There’s something missing with True Detective Night Country. I know we’re only halfway through the season, and there’s still hope it may turn things around, but I feel like I can already gauge some huge differences compared to the first season, which I still argue is the best of all seasons.

And it’s interesting because even when looking at seasons 2 and 3 of True Detective, there are just so many aspects missing or that aren’t executed as perfectly as in season 1. I know. I know. Season 1 is one of the greatest television dramas ever aired, and I don’t want to be another mindless parrot, singing its praises like so many others, nor do I want to just use it as a way to always say that new seasons of True Detective will never be as good.

I mean, I know that’s probably true, but I do feel like it’s necessary to at least understand why.
Why was Season 1 so fricken good and where has Night Country gone wrong so far, because for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s completely terrible but there are a lot of missed opportunities that I can see.

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What is True Detective?

The first season of True Detective, an American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, premiered on January 12, 2014, on the premium cable network HBO. The principal cast consisted of Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles. The season had eight episodes, and its initial airing concluded on March 9, 2014. Each following True Detective season has its own self-contained story, following a disparate set of characters in various settings.

Constructed as a nonlinear narrative, season one focuses on Louisiana State Police homicide detectives Rustin "Rust" Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin "Marty" Hart (Harrelson), who investigated the murder of Dora Lange in 1995. During the investigation, Hart's infidelity threatens his marriage to Maggie (Monaghan), and Cohle struggles to cope with his troubled past. Seventeen years later, they must revisit the investigation, now seemingly related to a slew of other unsolved missing-person cases and murders.

True Detective's first season explores themes of philosophical pessimism, masculinity, and Christianity; critics have analyzed the show's portrayal of women, its auteurist sensibility, and the influence of comics and weird horror fiction on its narrative.

Pizzolatto initially conceived True Detective as a novel, but felt it was more suitable for television. The episodes, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, were filmed in Louisiana over a three-month period. The series was widely acclaimed by critics and cited as one of the strongest dramas of 2014. It was a candidate for numerous awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film, and won several other honors for writing, cinematography, direction, and acting.

Before creating True Detective, Nic Pizzolatto taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, DePauw University, and the University of Chicago. Inspired by HBO's series The Wire, The Sopranos, and Deadwood, he began working on a short story collection that he later published as Between Here and the Yellow Sea in 2006. He published a novel, Galveston, in 2010, and began writing television scripts. His earlier attempts at television writing were unsuccessful because of a lack of money. Pizzolatto's first major gig in television writing came in 2011, as a screenwriter for AMC's series The Killing. He credits the show with giving him a glimpse of the inner workings of the television industry. Pizzolatto grew increasingly dissatisfied with the series' creative direction, and left two weeks into staff writing sessions for its second season.

True Detective was intended to be a novel, but once the project took definite form, Pizzolatto thought the narrative's shifts in time and perspective made it more suitable for television. He pitched an adaptation of Galveston, and from May to July 2010 he developed six screenplays, including an early, 90-page draft of the True Detective pilot script. Pizzolatto secured a development deal with HBO for a potential pilot series shortly thereafter.

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