I saw it coming at either episode 3 or 4-- I saw all the set-ups and tropes and I knew they were destined to fail. The show had a ton going for it-- great actors, beautiful cinematography, gorgeous and disturbing settings, a huge budget, some great callouts to John Carpenter;s "The Thing.," but once again-- the writing killed it.
Not the dialogue mind you. That was okay. I imagine that there was some writer's room somewhere (while those still exist) and they sketched out all of the themes and tropes and ideas that they wanted to deal with (and it probably would have looked like the chalk board in "School of Rock," except it was probably in Excel). Then they got hammering.
And yes, the show started with some seriously creepy, disturbing, engaging themes. Yes, they had to layer in just about every PC/SJW theme imaginable along the way. But I could have handled that if they pay-off was good. There was no-fucking-way that a six episode run could master or maintain the number of characters and issues they raised (and or dropped). I won TWO bets on this series (made during episode #3) with the person who persevered watching it with me. Bet #1 was that the series would fall apart at or about episode 4 or 5. Bet #2 was that Hank was not getting ANY girl by the end of the show (yeah, that was a weird bet). But that subplot was a perfect example of a meaningless throw-away. Unlike a lot of stuff thrown onto the chalk-board, at least there was an attempt at closure of that story-line.
What a massive, compelling, potentially-beautiful mess that season is. It continues to piss me off that mass-media can generate and produce such extravagant productions without investing or understanding the nature of writing or literature. Honestly, there is little difference between "Night Country" vs pornography; titillate, visually stimulate, and evoke something primal in the viewers. No need for an actual cohesive manuscript or "bible" (eg., for shows like "Babylon 5" and "Lost" or even "Adventure Time"). Just keep throwing stimulating shot at the viewers; without requiring a ton of bilateral involvement of the prefrontal cortex... It even teased us with hockey (which we really never got to see). Wasn't one of the frail, lesbian girlfriends a hockey player (and didn't she look like a puck could have killed her)? And at what point in time did HBO throw away the "hot" lesbian? Wasn't that one of their tried-and-true foils?!?
I dunno- I just feel cheated as it had a lot going for it and they fucked it all up...
I have a buddy who does stunt work in Atlanta in movies and TV shows. He's been in a couple of them Marvel films, Hunger Games, and a smattering pretty much anything on TV. Even just doing stupid stunts like falling down stairs, but he's been on a lot of sets and productions. When we catch up I always kind of ask him about the industry or maybe call him on occasions to pick his brain about a certain film that I saw.
One topic that always comes up is how do these giant shows and movies with hundreds of million dollars for a budget get greenlit and produced when you have literally hundreds of people working on said project, and then this massive project turns out to be an utter piece of shit, and no one along the way said hey maybe this is a bad decision, or hey this is going to screw with continuity, or hey that's just not believable. He just kind of laughs and says people are just there to collect a paycheck and if you rock the boat you aren't going to get any more gigs. That's it, just keep your mouth shut and make certain the production runs as smooth as possible and do your job, because at the end of the day for a lot of these people it's a job.
Doesn't happen on every set, and they're still good TV and movies out there, but he said those are much more cohesive crews or teams where everybody's invested into the vision of the creator that really shows and things like some of the smaller Independent films. DEI is a big thing (no surprise).
When Batgirl I think was getting made they were trying to find writers. He's been trying to get out of stunt stuff and in a more heavy production and writing, and with Batman being his favorite comic character, he tried to apply. The application processes or whatever listed out a number of bullet points for what they were looking for order to apply, and I'm paraphrasing, but front and center was knowledge of racism, growing up as a person of color, LGBT acceptance or something, basically every box you would need to check off. At the very bottom of the bullet points, knowledge of the comics is optional but appreciated.
Needless to say he didn't get that gig being an athletic white dude. He also feels like he dodged a bullet considering how that show turned out.
He does say Tyler Perry is a machine when it comes to productions, and that being on one of his sets it's run like clockwork, and that's why he's been so successful even if he's putting out garbage. The man knows how to organize and execute extremely efficiently, one two takes at the most.
Sorry I know I kind of got out to the weeds, but it's still surprising that you have a project where you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and even with all of these talented people supposedly you're working with, it still manages to turn into a turd, but hey the money is green.
Edit: sorry TTT