I had never seen Ken Burns Civil War documentary. Similarly to his Jazz series, I put it off for a long time because of the investment of time, but was just as enthralled and once I got started couldn't wait to see the rest of the episodes. It piqued my interest enough to check out the supposedly definitive one volume history, Battle Cry of Freedom, and possibly later Shelby Foote's monumental trilogy (he was the primary commentator in the doc).
Also, True Detective blew my mind. I don't have perspective on it yet, but it is one of the better dramatic shows of its kind I've seen since The Wire and Breaking Bad. The atmosphere, acting, writing, well drawn characters, creepy, underscore and unsettling sound design, intricate plot and initially measured and tempered pacing building to a freight train climax were all outstanding, it was like a more layered, 8 hour feature film. The only way I can describe it is creating a new genre of existential, police procedural, horror, buddy cop anthology of which it is the sole example.
Without any spoilers, the way the flashback structure was interwoven, with events from the past increasingly colliding with the present, and the clues doled out judiciously as the narrative hurtled towards its culmination was brilliant and masterful. I think the director mentioned being a fan of how David Lynch built the suspense in Twin Peaks (which was pretty intense for its time, before it jumped the shark - somewhat like McConaughey, Kyle MacLachlan was also given an almost at times Martian, Bodhisattva-like detached manner, bearing, demeanor and outsider perspective in his life observation and commentary dialogue from Lynch). I had seen the reviews that said it was some of McConaughey and Harrelson's best work and agree. I had never heard nihilistic dialogue like what was given McConaughey before, it was kind of like the game changer the dialogue Tarantino gave to Travolta and Jackson in Pulp Fiction represented (not due to the content, which is dissimilar, but in upping the ante from anything I'd heard before, hitmen hadn't talked like that in movies previously - even though it sometimes drew attention to itself as self-consciously stylized, it had its own rhythm that was compelling).
Harrelson was the perfect uncomplicated, homespun, care free, happy go lucky, good old boy foil to interact with McConaughey's cool, collected but driven, obssessed, dark, brooding, deep thinker. After MM talks about how humans are sentient meat, WH asks offscreen in a seguway to another scene, what was that about scented meat?
, and an American remake in the works 
I thought Dredd was already a close enough remake.
