HBO canceled this successful horror show without reason (but it could have been for the best)

It is rare for a television series to find his foot when he touches the ground. Personally, some of my favorite shows of all time (whether they “stop and take fire” or “Star Wars rebels” – my tastes are nothing except eclectic) were clearly uncertain of what they even wanted to be during their first seasons. Even peak television touch stones like “Mad Men” are much more clumsy and to take away in their first episodes that you may not remember. Really, the list of small darling screen titles that took a rocky start is growing again and again. (Just ask your local trekkie one day in the first season of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” … but maybe put an hour aside before you.)

This is also what makes all these short-lived short-term shows that fascinating “What Ips”, perhaps little than the adaptation of the extremely ambitious HBO series by Misha Green of Matt Ruff Smorgasbord of black history, horror, science fiction and fantasy, “Lovecraft Country”. As its title and its description suggest, Ruff 2016’s novel and the reinterpretation of the small green screen aim to correct the horrible racism of the work of HP Lovecraft while kissing the very influential perspectives of the writer and brilliant a light on the dark truths of American history. Given this intimidating task, it may not be surprising that the first season of the “Lovecraft Country” series from Green was a mosaic of spectacular images and concepts but riddled by under-examination ideas, sons of the underdeveloped plot and unsatisfactory arcs. At worst, the series was guilty of having connected its conspiracy to real historical events “in a way that was in equal awkward and exasperating parts”, as Lex Pryor of Ringer said.

However, with the winning show of strong criticisms at the beginning and generating robust notes for an original HBO, there was a fair reason to hope that “Lovecraft Country” would fully take itself in a second season after having covered the entire Ruff’s book. Indeed, shortly after the end of the first season, Green told Deadline that she had already mapped another season which would continue to “recover the gender narrative space from which people of color have generally been excluded”. So why did it not happen? The answer, a bit like the series itself, is heartbreaking and frustrating at the same time.

In the context of the United States of Jim Crow-Ere in the 1950s (a time and a place as frightening as everything that has ever imagined Lovecraft), season 1 of “Lovecraft Country” focuses on the adventures of Freeman “Freeman” of the war of gender fiction) and his family, his friends and various partners. Immediately, you can see at least one reason why, looking back now, HBO leaders are probably relieved that they have canceled the series in July 2021, the majors having since been found guilty of harassment and aggression in court.

Before his conviction, a Rolling Stone bomb report also revealed several additional allegations against the majors, accusing him of abusive and toxic behavior both in his personal life and his professional environments as an actor. Please note, all of this was released after the publication of the 2021 book “Tinderbox: the ruthless pursuit of HBO of the new borders”. There, the author / journalist James Andrew Miller published allegations of “people who worked on the show and people who represented people on the program” that the environment on the “Country Lovecraft” was not healthy “, as Miller informed the Hollywood journalist at the time of the release of the book. Based on Miller’s investigation, which is why HBO chose to chop the series without providing a reason beyond the vague by business. As if that were not enough, the actor of an extraordinary character and the co-star of “Lovecraft Country” Michael K. Williams (who was as convincing as never in the role of the emotionally damaging father of ICT, Montrose), then died of an accidental overdose two months after the preserver of the show.

Were the majors the real problem from the start? Was there other problems with the way Green managed the show? Frankly, it seems irresponsible to speculate on the question. All that can be said is that the brutal and flawless representation of the series of real horrors of the prejudices exploited directly in the Zeitgeist of Black Lives Matter demonstrations when it was broadcast in the summer of 2020 … but it was also a project where it seemed that its creator had no control of the steering wheel. Again, to quote the Lex Pryor of La Ringer again, perhaps what matters most is that a black woman like Green “has actually gave space to shoot for the moon rather than the fact that she often lacked”. This may be what will really lead to something better in the future.