HBO's True Detective - Catch this Crime Caper

I was excited to watch the premiere of HBO's True Detective. I even encouraged friends and family to watch. Something I usually refrain from doing.

First, it's HBO, they have a reputation for well-made programming; they are the station to beat. Second, they managed to secure Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, film talents that signed on for a television show because they will only be a part of it for the first season.

True Detective will be an anthology. Each season will have a completely new cast and story- unrelated to the previous seasons.

The show has only one writer, Nic Pizzolatto, and one director, Cary Fukunaga. This is unique as televisions shows use different directors for each episode and a bevy of writers. What this means is a cohesiveness usually unattainable.

The season opened with a crime scene set in Louisiana. The characters Rust Cohle and Martin Hart discover a ritualistic killing. The story is told from two different points, during the original murder investigation in 1995 and in a retrospective in 2012.

The cinematography is impressive.

The acting from the start is gripping. Harrelson does a great job, but McConaughey surpasses that benchmark. McConaughey's look is gaunt, having just lost a significant amount of weight for his film Dallas Buyer's Club, for which he won a golden globe.

McConaughey's recent output has made him an actor to follow, reinventing himself with work like Mud, Killer Joe, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

In a characterization scene, Rust Cohle waxes philosophically while Hart halts the monologue, telling him to be careful. It's humorously dark, Cohle and Hart at odds with how they deal with the world.

This is an episode that will play better after having watched more of the series, the pacing is slower, and not in a bad way. This is a story that is deliberate and direct.

Rust Cohle and Martin Hart.

McConaughey's delivery of his last line in the episode, urging detectives to ask the right questions is going to cause fans to decree another Golden Globe in his future.

Do I know if this season will provide a satisfying conclusion? No. But if the remaining seven episodes can maintain this level of quality, I won't be disappointed to tuning in every week.