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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   29231 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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I have seen several mainstream articles discussing the show's shortcomings (e.g., Slate, NYMag, Ringer). Whatever the showrunner says, it doesn't seem like anyone really thinks the back half of the show was any good. The RT critics/audience disconnect seems to me like it is more an artifact of critics' scores usually being based on the first couple episodes.

The critics had the whole season available to review. You can click on all the good reviews by critics here and see that. https://www.metacritic.com/tv/true-detective/season-4/

But you're right, it was poorly reviewed by a lot of outlets, it's just to come out looking good on aggregators you only have to have a few 100s/90s to balance that out and still look well reviewed.

The critics had the whole season available to review.

And videogame journalists have the whole game to review, but a recurring feature of videogame reviews is that the reviewer obviously played a game with 100 hours of content for about 2 hours and then wrote their assignment.

People are lazy and cut corners in their jobs, c'est le vie.

I mean, you get paid the same amount for writing the review whether you play for 2 hours or 100 hours, and you don't get paid very much either way.

I'm gonna say it would be pretty hard for most critics to feed themselves if they put 100 hours into every article they write. God forbid they have a family to feed, too.

Most entertainment reviews you see today are on free sites. You get what you pay for.

I understand you are trying to employ empathy for people who work crappy jobs - you wouldn't want to work a job for a hundred hours and get $200 out of it, so you understand why they don't do that. But the correct response should be to encourage them to find another job, not give them a pass on the job they signed up for. Nobody forced them to be critics, and they get paid so poorly because that's what they are willing to work for. Note also that if they enjoy the game, they are likely to play it for a hundred hours after the review for free.

Quite a few outlets have right criticized it, but quite a few have not. Rolling Stone for example:

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-recaps/true-detective-night-country-series-finale-recap-jodie-foster-1234967345/

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