True Detective Season 5 Must Avoid One Fundamental Night Country's Flaw
If we learned anything from True Detective: Night Country, it's that you can't tempt viewers and then let them down.
Summary
- True Detective 4 was the first for showrunner Issa López.
- She's returning for season 5.
- Let's hope she learned from her previous mistake.
While you can never really say that one show is objectively better than another, here the facts speak for themselves.
True Detective Season 1, starring McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, boasts a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to 84% for Season 3, 78% for the most recent Season 4, and a lowly 47% for Season 2.
Audiences largely agree, rating Season 1 the highest at 89% and Season 2 the lowest at just 27%. Seasons 3 (55%) and 4 (57%) are about equal in viewers' eyes.
The average viewership tells a similar story. The original averaged 2.33 million viewers per episode. Season 3 is significantly lower at 1.25 million, with Season 4 averaging 0.65 million viewers per episode.
Season 2 is the anomaly. Its average of 2.61 million is the highest of any franchise. But a deeper dive shows that this was a reaction to how good Season 1 was, and it's no wonder that Issa López chose to tie Season 4 to it, piquing fans' interest and expectations.
Early in the fourth season, which opened to generally positive reviews, it was revealed that Travis Cohle (played by Erling Eliasson) was the father of Rust Cohle, the protagonist played by Matthew McConaughey in the first series. This was an interesting twist that intrigued viewers. But in the end, it went nowhere, leaving fans wondering why it was even mentioned.
Why didn't Season 4 deliver?
In the end, this connection went nowhere. It was merely mentioned and then allowed to drift aimlessly without ever being addressed.
Speaking to The Independent, Lopez explained that the device was simply a way to show that seasons 1 and 4 took place in the same universe.
'It's very important to me to say the world where Dora Lange died in 2007 in Louisiana is the exact same world where the scientists disappear in 2024.' She said. 'So how do you establish those realities? Just to say, 'This is the same world.''
Mentions of the infamous Tuttle family were also peppered throughout the series, adding to the sense of anticipation and ultimate frustration that divided fans.
Lopez would do well to focus Season 5, for which she is the confirmed showrunner, on what was great about Season 1 (strong writing, a coherent narrative, and a pacing that allowed the characters to develop organically) rather than just teasing connections to it.
Season 5 should revert back to 8 episodes
True Detective: Night Country wasn't helped by being cut down to 6 episodes instead of the usual 8.This made everything feel a bit rushed.
We barely got to know Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reis) before they were heading towards the end of their story. The departure from the tried-and-true 8-episode season doesn't excuse the show's biggest problem, which was its lack of connection to its glory days.
Source: The Independent.