Season five needs to be set in Toontown from Roger Rabbit. The two detectives are a suicidally depressed alcoholic cartoon fish named “Mr. Fins” and a corrupt and abusive cartoon moose named “Hatrack Harry”. It’s set in the 1990’s, so they’re trying to figure out who murdered LeFou from “Beauty and the Beast”, who was found headless in a massage parlor with a carrot up his ass. It will be called “True Detective: Merry Fishmoose”.

I want season 5 to take place in a mysterious pyramid on the north pole, and the twist is that its just Alien vs. Predator.

I had always hoped True Detective would become a pulpy, noir anthology series where each season was overseen by different writers-directors-creators with the only throughline being the question of what it meant to be a "true detective." For instance, one season could have been about a private investigator who tumbles into a wide-reaching ring of human traffickers while another was about investigative reporters looking into the history of a spurious land deal. If any network was going to take a chance like that, I'd have thought it was HBO, at the time. Unfortunately, once it became a brand, I guess everyone was too risk averse to actually do anything that was too different.

Maybe they could make a True Detective multiverse show, where all the detectives from all the seasons are stranded on a desert island and have a battle royale while trying to find their way off the island

Season 5: Shaquille O'Neal and Wayne Gretsky as a pair of grizzled detectives, named Turner and Hooch... the twist? They're underwater detectives It writes itself.

“Season 1 had an atmosphere as thick as soup “ I couldn’t have said it better. The themes and even characters were firmly inside the realm of fiction but the universe and portrayals felt so lived in and real. Sincerely, Andy from someone’s memory of a town.

Love all your work Georg, but I’ve missed your sharply written media analysis. Thanks for this

what really irritated me about season 4 was the premise of a maybe supernatural killing during constant night, but the show did nothing with the fact that it was alway night. Insomniac did it better using the constant day to really screw with al pacini's character

Goethe wrote that "the poet should address the specific and if there be anything about him he will articulate the universal." That be season 1.

Straight up. S1 was pure alchemy. Can't tell you how many drawings I've ruined because I thought they needed a punch up or one last touch.

I'm a big defender of season 3, which I think has a lot more to say than season 1, even if it says it a lot less cleanly. It's the best attempt at portraying dementia in media I've ever seen, and doing so via the time jumping shtick season 1 established was inspired.

The cleaning lady mafia was so effin stupid, i feel like watching season 4 was a total waste of time.

You say that the iconic opening credits have influenced numerous fiction and nonfiction title sequences ever since. However, it looks to me like an adaptation of the opening sequence of the older True Blood series.

The best part of TD was the juxtaposition of McConaughey and Harrelson characters over time; the crime element was inconsequential. Also, there's a whole Kirk/Spock thing going on that nobody notices.

Season 1 of True Detective is the single greatest season of TV I can remember.

season 2 suffered the most by being one season of a larger anthology. if it was a stand alone show and give 2-3 seasons and some room to breathe (and cut the over the top gunplay), it couldve worked as a modern noir

Great analysis. And you hit on two points that I really loved about S2: Vaughn is utterly convincing as a sleazy, emotionally distraught slime all, and the score adds SO much atmosphere to the world / setting. I watched S2 before 1, deliberately and realise the strengths of 1- but love them equally. EDIT TO ADD: 😂The midichlorians line just got me good

I'd also add that seasons 1-3 had quite a heavy subtext about how being a cop messes you up, as almost every main character is struggling with inner demons, largely all there as a direct consequence of being a cop, and it helps you understand them, even characters that are unlikeable. But this was absent in season 4, they just did a bad thing and covered it up, and never went on to show how that conspiracy affected them, beyond some poor plot convenient arguments.

I love a lot in season 2 though. Ray and Frank, Lera Lynn, the birdman, the cabin shootout, the Conway Twitty dream sequence, Vaughn in the desert while Farrell being chased in the woods. I wish it came together more cause there really is nuggets of gold there.

the thing nobody talks about is how there isn't actual detective work being done.. like literally all loopholes and negatives things aside - does it actually fit the genre of a detective show?

The one good thing that came out of watching season 4 was going through comments, and stumbling on a lot of people suggesting to check out Sharp Objects, and Mare of Easttown. Watched both, and both were great shows. Mare of Easttown had a lot of procedural investigation stuff that was sorely missing in night country.

Season 2 always gave me the vibe of the writer trying to mimic the progression of The Wire - wanting to expand the scope of the world and cover multiple distinct places in each season. It really did not work for me though.

I would be very interested to hear a Georg monologue on the series "Legion". I found it mind bending and thoroughly wtf entertaining.

"True Detective: On A Space Station" can work, if it's another go at adapting Stanisław Lem's Solaris? Edit: Now that I think about it, if anyone wants to make a retro-futuristic spooky/disturbing hard sci-fi Space Detective type of series they can adapt Lem's "Tales of Pirx the Pilot" stories.

It's about time they give up and remake season one of True Detective with both main characters recast with... motion capture, deep-fakes of Peter Falk as two, simultaneous Columbos.

S4 ending a bunch of nerds just joined in when they found one of em stabbing a woman. Every one, not even a single one was asleep or something. The woman who finds the dead bodies followed a ghost, was that what she told the police and they believed her? Maybe they were close to her land I dunno would need to check. Danvers is portrayed as sharp but she doesn't understand what preventing celular decay might mean? Rubbing salt in the wound with "in English, nerd". They almost froze to death at the end but when the storm stopped they jumped in a car and drove home, couldla sat in the car with the heating on ya know.

Yep, season 1's lead performances were slam dunk outstanding.

True Detective set in 90's Seattle. A Seattle detective with a drinking problem (Ballentine beer) has to enlist the help of his psychiatrist sons to get into the mind of a killer who has been decapitating and stealing the skulls of members of the local opera board. Twist: it was the seal!

beautifully said. after season 4 ended my friends and I went on scathing tirades about the feeble references. it was almost liek the oranges were contrived JUST so she could peel it into a spiral... HBO exec: wouldn't that be aPEELing?

As a true detective I was here 7 Minutes after the crime was comitted.

Almost nothing in Season 4 made any sense. They have a police chief who is somehow appointed by a captain from another city, an officer *demoted* to Alaska State Trooper and locals who somehow think a frozen pile of naked scientists is goofy fun to take selfies next to. None of it rings true. There's no awareness of the different kinds of cold, either. So it will go from slushy to so cold humans can freeze instantly in the same scenes. Whatever the plot needs.

This is unrelated to the video, but as a quick aside, Im very glad you keep a website with videos deleted by this platform. Just A Thought 26 genuinley made me feel better in a dark time by giving me new rhetoric in a funny package, but I couldn't find it for a while. I'm glad it still exists.

"I guess that's when we realised, that the real True Detective, was the friends we made along the way".

why the rotten tomato so high for season 4? What am I missing?

“Who Goes There” from season 1 is most certainly in the top 5 of best episodes in television history. It’s a masterclass in suspense, and the single-shot they do during the riot in the projects is beautifully executed.

You’re the first person I’ve heard say this! Fukunaga is the main reason season one was so good! I’m extra bitter because he was set to direct the It remake… I can only imagine how good a horror movie from him would be

Re-watched all recently. 1 and 3 are excellent. 2 was bad and 4 is unforgivable. If no one from the originals was involved in 4 they shouldn't be using the name to con people into watching it.

If they make season 5 in space there's a good chance it will suddenly become a Cloverfield for marketing purposes and we'll have come full flat circle.

Season 2 is underrated. People need to go back and watch it on its own merits

The next one should definetely be set on a space station. Just like Hellraiser: Bloodline.

man your summary of season 2 was awesome. it put into words things ive felt about it since watching but havent been able to articulate, especially the sense of it wallowing in purgatorial atmosphere

I like when he saids I am the true detective

Just realized it. Mic has been a central piece of two scenes that have so much tension I need only to slightly remember them to feel it. Interstellar: When he had to dock the ship during that impossible spinning, and in True Detective when they enter that hood disguised as police. Master class, both of em. Goosebumps

My wife and I watched season 1 as it came out and found it very endearing and funny! Yes, it was played all dark and brutal, but it was just too camp to take it seriously. The two cliché buddy cops, both caught up in their toxic ways, and then meeting up again decades later to become better, or at least more tolerable, people - that was the real hook of the show. To us the story was these two guys and their relationship, so any subsequent season might as well be a different show.

It would have been interesting to hear a more detailed take on the critical vs audience reception of S4. Had to be the most blatant media toadying in recent memory; it's like they watched an entirely different show!

I gave up when the research station vanished from the story. I was interested in what it would be like to live isolated in one of those, like overwintering at the south pole, but I ended up just staring at that one lady's face for three episodes and lost interest completely.

I found True Detective Season 1's 'resolution' to be pretty poor actually. I feel like most people gloss over the stupidity in finding a 'guy with green ears' is actually the school custodian. Everything leading up to those last two episodes is great, and a lot of those last two episodes were solid too- but come on, was I the only one who felt like the investigation portion fell apart at the end.

For me the "tiny circular mirror" is the peak detail in season 1. Rust can check his eyes don't look shot through due to his narcotics use while undercover but he doesn't have to see his face which helps him remain in character..... That really blew my simple mind away.

Season 2 is incredible. The gun fight was intense with very unpredictable results.

excellent analysis, Georg. despite True Detective's previous track record of inconsistent quality, I found season 4 frankly shocking in how dreadful it was. I'm not convinced the people who loved it are actually real people.

Making anything after season one was a huge mistake, it was perfection

This guy suddenly pops up in my feed. Years and years after I had never watched a single video of his. I thought he was dead.

Fifth (space) season will just be a very long adaptation od Solaris...

When a show is great, always stop watching after the season wraps with a conclusive ending.

Michael Swaim's idea of Dinosaur Detective needs to see the light of day for season 5.

@Georg, what will you do with the carrier pigeons?

True detective 5 -- the detectives search for a compelling plot line

Season 2 does have some great scenes. Season 3 is really, really good. I'd call moments from the first three seasons haunting, but i'd call the entire first season haunting and everything except the undercover episode perfection.

I hated season 2, and only finished it because Vince Vaughn was genuinely good, which was the opposite of what I expected. My only other real memory of it is clicking that Closeted Cop was about to die suddenly because the action scene was suspiciously long, then realizing he was Tom Sizemore, and I was watching an inverted Heat, Vaughn's character being the criminal mirror of Al Pacino, etc. So I guessed they would all die except Val Kilmer, I mean Rachel McAdams, and then got genuinely irritated that I was right. I may be a lousy detective, but ask me how writers think when they have literally no idea what to write, and I'll crack that case like Columbo based on the least significant clue possible.

One reason: Woody and Matthew have chemistry like no one else.

Was the entrance to the ice tunnel not miles away from the research station and yet they arrived at the hidden lab under the research station after walking around the ice tunnels for about 6 minutes.

I was hoping after season 1 it would be like an anthology where every season is a different story but based around different types of detectives. Like for one season maybe it could be about a private detective who’s kind of a anti-hero, and he’s investigating a guy who’s wife thinks he’s having a affair, but then it turns out the guy gets murdered, and then it turns out the wife wasn’t the actual wife, and then at one point a guy stabs him in the nose, and then there’s this whole thing about water rights or something, and then somebody gets shot, and then a guy goes “forget about Chinatown, Jake” or something like that, I don’t know I didn’t really understand it but everyone says it’s good

Georg, talk about more schlock please. Franchises, good or bad. From the Nolan Batman trilogy to the transformers or marvel films. Your perspective is unique enough to warrant more videos on these topics.

Glad to see that people are sticking up for Season 3. I think it was pretty solid, primarily guilty of the crime of not being Season 1.

True detective on space is "Outland"

Aww, bummer. I had hopes. Not high hopes or particular enthusiasm, but hopes that this one would turn it around particularly with Foster. Maybe I'll re-binge season 1 this weekend instead...or there's this Expanse show I've never gotten around to because I want to just immerse and absorb it and who can find that kinda time, y'know.

Georg has an incredible talent for reading aloud pretty straightforward facts about a piece of media but then leaving a long dramatic pause over the B roll of footage that completely undercuts it. I think he may be in possession of the most dry wit on KZfaq as a whole.

I quite liked season 3, even though I am a bit bored with the "unfortunate events" kind of resolutions. People pushing each other and accidentally smashing each other heads on concrete during arguments and the like, something I had my lifetime fill of thanks to many Scandinavian noir TV shows alone (and some of their American/British remakes). At the same time, I had a similar frustration to yours - it being less mystery/plot-driven. Still, admirable and respectable.

It seems Pizolatto's legacy has fizzledouto

Fukunaga and Pizzolatto were a dynamic duo, with Fukunaga anchoring and spurring Pizzolatto's excellent but unfocused writing along. It's a shame that they couldn't continue the series together.

I had the same thoughts about Stranger Things but that show has no excuse because all of the seasons were in the hands of the show creators. The first season had only one glaring flaw and that was the creature designs...sorry, but monsters with flower mouths only look scary but if you think about the nature of it all, it has no ability to bite or chew worth a crap and therefor just makes the monster an unappealing thing to look at and not a deadly threat unless they're poisonous or something. Anyway, they fixed that small issue in season 2 but then started their journey towards fan service and trying to "explain things" instead of letting the mind fill in the gaps however the viewer wants. And each bit of explanation made the story worse. The saving grace was at least the characters are fun to watch, but the stories overall either were too flimsy for the amount of episodes and thus filled with fan service or they're just fan service. The series is very good overall, but season 1, also, was stand alone and not meant to be continued and I wish it had stayed that way. I am not a "they ruined it!" guy but knowing the answers to the "what if the show kept going" makes the experience bittersweet on rewatch.

Season 5 could be a mash-up with Fantasy Island, where two guests become detectives and investigate the occult tinged murder of an heiress. Or something

Totally agree. I feel the worst moment in s4 was when a character just blurted out the "time is a flat circle" line from season 1. It just came out of nowhere and had nothing to do with the plot, there was no context at all. It felt like the Star Wars sequels with "It's another death star". This moment encapsulates the season as a whole: a lazy rehash and call back to something better. Instead of doing something original they chose to tell a story that says nothing with a lazy reliance on the pre-established brand. A shame too, the setting and indigenous aspects were interesting.

Having rewatched Season 3 recently, its my favourite. The performances from the whole cast are incredible. The writing is great without tending towards smug sophistry the way 1 and 2 did. It also seems to avoid exposition and lecturing in a way that would be seemingly impossible if it was made today. Criminally underrated.

Season 5 in space would be kinda cool. You could go full eldritch horror

my first reaction to season 4 was"this should have been part of the terror anthologies, not true detective"

i love that you still keep the lava lamp

I had completeley forgoten about the gun fight in S02. Gohst walking the the desert, Female copper with a knife for every occasion, stayed with me.

'I've got a bad taste in my mouth out here' as I will say on my next trip up to Stoke.

SEASON 5: All of the detectives are kidnapped by JCVD and forced into a kumite style competition trying to solve a case while fighting eachother.

In season 5, there should be a rival duo called the False Detectives, who have their life together but suck at their jobs.

Bro true detective season one is the single greatest show i have ever seen.

This is why The Wire is so incredible - varied casts and POVs throughout multiple seasons, from the Cops and Bangers, to Schools, The Press and even Teamsters/longshoremen - and remained strong and engaging throughout almost the entire runtime.. only right at the end of the final season did it start getting dry Imo, one of the best shows ever recorded Recommend Fargo, too, particularly the season with Chris Rock

On a riverboat! That's brilliant mate! But make it nineteen hundredths steam boat, and one of the pilot's who will help the sheriff's solve the crime will be Samuel Clemens And it will involve racial tensions and injustice in the south on the brink of civil war. Hell, part of it can be set DURING the civil war. How many supernatural crime dramas have been set in this period? We struck gold here. And this time is vampires. I want Jasper of Twilight origin story so bad. ☹

Excellent breakdown

When her sister wanders out into the dark and is found dead almost immediately with no manhunt, I thought it was bad writing in a show that kicks off with a bunch men going missing under similar curcumstances more several days. Then I realized that the sister’s body HAD to be found right away so that we could meet the coroner/mortuary lady so we would know who she was later on when the satisfying ending comes and you realize all the town ladies are the killers. SMART!

Nothing infuriates more or induces violence against the TV box, than "a ghost did it", "it was a dream", "it was time travel", "it was aliens" to cover a gaping plot hole ...

I enjoyed this video. Thanks for making it.

I was enthralled with season one, yet every season since I haven't made it to episode 4.

It´s a 1 season show and I wisely checked out of S4 after ep 2, even took a month-long break between ep 1 and 2. I should have stopped halfway through S2 though.

I have never seen the show, but I saw the recent trailer and said to myself, "This looks like they lost the plot, here".

I've watched all seasons recently. In my order of preference: S1 > S3 > S2 > S4. 1 and 3 are something rather special, with 1 being a standout because of the cosmicist philosophy and great acting. 2 is like a completely different series, and 4 really jumps the shark.

I enjoyed Night Country for what it is: an epic, 6 episodes mid season arc in the X files. You know, back when the WGA wasn't that strong and writers had to come up with like 30 hour-long episodes a year

Well said on all points. The first season was great, but now it's a brand. And I'm supposed to believe Kali Reis is a native Alaskan?

Even though the Chambers mythos was a nice bonus, I'd love to see more like it. Just need the same writer, and same level of actor. Dude wrote up what...400 pages of backstory for his character? Safe to say acting is important to him.

The thing about the first season is it's not about the mystery, it's about how the mystery affects the characters. It's a noir.

Sounds like season 4 was just another “modern day” piece of media. Everything you described are the same downfalls people describe with the recent Disney flops. Also, I noticed a major difference between the casts of the different seasons: the first were guys, then a mix of mostly guys, then guys, and the Fourth Season, which sounds like the worst was all women. Now this isn’t a “women bad” observation, it’s an “all women” thing these days is more of an indicator that the purpose of the thing isn’t to convey a great story, it’s more to push an agenda.

Yeah, HBO taking a standalone script for season four and cramming in a lot of nebulous references to season one really didn't do the story any favors. I really wanted to like this season, so much. I really liked the performances by all of the the actors, but, man, it all just turned into a bunch of hand-wavy "whelp, that's the story!" nonsense at the end. [waving hands around] "woooOOOooooOOooo!" 🤪There really is the kernel of a good tale in there somewhere. It just got ruined by your typical corporate gobbledygook. "Yeah, see! The people will really dig stuff like this, see! Yeah, yeah, see?" (That's my impression of a cartoonish multi-millionaire executive waving a cigar around while talking like a 1920s gangster from a 1940s motion picture.) 😉

I'd like to see a True Detective featuring crime on a train, perhaps calling it Murder on the Orient Express?

Season 4: Screenwriter: "Sir, I want to write a drama focused on far north Alaskan town and its indigenous people." Producer: "Nah, you gonna write new True Detective show." Screenwriter: "... I can work with that."