Should I Watch True Detective?

I'll tell you why I liked it, and maybe it will add to your decision, one way or another.

It's not like anything I'd ever seen. There were all kinds of suggestions of the supernatural, and I guess depending on your beliefs you may interpret the evil as supernatural influenced. There didn't seem to be any episode that turned me off, or bored me to tears. The action was good and the suspense was always present, and the story was very interesting. The characters were well-acted and occasionally did unexpected things that made sense afterwards. The plot took twists and turns when you were convinced that you'd figured it out. So, without spoilers, I liked it! :D
 
The worst I can say about it is that the weird fiction influence is superfluous at best*, and that the pessimist philosophy is basically painted as something you can grow out of. And perhaps that the final episodes aren't anywhere as good as the first half of the series. Then again, that first half was pretty damn good. Some of the most riveting TV I've watched in recent years.

So, yeah, you could give it a go. There's worse ways to pass the hours.


*mild spoilers: it seems to me the only reason the murder cult worships "the king in yellow" is because it sounds better than "they worship satan" or anything generic and unimaginative like that.
 
Yes. Unequivocally yes.

It is like Ligotti was put in a form that was digestible to the masses, in a good way. So many good reasons for people on the Network to watch this series.
 
My Mom died a year ago so I'd love to watch TD with her.

If you like noir with atmosphere that reeks of the supernatural you'll enjoy it. Despite the grumblings we all made at the end, I found after a second viewing I liked the final episode very much.
 
Not at all Hell-Ghost. No arrows coming from my sling. My first reaction to the show was somewhat negative, focusing on the awkward moments, and skimming the rest. It wasn't until I went back and started from the beginning (thank heavens for On-Demand) that I caught the groove, so to speak, and tuned in to the story. What was going on wasn't immediately clear so that left ample to the imagination. The King in Yellow reference wasn't necessary to my enjoyment of the series. It just gave me more to think about.
 
My opinion is that many people are misjudging this show as a weird or Ligottian show with some detective elements, when in fact it's a detective show with some weird elements. The only thing Ligottian about it is the dark personal philosophy of a single character.

It seems to me that people who encountered the show without such preconceptions mostly enjoyed it, and those who came to it thinking "Cool, an HBO show that's all about Chambers and Ligotti and Karl Edward Wagner!" ended up mostly disappointed.
 
Hell-Ghost said:
Gentlemen, I began watching the first three episodes of True Detective and I regret to say that, at the risk of sounding like a Joshi, my general assertion of it is negative.
Click to expand...

Well, now that the risk of spoilers is sort of out of the way...

To me the ending of episode three (Rust's monologue segueing into our first look at Reginald Ledoux) is the high point of the series. The words, the mood, the implications, the tease of the "monster at the end" and what went down that day... that's the one sequence that made me go like wow, this is great. Gave me chills when I first watched it, and then again on a repeat. This is the only episode I've watched more than once, incidentally. Been thinking of rewatching the whole thing again to get a more objective footing on the whole thing. Might do so one of these days.

Anyway, there's a pretty impressive action sequence at the end of episode four, which you might not want to miss if you care about those things. Then in episode five they finally get to Ledoux, but that scene plays against expectations (though there's a good in-story reason for it). Then there's some great bits in latter episodes, but like I said I think the ending of ep 3 was the peak.
 
I enjoyed it for what it was - a well-writen tv detective series. Even without the Chambers references, I think it was a strong show.






Spoiler Alert






If I remember nothing else about the series, the long take at the end of episode 4 was spectacular.
 
TD was Twin Peaks without the self-indulgence and goofiness. Unfortunately, as good as TD was--and it was very, very good--it didn't quite scale the high points that Twin Peaks did when that show was firing on all cylinders. Nevertheless, these are examples of television drama at its best. Imperfect, sure, but occasionally brilliant.
Seriously, outside of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and a mere handful of other inspired shows, television remains, for the most part, The Great Wasteland...
 
Druidic said:
Seriously, outside of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and a mere handful of other inspired shows, television remains, for the most part, The Great Wasteland...
Click to expand...

A co-worker of mine was telling me about a wonderful new TV show she has started watching that is apparently nothing more than the video-recorded responses of people watching TV with their friends/family/whatever. So, a TV show about people watching TV. I mean, can it really get any lower than that? :drunk:

Anyway....

My expectations for TD being what I wanted it to be were very low. I hadn't watched TV in years before buying TD, so I was interested to see how the Ligottian element would be baked into a detective story on American cable television. I thought it was done just about as well as it could have been considering the audience. It's all business in the end and HBO wants a product they can sell. Taking it all into account, TD was pretty damn brilliant.
 
Cnev said:
So, a TV show about people watching TV. I mean, can it really get any lower than that? :drunk:
Click to expand...

No idea which series is that, but I imagine it's an offshot from youtube. There's this trend about "reaction videos", which is exactly what it sounds like: people watch videos, record their reaction, and upload that. Not quite my idea of entertainment, but it hit it off with a lot people.

On the subject of interesting television, not sure if you fellows are familiar with The Booth at the End. The series is nothing but people talking, always in the same location (the eponymous booth at some diner), but it's a very riveting watch. There's some supernatural undertones to it, but the focus is mostly an exploration of morality, cause and effect, and whether the things we wish for are really worth the trouble. There's only two seasons, and apparently a third one is in the works but it might not enter production until late this year at the least.
 
ramonoski said:
Cnev said:
So, a TV show about people watching TV. I mean, can it really get any lower than that? :drunk:
Click to expand...

No idea which series is that, but I imagine it's an offshot from youtube. There's this trend about "reaction videos", which is exactly what it sounds like: people watch videos, record their reaction, and upload that. Not quite my idea of entertainment, but it hit it off with a lot people.

On the subject of interesting television, not sure if you fellows are familiar with The Booth at the End. The series is nothing but people talking, always in the same location (the eponymous booth at some diner), but it's a very riveting watch. There's some supernatural undertones to it, but the focus is mostly an exploration of morality, cause and effect, and whether the things we wish for are really worth the trouble. There's only two seasons, and apparently a third one is in the works but it might not enter production until late this year at the least.
Click to expand...

I did a quick Google search and apparently the show is called The People's Couch. I watched about 15 seconds of a clip wherein some middle-aged women were watching some TV show on Bravo while giggling and providing brain-melting commentary. No thanks.

I might have to give The Booth at the End a look. I love coffee shop conversations. I am immediately reminded of this little series Denny's ran a while back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCr7iOX_Zv0

There's a nice little dose of pessimism at the end.:)


Edit: I apologize for the thread derailment!
 
I very much enjoyed True Detective (As you can probably tell by my username). The Weird Fiction influence is there, but not in any huge quantity, it is more a character study with a police procedural attached to it, but I thought it was excellent.Also, it is what brought me into the world of TL via Nic Pizzolato citing him as an influence on his writing, strange where things lead you...
 
Entered the world of Ligotti through True Detective, much like our comrade Rust Cohle. That characterization of a philosophy of pessimism is what hooked me to the show. Researching the show and its writer, Nic Pizzolato, led me to references of Ligotti and THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE. I had read the latter before and was blown away, so Ligotti was in my head already. TRUE DETECTIVE added a new and interesting dimension to my weird fiction obsession.
 
I am a long time fan of noir and I enjoyed True Detective very much (with the exception of a small but important bit of dialogue). I think they explored Ligotti's outlook adequately through Cohle's character, but I would liked to have seen more on The King in Yellow. It was a good idea from Pizzolato to combine noir with the darkest weird fiction and its philosophical undercurrents. Definitely well worth watching. I look forward to the next season.
 
As dark as TD is, its still nothing compared to the darkness of Two and a Half Men - all things considered, and I'm not joking.
 
yes. bear a couple things in mind...

Matthew mccounaghey paraphrases TCATHR a lot. this is a good thing by itself, and it can provoke amusing repsonses from Woody Allen, which makes it better.

it is not as RWChambers/KingInYellow-y as some make it out to be. there are references to Carcosa and the King in Yellow, but nothing to actually do with the Chambersverse is going on in these shows. it is more like some criminals have appropriated some weird-fiction references as red herrings for investigators to chase.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top