Agree except for the bolded.

With the tape and the preacher and the senator and all of that they made it seem like some really high level thing. That's what they should have revealed in the last episode. Not just them taking down another low level pedo.

I believe he has been cut off a number of times. Jumping out is Son of Anarchy. Sepinwall had high praise for season 2, but also pointed out some problems. As the show progressively got worse over the course of seasons, the show runner became openly (publicly) hostile to Alan and would not make himself available.

Alan has also trashed (rightfully so) the Walking Dead and Dexter, and he's been very critical of Boardwalk Empire.

Alan was also critical of Season 2 of Friday Night Lights, and stretches of Battlestar Galactica - two series that he covers in his book.

Etc.

Same old critique I keep hearing over and over... that it somehow tried to pretend it was something that it wasn't.

People are basically penalizing the writer and director (and probably the actors also) for elevating a cop procedural above the standard. So because the show dared to have characters engage in philosophical debates, or delved into the emotional lives of its characters, or used the isolated setting and landscape to great effect... somehow it was trying to "trick" the audience into thinking it was something "deeper"?

How about it was just a really freaking well-done television show? Guess that's not enough in the age when people can debate the meaningless similarities between a mural in an asylum and a painting in a character's bedroom. Ooh, it must mean something... this show is so DEEP!

It would have been well done if we thought it worked. But we didn't.

Like I thought that we were supposed to be reacting the same way woody did to MM's secondhand patchwork philosophy. But apparently not.

I'm still bitter about this.

Fair enough if it didn't work for you. Not everyone likes everything.

That is different than saying the show tried to pretend it was something that it wasn't, or somehow pulled a bait-and-switch on the audience. Which is what people keep saying (including many of the professional critics) and I don't get the criticism. The show was exactly what it was.

James Franco

http://www.vice.com/read/true-charac...true-detective

Well it wasn't always apparent to me at least what true detective was. Probably because I wanted it to be something else, as I certainly didn't find the characters or particularly the philosophy to be nearly interesting enough to carry the whole show

I'm not accusing it of a bait-and-switch at all. The point is, I think people have been misjudging and overestimating it this whole time, and it really is just kind of this average cop story (though well-shot and in a cool setting), with some ghoulish trappings to make it more interesting.

That said, I do think they spent enough time on Yellow King/Carcosa/Tuttle/MM's Metaphysics/The Great Big Cancer Alley Conspiracy/etc., that wrapping it up with Lawnmower Man and Gross Wife was just kind of laughably anticlimactic. This isn't Chinatown, there was no penetrating insight into the nature of true evil and power and conspiracies, just a B-grade horror showdown with the least important villain possible.

For that reason--that I didn't find it compelling at all in philosophical or character-study terms--I finally got on board when the investigation really got under way and wish there had been at least four more episodes. The only time the show really worked for me was when they were actually doing stuff and investigating the cult/murders/conspiracy. That stuff was pulpy enough, granted, but at least had a visceral impact and interest level.

Damn, you're pretty hard on it there, CQ. I remember you were hard on Breaking Bad and House of Cards S1 as well.

It's a police procedural, James. Damnit, you just don't get it!

I've just been a little baffled by the rapturous reception it's gotten here and elsewhere. Although Nunnehi and I talked about it some, and he made the point that the direction/effects/acting/design/etc are all top-notch, which I don't dispute. I tend to judge things almost solely on the writing and pay too little attention to the visual impact. To be sure, TD is an enjoyable viewing experience. I enjoyed sitting in front of it. I know lots of people think the writing in TD is great, and to each their own, I suppose. I really do feel like the last episode is pretty indefensibly bad, though.

To your point, though, I don't just complain about shows--I liked HOC S1, just thought it was supercheese and lolled at people taking it seriously as political drama. I was probably too contrarian about BB in retrospect. Otherwise, I've posted a lot in the West Wing and Mad Men threads, all positive. I do like arguing about shows though--it's a vice :/

This is hyperbole, right? Even if you didn't like the finale as much as the rest of the season, isn't it still has to be better than 90% of scripted dramas?

Y This reminds me of a podcast the great Armond White went on once. He hated Inception, and the podcast guys were total fanboys. They kept pestering him about it...how can you like transformers more, how can you like this more or that more, etc. Finally Armond was just like why did you have me on the show? Presumably you read my reviews. I just didn't like it and liked those other movies more, for reasons I laid out in my reviews. You can keep listing stuff I like better or we can talk about movies.

Sepinwall absolutely isn't a critic. Even when he's negative(rarely), he writes about that from the perspective of a fan. E.g. complaining when a character he liked dies off, complaining that a plotline he doesn't like gets time.

But there's no actual criticism, at least not from what I've read. It's just writing down his reaction, positive or negative, in the context of literally describing the events of the episode.


Edit: I just scrolled up and saw SK said this exact same thing already, not sure how I missed that post while reading down. But he's right. The AV Club's stable of recappers is pretty much the same way. It's a very fan-focused and accessible approach so I understand why publications do it( see also Talking Dead/Bad on AMC), but the closest thing to real television criticism I've seen on the internet lately was the Videogum Walking Dead recaps, which was a comedy website.

I have to admit this would have been pretty cool.

Yes, I thought exactly the same thing after they killed him. An interrogation could have been an awesome psychological confrontation that would have been the highlight of the series, as well as ultimately a way to at least reference some of the plot issues that are bothering some people such as who the higher ups in the cult were/are. Given how they set up Cohle's prowess it was right there for the taking. Show needed to be 10-12 episodes.

You guys mean LeDoux, right, not Errol? What would Errol have told them? He's a ****ing crazy person so nothing he says is reliable and they know he did it so it's not like they need a confession.

It didn't seem like LeDoux was any less crazy.

The aim would have been to try to get information leading to discovery of other cult members involved who might still be around, and Errol's craziness is part of what would have made a psychological confrontation interesting.

Yeah it is, but I assume no one's comparing it to csi miami or whatnot. It's on HBO and seems to aspire to a high level of TV; I'm trying to evaluate it on the basis of what it's shooting for.

Other HBO top tier drama programs:

True Blood
Game of Thrones
Boardwalk Empire

Which of those shows is "high level TV"?

BoardWalk Empire and GOT are definitely high level

Even if that interrogation might have been cool (which I doubt, because it only really works as drama if the person is claiming innocence so that Rust can "see into their soul" and know if they did it)... I just can't imagine a scenario where this show could possibly end with some cops walking a handcuffed crazy child torturer/murderer into a police car. "Take him to the station, boys!"

True Detective better than both of those. But its really different because you are talking an 8 episode show versus multi seasons. Boardwalk is great but something about it keeps it out of being truly elite for my tastes. GoT if only taking season one compared to TD might edge it out but for me GoT fell off of a cliff after season one.

GoT season one is one of the best seasons for any show ever. But since then it is mediocre at best. Season one sucked me into reading all of the books and as the story expands and bloats while really going nowhere and introduces a zillion similar characters it just doesn't translate well to the screen at all. The books get weaker too.