The True Impact of True Detective
After ten years on the air, True Detective’s fourth season will again invite viewers to reevaluate the landmark drama
Image: True Detective: Night Country, HBO
Crime anthology True Detective rocked the television world when it premiered in 2014. The nonlinear story that tracked a series of grisly, ritualized murders in rural Louisiana dared viewers to look away, while at the same time, incredible performances from Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey made the show impossible not to watch. True Detective won over TV viewers everywhere, launched a fleet of imitators, and forever transformed McConaughey’s career.
In January, a decade after the show debuted, True Detective: Night Country will premiere on HBO. The anthology series has been slow and deliberate about the production of new installments, with Night Country just the fourth season in 10 years (compare that with American Horror Story, which has seen nine seasons come and go in the same span of time). To celebrate, we’re mapping out how viewers’ sentiment on the show has changed with each season, and looking at the impact these seasons have had on the reputations of their respective stars.
After the tremendous reception of the first season, showrunner Nic Pizzolatto didn’t waste much time in producing the follow-up. Starring Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, and Vince Vaughn, Season 2 of True Detective was released in June of 2015. But while buzz around the show was louder during the first season than in the second, Ranker data shows that fan sentiment of True Detective remained solidly positive throughout the show’s decade-long run.
This chart tracks True Detective’s average monthly sentiment score both during and after the release of each new season. While the average score did take a noticeable dip from Season 1’s 67%, True Detective continued to get a large enough number of upvotes on lists like The Best HBO Shows Of All Time (105K votes) to stay well above 50%. In fact, during the three months when new episodes of Season 2 were airing, the average monthly score was 71%, higher than the 64% score Season 1 got during the three months it was on the air.
Critics saw the third season, which starred Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff, as another major success. Ranker voters tended to view it positively, as well, voting True Detective an average of 3 percentage points higher during and after the third season than they did in the second. Like the first season, the average score the season got while new episodes were still premiering was 64%.
True Detective’s first season was a key factor in The McConaissance — the period in the 2010s when Matthew McConaughey successfully transitioned from rom-com heartthrob to serious dramatic actor. Though McConaughey started this transition earlier with roles in films like Killer Joe and The Lincoln Lawyer, it wasn’t until 2014 that Ranker data shows his score with readers improved significantly. From 2013 to 2014, his average sentiment score rose 10 points from a negative score of 44% to a positive one of 55%.
Vince Vaughn underwent a similar, less widely recognized transition during the 2010s. The celebrated comic actor was recognized for his strong performances in dramas Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete in 2017 and 2018. And like McConaughey, Vaughn also got a boost in terms of sentiment among Ranker readers, albeit a smaller one. From the year following Season 2 of True Detective to the year after, Vaughn’s average sentiment score went from 48% to 52%.
Mahershala Ali didn’t see much of a comparable change overall in the year following the release of Season 3. However, while we can’t fairly attribute this entirely to True Detective, Ali did rise an incredible 28 spots over the course of 2019 on our list of The Best African American Film Actors (11K votes), from #68 to #30. Ali has since continued his forward progress up the list and currently sits at #16.
It’s hard to make predictions about the reception of True Detective: Night Country. The casting of Jody Foster in the lead role is sure to draw plenty of attention, this being the first time she’s had an on-screen television role since the 1970s. It’s also the first time the script won’t come from showrunner Pizzolatto, who’s handed off writing duties to renowned Mexican screenwriter Issa López.
But sentiment scores for True Detective have been climbing at a steady pace since October, rising by an average of around 4 points each month. Despite releasing only 24 episodes over the last decade, this show is still highly effective at building anticipation. True Detective: Night Country premieres January 14, 2024, and we can’t wait to watch — and to see how it stacks up in the eyes of the show’s dedicated fans.