AMC's Rubicon: Can We Love a Mystery Again?
Here's a trailer for AMC's upcoming mystery series, about a think tank employee (James Badge Dale) who begins to uncover a conspiracy involving branches of government and big business. It involves four-leaf clovers somehow? Mostly the trailer is just confusing.
Which is obviously part of the point. But is it also intriguing, the way it needs to be? I'm not quite sure about that. The simplistic, expository "Judicial, Legislative, Executive, and...?" business seems a little hokey. But mostly I'm just not really sure these days if single-mystery shows can really sustain themselves with any worthwhile momentum. Maybe the conspiracy spiderwebs out and creates whole new offshoots that could last season upon season, but presumably there's a central mystery at work and eventually that's going to have to get answered. It's very possible that the show has a slower, more deliberate pace and that the trailer makes it look like things are rushing by to net some curious eyeballs. If this is the Mad Men of mystery shows, that could be really cool. But if it's just a straight-up thriller series with one constantly petering-out question? It'll have to be really good right away to merit any loyalty.
Lost may have broken my mystery-loving heart, I fear.