HBO’s Best Show Of All Time Was So Good, It Killed An Entire Franchise

HBO’s best show of all time is arguably True Detective, and it was so good that it killed its own franchise. Being named one of the best HBO shows of all time is an incredible accomplishment, and one that is nowhere near easy. HBO is, after all, responsible for some of the best television shows of all time. From The Sopranos to Game of Thrones to The Pitt, HBO has been the preeminent hitmaker of prestige television for decades now.

Even the best of HBO’s offerings have their faults, however. Game of Thrones infamously got worse after it surpassed George R.R. Martin’s novels, for example, while The Sopranos hasn’t aged perfectly. The best HBO show, however, was perfect from start to finish, even though later seasons of the show weren’t as good. In fact, those later seasons that were lacking only prove how perfect the first season of True Detective really was.

True Detective Season 1 Is As Perfect As It Gets

The first season of True Detective is, on its own, the single best piece of television HBO has ever produced. Since True Detective is an anthology series, each season presents a completely isolated and standalone story. That first standalone story, of Rust (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty (Woody Harrelson) investigating the occult killing of Dora Lange, was absolutely flawless.

Everything about True Detective season 1 worked perfectly. McConaughey and Harrelson were a perfect pairing, the dialogue — especially Rust’s — was superb, the entire show was so beautifully shot, and even the intro was iconic. It had all the right ingredients to be a good show, and the fact that its story is so expertly paced, so unnervingly eerie, and so impossibly intriguing and mysterious only cemented it as one of HBO’s greatest achievements.

True Detective season 1, taken as a standalone show, is significantly shorter than any other HBO show. At just eight hour-long episodes, it wasn’t difficult for True Detective to never have a bad moment. Game of Thrones, for instance, only started to trend downward after five phenomenal seasons. True Detective season 1 didn’t run long enough for it to start to diminish in quality, so it’s not a stretch to say it’s a truly perfect show that couldn’t be better in any way.

True Detective’s Sequel Seasons Were Doomed To Fail

True Detective season 1 wasn’t a standalone show, however, and its sequel seasons simply weren’t as good as the first installment. As previously mentioned, the very fact that subsequent seasons of True Detective couldn’t live up to the debut season is proof of how perfect the debut season was. True Detective seasons 2, 3, and 4 were doomed from the start because season 1 set such an impossibly high bar for them to be compared against.

True Detective season 2, for example, was actually a serviceable police procedural. It was incredibly hated when it was released in 2015, and while it’s certainly not one of the best mystery shows, it had a few very good aspects. Its main criticism was that it wasn’t as good as season 1. The same goes for season 3, and the show’s most successful sequel story, season 4, got most of its acclaim because it was the closest to the eerie ambiance and mysticism of season 1.

Because it started out so strong, True Detective ruined any hope of turning the series into a successful franchise. An anthology series coupling big name actors in mystical, supernatural murder investigations should have been a home run. If every mystery could have met the bar season 1 set, True Detective would undoubtedly be the best police procedural ever made.

Instead, later seasons of True Detective had to go up against the best police procedural ever put to film. True Detective ran into the same problem most sequels run into. It’s not unlike The Dark Knight Rises: that was a great film on its own, but since it was a direct sequel to one of the best superhero movies ever made, The Dark Knight, it just couldn’t compare.

True Detective Will Never Live Up To The First Season

The most disheartening result of how superb True Detective season 1 was is the fact that the show will never reach those heights again. True Detective season 1 was truly lightning in a bottle. Everything about it was executed so flawlessly that the show can’t even hope to live up to it. The later seasons are proof that True Detective has already hit its peak and won’t ever be able to recreate the magic of the first season.

That’s not for lack of trying, either. Each season of True Detective has tried to recreate something great about the first installment. True Detective season 4, Night Country, came the closest with its supernatural story and overt references to season 1, but it, too, fell flat in the end. Try as it might, True Detective will never be able to catch lightning in a bottle again like it did with McConaughey and Harrelson’s first season.