With two small kids at home I don't get to watch a lot of TV. Actually let me be clear. I don't get to watch a lot of "grown-up TV". I watch tons of Disney Channel and Nick Jr.

Recently though I've made it a point to catch up on past series and watch some current shows - this all usually happening after 10pm on weeknights once the kids (and the wife) are asleep. Luckily I don't have a real job being a freelance producer/director, so I don't normally have to get up too early. :)

On weekends I do watch some shows with my wife though, too. Mainly we're catching up on "Breaking Bad" (she's addicted to it). We're in the middle of Season 3 thanks to Netflix streaming.  We also watch "Homeland" together and we did watch "Dexter", until that series ended recently.

My all-time favorite series is HBO's "The Sopranos", which I used to watch religiously, but that was before kids and seems like a thousand years ago. Now my favorite show by far is another HBO drama, "True Detective".  I get to watch it time-shifted (since I'm otherwise busy with "Octonauts") because of HBO OnDemand and HBOGO.

I tend to go towards the darker shows as I think you can tell my some of the ones I've mentioned here, and "True Detective" definitely fits in that category. But it's not dark for the sake of being dark. It's just a gripping dark tale because it's a great story with great writing, great acting, great cinematography and great directing, etc. I can't say enough great things about this show.

Here's a cool article with the DP Adam Arkapaw about why he chose to shoot 35mm.

Here's a good interview with the director Cary Fukunaga about the now famous 6-minute "oner" (a single shot) that ends episode 4 in a housing project (mild spoilers).

And here's a nice behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show:



The show is True Art from top to bottom and I highly recommend you watch it. If you don't have HBO, then this is a great reason to add it.

One day I hope the HBOGO app will let you buy shows a la carte, it would be a huge money make for HBO I think, and limit piracy a lot (I realize why they don't do this yet, but I think that might change in a few years). Give the content to people when they want it for a fair price and people will buy it. But this is for a different post.

If you love the craft of filmmaking and a great story then "True Detective" should be on the top of your list.

-Blake