Only Murders Season 2 offers diminishing returns

[TMC]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/27/a...-season-2.html

“Only Murders in the Building” is the latest series to explore the mystery: Does a good first season always need a sequel?

By James Poniewozik
Published June 27, 2022
Updated June 28, 2022

Early in the second season of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), one of a trio of amateur sleuths and podcasters, points out a pitfall of murder shows. “It’s very rare for a true-crime podcast to do a sequel,” he says. “They usually move on to a new case that never hits like the original.”

It’s just one of several meta “second season” references, which come across half like knowing jokes, half like pre-emptive confessions. “You guys are really struggling this season,” one character says, while a Greek chorus of podcast fans grouse about the season-within-a-season’s pacing: “Five entire episodes of vamping.”

“Only Murders” is a smart show — smart, as its New Yorker-esque opening titles suggest, is its brand — and it must know what it’s doing here. It is talking not only about murder podcasts, nor only about itself.

Instead, this series, which returns Tuesday and whose first season was a low-key delight of 2021, is one face in a curious modern TV lineup: Programs that tell a satisfying, complete story in a single season but then keep going, often with diminishing returns.

We live in the TV age of more. It’s no longer a rare miracle for a canceled series to find a new home. Seemingly any vintage show with a fan base can be revived, thanks to a wealth of deep-pocketed outlets. The philosophy today is that if you can give people more of what they liked, then don’t waste time pondering whether you should.

[Chocolate Moose]

iT'S GOT SO FEW EPISODES TOO.