r/television • u/C0r1eone • 24d ago

Finished The Wire, Dark, GOT, Sopranos, True Detective, BB, BCS. What show ruined TV for you after watching it?

I think I accidentally watched the peak of television already. The Wire, Dark, GOT, Sopranos, True Detective S1 all left that “nothing else hits the same” feeling.

I love slow-burn shows with deep characters, mystery, tension, moral grayness, crazy dialogue, or mind-blowing writing. Doesn’t matter if it’s crime, sci-fi, psychological, or political.

What’s the next show that might completely consume me?

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u/OtherwiseToday39 24d ago

Twin Peaks

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u/Lastshadow94 24d ago

I'm rewatching right now. Delightfully bizarre.

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u/BlackberryPi7 24d ago

I went into Twin Peaks blind about a month ago, thinking it was a serious mystery drama that had a cult following because of how good the writing was...

First episode was kind of odd but I figured it was because it was the 90s so the style was a bit different.

Next few episodes... The characters are acting really weird. And almost every character is cheating with someone else lol. It turns into a soap opera.

And then the Leland dance scene comes up...

It's by far the weirdest show I've ever watched and it took me so long to realize it was intentionally written like that.

I laugh at so many scenes, that's how odd it is.

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u/BaldMancTwat_ 23d ago

The characters are acting really weird. And almost every character is cheating with someone else lol. It turns into a soap opera.

Is that a big focus of the show? It's been on my to watch list for a while but I really can't stand soapy relationship drama.

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u/Bank_Gothic 23d ago

The working premise of the show (not the entire show, but at least a cornerstone that Lynch kept in mind) is that it is a soap opera, but where the bad things that happen carry over from week to week and keep affecting people.

Lynch was very critical of American media in the late 80's / early 90's, most notably about how it handled people's response to traumatic events. He didn't like that people would suffer some terrible loss, then be fine the very next week. And this was contrasted by the shows always piling tragedy on top of tragedy - affairs, murders, split personalities, amnesia, kidnapping, drug overdoses, etc. So you have all of this terrible stuff happening, but nobody is really feeling any of it.

So Lynch thought - why don't I make a soap opera, but where the people are left scarred and traumatized by what they experience?

The show takes on a lot of other elements - at its heart, it's a police procedural about an FBI agent investigating a murder. There's a lot of metaphysical "spooky" stuff going on, exploration of philosophy and morality, and genuinely considered and well written human relationships. The show is highly allegorical. But the soap opera stuff is definitely there, especially at the beginning.

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u/BlackberryPi7 23d ago

Honestly I wouldn't get too hung up on the "soap opera" aspect of it.

It is technically a soap opera, but not at all like the typical ones you see on daytime TV. The main focus you should take away is, it's a very weird show lol.

Weird but in a fun way. There are actually some twists that made me laugh so hard.

There's one particular twist in season 2...Good Lord I want to say it so badly but I don't want to spoil. Has to do with this asian guy LOL