I heard a lot about this series and
I decided that now is a good time to watch it and give it a chance, because I
like detective stories and lots of people say that this series is the best
there is now, so with any further introduction… Let’s step on some toes, will
you?
Well first I want to say that if I
sound harsh on this show you are the ones to blame because I heard things like,
ground breaking, genius, and the best, so I had really high expectations on
this one, and I got a little disappointed watching it, but ok that was the
warning. Also some minor spoilers, and other mayor because hell I’m assuming
all the people that read this have already watched, and if you don’t well read
the first paragraph and will see that there is not much to spoil :P
The first thing that jumped to my
attention was that everybody was praising the way the story develop and the way
they deliver exposition in a way the audience doesn’t notice. Well if a
narrator is a ground breaking discovery I’m a fairy princess. The first 2
episodes could be called “Exposition part 1 and 2” seriously when it starts
with the interview I just thought “Are you going to make talking heads?” that
is just lazy writing, because they tell you, literally tell you, what is happening,
and insides of the story that a good writer could make them fixing a scene, but
no, they put the talking heads to make it easier, so the dumb audience can
catch up with the series that start as an old car on a cold winter morning in
Siberia. They instead of showing you the dynamic between the characters, they
tell you how they felt towards the other, instead of making the events go how it
supposed to be they say “Oh I remember that he lived alone” when they could
just make a scene when you see it. So the first like 4, 4½ episodes are like
that, they forget the “Show, don’t tell rule” they tell you everything and also
gets redundant some times because you get narration describing a scene that is
happening.
The second thing that I couldn’t let
pass was that I heard “It has a great character development” I just thought “What
character?” “What development?” the characters are stock characters, all of
them, each and every one of them. If you take the characters from this series
and make with them a PG-13 movie you get “Lethal Weapon” I mean yes here is
darker and edgier but that’s because is not TV is HBO, but you have the strong
family man and the gloomy partner with suicidal tendencies. That is fucking
Lethal Weapon, we also have the cardboard cut wife, the Angry Screaming Boss of
the detectives, the mistress that is so obvious that those two are involved
that the freaking frame she was on screen I called it, the crazy killer that I
can’t pin point what is the exact movie where I know that archetype but I’m
sure is a horror one not detective. And what happen when you have all this
stock characters together? Well you have cliché scenes :D hooray! As I said,
the first 4½ episodes are clichés one after the other.
Also talking about the private life
of the detectives, why the hell does the detectives in 2014 needed to know that
one had problems with his wife, of the father of one was in Korea, they were making
an investigation about a killing, and they needed to know about the case, so
they should have told them “Please try to limit your statement to the facts”
Why do they needed to know that Marty’s daughter was an easy girl?. And all the
sex scenes are just time consuming stuff, we don’t need to watch boobs every
episode (I know for someone that say boobs are an asset I complain a lot about
it) I mean is nice to see a pair during the episodes, but are scenes that doesn’t
take you anywhere, the whole plot of the mistress of Marty is so irrelevant,
that could be done off screen and nobody would have noticed that, damn you can
change it for almost anything, drinking, gambling, job addiction, choo choo trains
anything! It doesn’t goes further that a pair of boobs and 2 conversations. And
why do I need to know all the details of his life? I like to know my characters
but not when I’m force feed all that data when I’m supposed to be watching a
detective show, they show too much of how do they live, and what the girls of
Marty behave, I never cared at all for them.
Most of the characters are because
of the actors, they took flat well known characters and performed the way they
should, OK they didn’t add anything to the character but their delivery was
good, but I mean you have Matthew
McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
The cinematography that everybody
also praise for me wasn’t that good, I mean is pretty good, landscapes as they
should look, good camera angles, good movement, but one scene in particular
jumped my eye, yes the one shot scene when Rusty goes to the drug house, in
that scene I can point 2 moments where they could have cut and nobody would
have noticed, damn! I could have done it and I’m an OK editor because the
camera just looks at the sky and then goes down and the other is facing a wall
and goes out, there are two easy cuts, so I don’t believe that was just one
shot. Also when Rusty goes on his truck and it has the tail light broken from
the fight with Marty that looked so fake, I know that you have never got a tail
light broken for more than 2 days, but one that didn’t had much money I know
what is to have a broken tail light on a 80s 90s car for years, and let me tell
you that it changes color, and it gets rounded with time, and that looked like
was broken yesterday, I’m just going with the flow that people told me that is
realistic this show. And the most unrealistic thing of this show is the police response,
I mean somebody hear gunshots in a crack house and call the police, and not
only that the police arrive in less than 3 minutes with choppers and block
streets and everything? Why do they need detectives if they arrive to any crime
scene in matter of seconds, too unrealistic, Fun never the less and I like it,
but don’t bring me that is realistic.
All the loose ends that they let don’t
bother me at all, because are some minimal, but I know one thing, if they say
that Audrey was raped by the cult and that makes the season 2 I’m going to be
so upset because I called that since the first episodes, the worst for a
Detective story is to be predictable.
But hey! The show gets good and
interesting from the second half of the episode 5 :D so you have like 3½ good
episodes, the characters do stuff and well they don’t develop beyond their mold
of stock character or their margins of cardboard but is a good story, if you
don’t mind watching some clichés and stock scenes.
So is a good TV show, Awesome? No.
Genius? Nop. Ground Breaking? Ha! Hell no! Cerebral? Nah. Over rated? Hell
yeah! I will recommend it to a friend if he or she likes detective stories, but
I would never recommend it to the point to say “You HAVE to watch True
Detective” maybe just because it has all the clichés you might need to avoid to
make an original story.
But is good.
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