I've finished True Detective. Sorry to the fans of the show here, but I can't really say that I thought it was very good. I was tentatively approving of it earlier, as you might remember, but I was honestly giving it the benefit of the doubt based on its impressive technical competence, intriguing style, and a decent first couple of episodes. From there, it all went downhill. For all its weight, all its gravitas, all its grim seriousness, this show doesn't amount to much more than a stock serial killer hunt, one that's stretched out over eight very long, dull, slow hours. Along the way, it hits pretty much every predictable cliché there is. All the cop clichés are here. All the serial killer clichés are here. It even strives to fall in line with the standard "Golden Age" tropes, like douchebag protagonists, painful-to-watch family melodrama, and women seldom being more than interfering family members or disposable sex objects.
And all this stuff would be fine, if the show had any self-awareness and tried to have some fun along the way, but it doesn't. It's consistently dark, depressing, humorless, and joyless, and yet doesn't have a decent story that might make it worth sitting through all the doom and gloom. The combination of clichés and weight is truly strange. It's like it tried to have it both ways - be fun, and at the same time be deep and emotionally compelling, but somehow they screwed it up and ended up with the worst of both worlds - it's hackneyed, and at the same time it's pretentious wangst.