True Detective Season 3: 8 Ways To Fix The Show

5. The Pacing

HBO

True Detective is a slow-burner of a show, gradually unravelling the layers of its characters and peeling away at the central mystery. There's nothing wrong with this approach, as it allows for some great characterisation and the case to build-up, with lots of online theorising and predictions about whodunnit.

However, there's slow and then there is slow, with no real plot advancement, little characterisation, and pretty much nothing happening in each episode, until it gets to the end and Pizzolatto suddenly remembers that he's got an awesome idea for a cliffhanger. Nothing...nothing...BOOM, Colin Farrell gets shot. Nothing....nothing...WOAH, epic shootout.

The pacing was one of the big drawbacks of Season 2, and really hindered the show in the early episodes. For a potential Season 3, spreading big events throughout any given episode (and across the episodes, not just the last couple), so you're not just waiting to get to the end for the cool stuff to happen, would be one way of improving things, as would doing more to set up the story and the various character arcs.

Contributor
Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.