The episodic deconstruction of True Detective's second season -- predominantly resulting in a weekly panning of the HBO anthology -- has created a firestorm of controversy as to the nature of TV criticism. The main argument: why dissect and go after a show before it’s finished, as it’s meant to be viewed? As the series’ stalwart defenders continue to remind, it’s not like we review chapters of novels, right?
Many critics have weighed in on this already, but I wanted to pitch in with some brief thoughts of my own. In the general discussion I personally see two major issues with this line of argument. Firstly, to say that the analysis of a series is only completely valid as a holistic determination is an immediate mistake; to look at the bigger picture at the expense of what’s going on within is an easy way to misjudge quality. There’s no sense in reading five-eighths of a novel (where we are in True Detective) without continually evaluating its dialogue, or its chapter construction, or its characterizations. Later events may put certain elements in perspective, but that shouldn’t utterly change the immediate reading/viewing experience.
The greater inaccuracy here, though, is the mere comparison of a weekly show to an enclosed novel. Digesting the two forms makes for fundamentally different processes, as series television is episodic by nature. Even in the era of HBOGo binging and DVR-clearing, for the most part seasons are still constructed on an hour (or half-hour) per week basis. True Detective may have been conceived, written and produced as an eight-hour film, but not playing to the freedoms and restrictions of its medium is the exclusive fault of creator Nic Pizzolatto. And that’s assuming this even partly explains what’s been an awfully disappointing run for the former phenomenon thus far -- abrupt re-starts in action, on-the-nose writing and a bounty of cliches don’t generally come intentionally. (And no, it's just not working within a classically noir aesthetic, either.)
What we’re seeing here is a reflection of the longstanding perception of TV as inferior -- as if “novelistic” or “cinematic” characteristics imbue a series with more intellectual validity. There are shows that can pull such balances off -- see The Wire in the former category; Rectify in the latter -- but that doesn’t mean they abandon their medium’s pretense. Moreover, it doesn’t make it necessary. If you look at series hailed among the greats, oftentimes their moments of peak greatness are rooted in stories confined to one installment’s running time -- Mad Men, from “The Suitcase” to “The Other Woman”; “Whitecaps” and “Pine Barrens” of The Sopranos; just about any episode of Breaking Bad. Their power evolves out of that twofold approach, managing impactful episodes within a more encompassing whole. Some shows, including a classic in The Wire and a promising newbie in Bloodline, are more aggressively serialized. But in both of those cases, the escalation of tension and realization of theme is appropriate to a seasonal construction; the episodes build and build and as such establish intrigue and a sense of momentum. We’re not seeing that with True Detective. Its most recent episode all but rebooted the season's storylines after a disastrous first half (which you can disagree with, I suppose; just don’t get mad at critics for rather uniformly having this reaction), and now it only has three to go.
Granted, True Detective season 2 is basically a miniseries. But as I wrote in my review of HBO’s soaring four-hour mini Olive Kitteridge, the power of director Lisa Cholodenko’s film was exponentiated by Jane Anderson’s adaptation of the eponymous novel -- the way she paralleled and intersected the book’s ideas and characters made for a compelling structure. Perhaps an even more apt example would be Hugo Blick’s eight-hour drama The Honorable Woman. A bracing political thriller and ambitious tonal exercise, it’s an extended production with similar aspirations -- that is, grappling with big ideas, playing around cinematically -- as True Detective. But rooted in the traditions of British TV drama, it’s expertly calibrated in its pacing from episode one. Unlike True Detective.
The notion that it’s wrong to go after True Detective episodically is nonsense, not only because its quality deserves to be judged on an ongoing basis but also because this is how TV criticism has worked through decades. This new reactionary complaint has certainly been borne out of the new streaming culture, wherein a show is written to be (and is) consumed all-at-once. Jill Soloway has noted that she fashioned the first season of Transparent for Amazon as a five-hour film. Conversely, Netflix’s decision to only send out three episodes of new dramas Bloodline and Sense8 to critics for initial review led to tentative critical consensus (that eventually improved over time). But even though these series are especially serialized, episodic storytelling remains vital and worthy of engagement. The fact is that early (and really, most) Sense8 episodes are too disjointed, even if they come together well. It’s a criticism that has to hold up in the aggregate. And while I didn’t exactly agree that Bloodline was too slow to get off the ground (maybe I was just immediately mesmerized by the performances and cinematography), I could certainly see where those disgruntled critics were coming from.
I’m not quite sure where the True Detective paranoia is coming from, however. As someone who much prefers reviewing complete seasons, I should be able to sympathize more easily with those asking critics to wait and see. I’ll have my full season review up in three weeks when all is said and done, but my feelings of the first five episodes -- which, again, make up over half of the run -- will absolutely be a part of the critique. How could they not be? Ignoring what makes TV special and uniquely challenging undermines it as an art form. It’s also absurd to grant True Detective the benefit of the doubt that countless shows operating under-the-radar aren’t afforded.
This is an important conversation to have, about TV as an independently artful medium. Let’s not pretend True Detective, or any show, is above it.