Whether you thought the second season of True Detective was gilded trash or one long, gloomy mood piece to drink a whole lot to, the show wasn't really all that...good. Sure, it was stylish and weirdly mesmerizing, but it didn't have that je ne sais quoi of the first season, with its marvelously ponderous performances and weird fiction references and Deep South setting. Six months later, HBO is admitting that, hey, maybe things didn't go as well as they hoped.
In an interview with Southern California public-radio station KPCC, HBO president of programming Michael Lombardo displayed an unusual level of candor when discussing the creative merits of True Detective, chalking the show's lack of critical success to executive decisions.
"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," Lombardo told KPCC's The Frame. "The first season of True Detective was something that [creator] Nic Pizzolatto had been thinking about, gestating, for a long period of time... I became too much of a network executive at that point. We had huge success. ‘Gee, I’d love to repeat that next year.’ ”
This is really cool of Lombardo, to just come out and say "my bad, dudes" so soon after a big misstep. It's also really unusual, especially this soon after the season concluded. In fact, the whole interview is pretty great—Lombardo remains remarkably frank throughout, coming across as incredibly thoughtful about the systemic nature of television's diversity problem, and also how we don't have enough dongs on premium cable shows. "Because white men produce the shows," he says bluntly. "Why is a man’s genitalia so much more ‘verboten’?... That’s bullshit.”
Now, if we can only get HBO to apologize for The Newsroom, canceling Deadwood, and the night of sleep I lost tearing through The Jinx in one sitting, we'll be good.