HBO’s Crime Drama That Changed Television Is Still A Masterpiece Everyone Should Watch

True Detective season 1 is a game-changing television masterpiece that everyone should watch, even if you don’t watch the other seasons. HBO has been the home of prestige television ever since kicking off the Peak TV era with The Sopranos. The network has made a handful of shows that were so groundbreaking, they completely changed the television landscape.

The Sopranos humanized the mafia and sent a mob boss to therapy. The Wire brought an unprecedented degree of realism to the police procedural. Band of Brothers proved that a TV show could provide the same level of cinematic spectacle as any big-budget movie. Game of Thrones made fantasy a genre that everyone could enjoy, not just diehard fantasy fans.

In 2014, HBO aired one of the greatest seasons of television ever produced. The first season of True Detective did things that no TV show had even attempted before. It was a resounding success, it was universally praised by critics and audiences, and now, more than a decade later, it remains essential viewing.

True Detective Season 1 Changed Television Forever

It Broke All The Rules

True Detective season 1 is a masterpiece that broke all the rules and changed the television landscape forever. It’s a murder mystery, but it belongs in a completely unique genre category that incorporates influences from Southern Gothic fiction and weird horror comics. It takes place across dual narrative timelines: the initial investigation in 1995 and the reopened investigation in 2012.

This unique story structure made True Detective endlessly engaging. It cuts back and forth between the fruitless pursuit of an elusive killer and the reopening of a cold case years later, and it uses that 17-year timespan to explore the impact on the detectives’ personal lives. It’s also deeply cinematic, featuring one of the most impressive oners ever filmed.

True Detective also dispelled the myth that TV is just for TV actors, and that movie stars should avoid TV roles like the plague.

True Detective also dispelled the myth that TV is just for TV actors, and that movie stars should avoid TV roles like the plague. Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey’s turns in True Detective showed that a really well-written TV role could give movie stars an opportunity to dig a lot deeper into a character’s psychology and backstory than a two-hour feature film allows.

Playing a TV role didn’t hurt Harrelson and McConaughey’s careers; it was actually a huge boost for their careers. It invited other movie stars to try TV. We’ve since seen Harrison Ford in ShrinkingGeorge Clooney in Catch-22Amy Adams in Sharp ObjectsAnthony Hopkins in Westworldand Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Meryl Streep in Big Little Lies.

True Detective Season 1 Was So Good, It Ruined The Rest Of The Show

Every Subsequent Season Has Been Compared To The First

After True Detective season 1 was a massive hit, HBO was eager to keep the True Detective train going and ordered a second season from Nic Pizzolatto for the following year. But season 1 was in the works for years, being developed as a devilishly complicated crime saga; it was impossible to just bang out another season in one year.

When True Detective season 2 aired in 2015, it received mixed reviews. The performances, action sequences, and visuals were widely praised, but the story felt rushed. It was nowhere near as masterfully constructed as the first season, because there just wasn’t enough time to develop characters and storylines that were as compelling as season 1.

True Detective is streaming on Max.

Subsequent seasons of True Detective have fared a little better than season 2. Season 3 wouldn’t air for another four years, so there was plenty of time to flesh out the characters and storylines, and season 4, subtitled Night Countrywas handled by a different creator entirely, Issa López, so it had a fresh vision from a fresh pair of eyes.

But season 1 was so great, and so unique, that no subsequent season could possibly live up to it. No matter how good the other seasons get, critics and audiences will always compare them to that first season. Season 1 was so incredible that it indirectly ruined the show, because it set the bar way too high.

Why There Might Never Be Another Show Like True Detective Season 1

It Was Developed As A Novel Before Becoming A TV Show

Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in True Detective Season 1 Promo

There might never be another TV show quite like True Detective season 1, because it was developed in a completely unique way. Pizzolatto had been writing True Detective As the novel for years before he reimagined it as a TV series. That gave it a literary depth and complexity that few TV shows achieve.

Pizzolatto had been sitting with these characters and their decades-long murder investigation for yearsso he knew the detectives inside and out. A traditional TV show, where a roomful of writers are given a couple of months to break a story and deliver a bunch of scripts, doesn’t have the time for that kind of introspective thinking.

A traditional TV show, where a roomful of writers are given a couple of months to break a story and deliver a bunch of scripts, doesn’t have the time for that kind of introspective thinking.

There will probably never be another show like True Detective season 1, because the business model and production process of the TV industry would usually prevent a show like True Detective season 1 from getting made. But at least we got that one shining masterpiece that will hold up forever.