HBO’s president of programming Michael Lombardo explains what went wrong with True Detective season 2 and how he’s to blame for what happened…
True Detective season one may go down as one of the most well reviewed, well acted and well executed shows in the history of television, but unfortunately the lightning in a bottle that HBO captured for eight episodes failed to deliver a second time around in True Detective season two.
There are those critics out there who enjoyed True Detective season two — count me among those that enjoyed the show but not nearly as much as season one — but by large most fans and critical viewers panned the sophomore effort as a massive failure compared to the first season.
While there’s still no word on True Detective returning for season three, HBO president of programming Michael Lombardo said in a new interview that he’s actually taking the blame for many of the perceived failures that happened in the second season. As Lombardo explains, True Detective season one was such a hit that he immediately ordered a second season and expected the show to duplicate what it did previously while also giving creator Nic Pizzolatto a set schedule to follow rather than allow the work to happen organically.
The result was a season that didn’t resonate nearly as much with fans and Lombardo promises he’ll never do that again.
“I’ll tell you something. Our biggest failures — and I don’t know if I would consider True Detective 2 a failure — but 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. And I think in this particular case, the first season of True Detective was something that Nic Pizzolatto had been thinking about, gestating, for a long period of time. He’s a soulful writer. I think what we did was go, “Great.” And I take the blame. I became too much of a network executive at that point. We had huge success. “Gee, I’d love to repeat that next year,” Lombardo said.
“Well, you know what? I set him up. To deliver, in a very short time frame, something that became very challenging to deliver. That’s not what that show is. He had to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Find his muse. And so I think that’s what I learned from it. Don’t do that anymore.”
Lombardo admits that his natural reaction is to set up a schedule and have his shows and show runners adhere to those dates and deadlines. Now following the regression that happened in True Detective season two versus the acclaim heaped on season one, he realizes that sometimes he needs to take a step back and allow the creative process to flow first and then worry about schedules second.
“I’d love to have the enviable certainty of knowing what my next year looks like. I could pencil things in. But I’m not going to start betting on them until the scripts are done,” Lombardo said.
Pizzolatto has largely disappeared since the end of True Detective season two and while HBO executives including Lombardo have expressed interest in a third season of the mystery show, there’s still no word if it will happen now, later or ever.
H/T: The Frame
