My wife and I finally finished watching True Detective on Tuesday. She was out of town while it was on TV so we were watching it on demand and life is busy enough that it took us quite a while to catch up. I ended up staying off Twitter, Facebook and several of the blogs I read to avoid spoilers. I won’t be posting any here either.

I’m not completely sure when or why True Detective caught my eye but I think the when was on the plane to The Bahamas and the why was the star power of McMatthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Or maybe it was instinct. Either way, like most of the Internet, we were impressed – in my opinion it’s some of the best TV I’ve seen for quite some time.

It’s hard to pin down why but I tend to enjoy darker movies and I’m comfortable with a slow burn story. Stylistically it pushed all the right buttons for me and the slower pace made a welcome change to most shows. At times, it felt like we’d been glued to an hour of TV where nothing happened. I often find myself enjoying shows with shorter seasons more than the 20+ episode shows. I suspect it’s easier to really nail the quality with a decent budget spread across 8 or 10 episodes.

I’m not going to try to unravel all of Nic Pizzolatto’s influences (other people have done a better job than I ever would) but there’s so much there it warrants another viewing at some point.  Great writing, great directing, great story. So good, in fact, that I’m kind of disappointed they’re planning a second season. It’s not surprising I guess but I’d have liked to have seen it stay a memorable one off. I’ll be watching the second season anyway, of course.

So, if you haven’t watched it yet and you like your crime drama dark and intelligent, you should.

[Brief Thoughts on True Detective by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 27th March 2014]