HBO reveals why True Detective season 2 sucked
'To deliver, in a very short time frame, something that became very challenging to deliver - That’s not what that show is'
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Your support makes all the difference.Unfortunately, the second season of True Detective didn’t manage to win over fans like the first did, with critics branding it very middle of the road.
Many more fans were left disappointed by the Collin Farrell and Rachael McAdams starring drama, leading to umpteen articles being written in the show’s defence.
It seems the criticism has affected those involved, particularly the president of programming Michael Lombardo who spoke to The Frame about why the show was not one of HBO’s finest, hinting that he takes the blame for what happened after rushing show creator Nic Pizzolatto.
“I’ll tell you something. Our biggest failures — and I don’t know if I would consider True Detective 2 — but when we tell somebody to hit an air date as opposed to allowing the writing to find its own natural resting place, when it’s ready, when it’s baked — we’ve failed.
“And I think in this particular case, the first season of True Detective was something that Nic Pizzolatto had been thinking about, gestating, for a long period of time. He’s a soulful writer. I think what we did was go, ‘Great.’ And I take the blame. I became too much of a network executive at that point. We had huge success. ‘Gee, I’d love to repeat that next year.’
“Well, you know what? I set him up. To deliver, in a very short time frame, something that became very challenging to deliver. That’s not what that show is. He had to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Find his muse. And so I think that’s what I learned from it. Don’t do that anymore.
“And I’d love to have the enviable certainty of knowing what my next year looks like. I could pencil things in. But I’m not going to start betting on them until the scripts are done.”
In the same interview, Lombardo addresses criticism levelled at the network for featuring too much nudity in its programming, saying: “I’m often told that relative to other premium services, we don’t have enough nudity.”
He goes on to explain that nudity works both ways, and then it is “bulls**t” when show runners blur out male genitals and not female.
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In recent True Detective news, Quentin Tarantino said he’s not a big fan of the show, offering this great takedown.
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