{"id":45282,"date":"2024-02-05T21:55:34","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T20:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1986503"},"modified":"2024-02-06T00:12:40","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T23:12:40","slug":"hbo-failed-night-country-by-making-it-a-true-detective-season","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/hbo-failed-night-country-by-making-it-a-true-detective-season\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO failed Night Country by making it a True Detective season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Issa L\u00f3pez’s story is being deprived of the opportunity to be assessed on its own merits. <\/p>

By David Craig\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 05 February 2024 at 20:55 PM<\/p>

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I didn\u2019t see this coming \u2013 and that\u2019s on me because, in hindsight, it was fairly predictable.<\/p>\n

In January, I received all six episodes of True Detective: Night Country<\/a> and became confident<\/a> it would be the first runaway hit of the year. And to be fair, my instinct wasn\u2019t completely\u00a0<\/em>off the mark.<\/p>\n

People are watching the show, with live US viewership actually growing<\/a> week to week across the first three episodes (ratings for the fourth are yet to be announced).<\/p>\n

Plus, a quick skim of the True Detective hashtag on X \u2013 not a platform renowned for its positivity \u2013 shows plenty of viewers enjoying Night Country\u2019s chilling investigation (pun intended).<\/p>\n

And yet, the media\u2019s coverage does not reflect this reality. Every Monday morning, my start-of-the-week blues are exacerbated by the negative headlines that have been published about the previous night\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s particularly frustrating that most of the critiques levelled at Night Country are delivered in reference to previous seasons of True Detective: \u2018It\u2019s way more supernatural than before\u2019; \u2018The narrative structure is completely different\u2019; \u2018The other theme songs are much cooler\u2019; \u2018These detectives aren\u2019t as good at their jobs\u2019 \u2013 and so on and so forth, ad nauseam.<\/p>\n

Night Country is being deprived the opportunity to be assessed on its own merits, all because of the brand name haphazardly tacked onto its title. You can\u2019t help but wonder what could have happened if HBO had let the project stand on its own two feet.<\/p>

Showrunner Issa L\u00f3pez has openly admitted<\/a> that the initial idea for her story came before she was approached about True Detective, but comprised many of the same elements.<\/p>\n

She imagined a murder mystery involving typically unseen communities, set against the backdrop of an Arctic location where the mundane takes on an \u201cuncanny\u201d quality.<\/p>\n

True Detective became the vessel in which this pre-existing idea was shepherded to the screen, complete with a few fleeting nods to season 1 characters<\/a> and entities probably intended to be crowd-pleasing fan service. Alas, the crowd is not amused.<\/p>\n

Instead, these references seem only to inflame irritation around the show\u2019s aforementioned differences to previous seasons, with some commentators wilfully ignoring or downplaying its unique assets out of little more than brand loyalty.<\/p>\n

The atmospheric use of Night Country\u2019s extreme setting; the brilliant lead performances from Jodie Foster and Kali Reis; the heart-wrenching family drama elements; the eerie horror-infused sequences assembled by writer-director L\u00f3pez; the powerful attention raised for the real-world issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women.<\/p>\n

Well, you can chuck all those precious offerings out with the bathwater, because there might have been a ghost or something in one scene, maybe. Or whatever.<\/p>\n

$\"Leah$ \n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>