The groundbreaking comedy-drama about four Native American teens is one of the greatest TV shows of recent times, yet has been mostly ignored by the big awards bodies.
The groundbreaking comedy-drama about four Native American teens is one of the greatest TV shows of recent times, yet has been mostly ignored by the big awards bodies.
I was happily surprised there was a season 3 since they could have stopped at the end of season 2. I’m glad they didn’t. That said, the first two seasons had a more structured story line and I think it should have gotten awards then. Season 3 was good, but didn’t have the same cohesion. There were more stand-alone episodes. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I was happy to watch them all, but I can see where some people might feel it a weaker season because of that. Still, the show should have gotten more praise sooner.
I think they’d planned a fourth season but found out they were cancelled in the middle of production, so they had to shift a bit to cover the ground they wanted to. It maybe seemed a bit less focused but I still think it was really high quality. That residential school episode especially deserves award consideration!
Source for this planned 4th season? Everything I’ve heard/read indicates that Sterlin Harjo felt the end of season 3 was the natural place to end it and it was his decision to stop there.
I shouldn’t have said ‘planned fourth season’, but I’ve read that the 3rd wasn’t the planned ending until they were into production.
Lane Factor talks about not knowing it was ending until well into filming in this Vulture interview. He says that he knew the future of the show was uncertain. This Paulina Alexis interview also says that it was mid-production that they learned it was ending. Midway through filming they announced that they were writing it like it was the end even though it wasn’t certain that it was ending. She says the same thing here. It is weird though because Sterlin Harjo does frequently say that it was a creative decision to end it, yet it’s often referred to as cancelled. Even as a creative decision, it seems to have been a very late one.
Holy shit do I hope they do that Willie Jack spinoff she talks about in those interviews!