The original post: /r/television by /u/Scared_Ad_3132 on 2025-06-26 04:34:05.
One of my absolute favorite genre is mystery, particularly the type that involves some kind of scifi/supernatural/weirdness.
However, it is also one of where I am most often dissapointed. It is a lot easier to generate questions and weirdness than to generate a truly satisfying answer that makes it all make sense at the end.
It a bit like one of those puzzle boxes where the puzzle is to get them to open. There are buttons and knobs and all of these things, symbols and numbers on the box. You spend days trying to solve it, you seem to make progress, are able to solve some of the things but cant get it open. Then finally you get frustrated and throw it at the wall and it bursts open and inside is a piece of paper that says “The real solution was to throw it at the wall all along”. This is kind of what most mystery shows feel like to me. They can generate a lot of intrique, have all the knobs, the symbols, a sense of progression where it feels like one is getting closer to the answer, but then at the end it isnt nearly as epic as it was played up to be.
The other issue for me is series where the solution never happens. Either the show is incomplete or it is left open to interpretation. Its vague.