the first season are clearly etched into my brain. It was derivative, but a TV buddy cop show is the last place I expect originality. It was involving, atmospheric and memorable.

Click to expand...

The cinamatography was good enough that it brought depth to an otherwise flat and derivative script, yes. Power of the image.

Case in point, the final sequence outside the hospital: horribly cheesy dialogue about 'the light is winning,' camera pans up to...absolute darkness.

It's filled with such moments, visuals working in great counterpoint to the text.

Click to expand...

The fact the camera panned up to total darkness at that moment is what saved that scene for me.

In mi view, the bad aftertaste left by Nic Pizzolatto and his dismissal of weird fiction after season 1 is enough reason to not bother with the next two seasons. Also, he wrote the remake of The Magnificent Seven and it was a godawful experience and not even worth the free ticket I used; I realized he was behind it after the fact, because, if I knew that from the start, I wouldn't have watched it.

Also, some people pointed out online that part of season 2 was plagiarized from The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy, as he did with Alan Moore and Thomas Ligotti in the first one.

I did not know he did that remake. Oh dear.

Still, this new season should be interesting if only because it should provide a clear indication whether his talent has blossomed any or whether he really was just a one-season wonder.

The first one was too short, with lots of details not developed.

I don't think you can judge writers by their screenplays for big budget Hollywood movies as there are so many fingers in so many pies meddling with everything. He wouldn't have had nearly as much control as he did with True Detective. He's not even the only writer credited for Magnificent Seven.

True Detective brought a lot of people to Ligotti and Barron, which I see as a positive. I doubt Pizzolatto will do anything as good as S1 seems like lightning in a bottle, but overall I have more positive thoughts about it than negative and think he's an above average screenwriter who seems to at least care about what he's doing. True Detective S2 didn't grab me, but it was clearly a labour of love.

I own the first season on DVD. I watch it right up to the point they both go into the hospital. Then I stop. That ending was so disingenuous it almost killed all the prior episodes.