Duster... I've Got Some Good News and Some Bad News

Normally people like to ask "do you want the good news or bad news first". Quite aften people like to end on a positive. Well in this case, I can make a nice good news, bad news, good news sandwich.

When I first wrote about the show Duster a couple of weeks ago, I was only half way through the show. Although I loved it, there was still plenty of time for it to turn bad and for me to give up on it. Well the good news is that the show never lost it's mojo. I think it actually improved as it headed toward the season finale. Far too often shows start out like a house on fire and fizzle out. Not Duster. It stayed exciting until the very end. And the characters got even more interesting. Most importantly, no character did anything so dumb that I could no longer take the show seriously. It was just a damn good show from beginning to end.

And that leads me to the bad news. The end. Not in a "The ending ruined the entire show!" (I'm looking at you Sopranos, How I Met Your Mother, and The Wire). The finale was awesome! The bad news is that this is ... the end. HBO Max did not review the show for a second season. Despite it being a huge hit with critics and having a pretty good following, HBO Max pulled the plug on it. They didn't even give it a chance for word of mouth to spread and for more people to jump on board after hearing how awesome it was. Who knows, maybe Netflix or some other service will pick it up. But for now, it is over. It is yet another example of production companies just not getting it. There are so few original ideas left out there. When you find one, hold onto it for dear life!

So what are you gonna do now that those idiots canceled us?

So how can this be the good news, bad news, good news sandwich I promised if the bad news is so terrible? Well the show did not really end on a cliffhanger. Some may argue that it did but even before I heard this news I 100% thought the writers just threw in a final scene to allow them to have another season. The entire time I was watching the show, I never thought there could be another season. It had a pretty specific story and goal for the characters. And they met that goal. I would have been fine if it ended right there. But then I watched that last five minutes and got my hopes up that they actually did find a way to make a second season.

But the important thing is that we got to see that complete story to its conclusion. It can stand on its own. The next season would have been a completely different story with the same charters... which I would have loved but that would have been a luxury. If I could do it over again, I would just skip the final five minutes of the show and just live in the bliss of watching a really cool show. It is kind of like reading an awesome book by an author. yeah it would be great if they could do a second one just as good, but far too often that is not the case. I got my story. I got my ending. I can close the book and move on.

Perhaps that isn't the happy ending fans had hoped for but right now I'm just focusing on the positive. I got to watch an incredibly well written and amazing show. Not everything has to be six seasons and a movie. And as an added bonus, it';s not like JJ Abrams is known for tie his stories up very well. Maybe this time he was saved from himself and we can all have a positive impression of Duster forever.

TLDR; If you are one of those people that says "Oh the show got canceled. I'm not even going to bother watching this season." You should not do this here. Watch Duster and enjoy this full story. Then gop watch reruns of Rockford Files to get your 70s fill.