With “Vinyl” floundering out of the gate, big budget fare like “Westworld” and”Lewis & Clark” facing production woes, and high profile projects from David Fincher and Steve McQueen scrapped — all within the last year — it was only a matter of time before HBO started seeing some major changes. And last week, the industry shook with the news that HBO programming president Michael Lombardo — who had been with the company for over three decades — was stepping down. Now, Casey Bloys, who had formerly overseen HBO’s comedies, is stepping into Lombardo’s role, and no doubt he has a lot of big decisions ahead of him. But it appears one brand name show might not be returning, at least not anytime soon: “True Detective.”
The first season from creator Nic Pizzolatto was a critical smash, an audience favorite, and seemed to indicate that HBO had a potentially winning formula on their hands — an A-list cast gets involved with a twisty mystery, with the setting and story changing for each series. But the wheels came off with season two, as it doubled down on the gloom but lost the quality of its predecessor. And ever since, the future of the drama has been in doubt.
Last fall, Pizzolatto inked a two-year deal with HBO, but even at that time, there was some indication that the next steps for “True Detective” weren’t quite clear. The network had apparently given the writer/creator a number of scenarios to keep the show going — getting him a staff of writers, getting a show-runner to come in, or letting him tackle it alone again — but it appears he wants to move on. According to THR, a new show from Pizzolatto is now looking “more likely” than “True Detective” season three.
I can’t imagine that’s been an easy decision to arrive at. Even if the second season stumbled, “True Detective” remains a premise with unending potential. That said, perhaps creating some distance before making another outing makes some sense. As for what Pizzolatto is gearing up next, we’ll just have to wait and see.