Stop treating True Detective like a game!

TIME

The HBO series didn't pioneer the "gameification" of narrative television, but the polarizing Season 1 finale "revealed one hazard of gamified TV: an unsatisfying conclusion makes everything that came before it feel like a waste of time," says Judy Berman. She adds: "For these viewers, True Detective failed not because of any particular story flaw but because in its final moments, it claimed the right to be an ambiguous work of art–instead of an interactive challenge that fans could win or lose by solving the mystery." The gameification of TV can also be seen in newer shows Westworld and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. "Even if Bandersnatch doesn’t turn out to be the future of television, its mere existence is a sign of times when games of speculation can drown out wider-ranging conversations about shows whose meaning can’t be reduced to a right or wrong answer," she says.