The Night Of is being hailed as a truly great drama, perhaps the first HBO has aired in half a decade that isn’t set in Westeros. It’s being compared to all manner of acclaimed crime stories, even documentaries, from Making a Murderer to Serial to O.J.: Made in America to The Jinx to American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson toFargo and on and on and on. And who knows? To extent that the critics making these comparisons have seen the whole shebang, they may well be proved right. But as of “The Beach,” the series premiere, I’m about as optimistic about this series becoming one for the ages as poor wrongfully accused Nasir Khan is about getting released on his own recognizance. One overlong episode in, The Night Of is a deeply okay show.
Which comes as something of a shock even if you don’t factor in its rapturous reception. For a series with such a writerly pedigree — Price is an acclaimed novelist in addition to his work writing for The Wire; Zaillian is an A-list screenwriter with credits like Schindler’s List, Gangs of New York, Moneyball, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo under his belt — what’s on offer here is surprisingly, disappointingly rote. The biggest problem is Andrea Cornish, the murder victim. A sort of manic-depressive pixie dream girl, she waltzes into Naz’s purloined cab mouthing vague, poetic, patently unrealistic dialogue: proclaiming “I can’t be alone tonight,” citing her destination as simply “the beach,” and so on. You know, like you do when you’re a woman hopping alone into a complete stranger’s car in the middle of the night.
As the night goes on she becomes even more of a magical mystery tour in female form — dispensing drugs, inviting him back to her sumptuously appointed apartment, lending a sympathetic ear when he’s mocked by an Islamophobic passer-by, dispensing more drugs, indulging in a bit of erotic mumbletypeg with Mazzy Star’s “Into Dust” cooing in the background, and finally fucking him. As far as the show’s concerned, she died as she lived: a glamorous cipher for the advancement of the male protagonist’s plot.
I reviewed the premiere of The Night Of for Decider. I was not a big fan.
Tags: decider, reviews, the night of, TV, TV reviews