The Night Of Wasn’t the next True Detective

In the end, The Night Of couldn’t overtake True Detective

The Night Of, HBO’s newest foray into the crime genre, proved to be an engaging way to spend a summer. It’s likely that HBO wanted to keep the momentum going from True Detective’s second season, which aired the previous summer. While most will agree that The Night Of trumped True Detective’s broody second outing, it couldn’t quite match the pace of the first season.

And let’s be honest here, when most people talk about True Detective, they’re actually talking about the first season with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. It’s not exactly fair to compare the two series to each other, but it’s almost impossible not to. Same network, same timeslot, same genre. While The Night Of started strong — though weird, what with the eczema — a few slip-ups along the way didn’t help.

Watch the tense original tease for The Night Of:

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Really, The Night Of was never going to be True Detective in term of pop culture acceptance; something like that only comes along once in a while. The Night Of is too slow, perhaps event too realistic (in terms of the justice system) to reach the same highs. Arguably The Night Of had a stronger conclusion even if it was a rougher road getting there.

In either case, however, a short miniseries only has so many chances to get it right per week. If The Night Of were a regular series returning next year, the problems that cropped up this season could potentially be easier to forget. As it stands, they stand out like a sore thumb, and they always will.

Where as both shows gave a fair amount of attention to character development, Naz just wasn’t that engaging. His silence made it difficult to get inside his head, and even more difficult to empathize with him. And no two characters on The Night Of matched the compelling friction between Rust and Marty.

Next: Danny McBride and Walton Goggins mess around for GQ.

Here’s hoping that HBO continues to explore crime. Despite some of our misgivings, The Night Of was a success that could easily pave the way for other shows of similar ilk. And maybe next time it won’t be standalone.