The one hundred and fourty-fifth TV show: #489 Riget
Riget is a true split show for us. We watched the first season as part of the 1001 movies list about five or six years ago, while we left the second season until more recently - something I'd still count as part of the list. Having watched this second season, I feel it was important to see as a sequel, even if it didn't quite live up to the first.
Riget is probably best described as Twin Peaks via Lars von Trier, with a hospital drama replacing the cop show of Twin Peaks. Lars von Trier explicitly cited that show as inspiration, so it feels natural to compare. It has that show's weird vibe and at times odd storylines, mixing the mundane with the supernatural. It also doesn't live up to it. Twin Peaks presents a living town with a lot of sympathetic characters, while Riget - in part due to its shorter runtime - doesn't take the time to set up the characters that well. It takes its time with some seeming non-sequiturs, but it feels like it doesn't let the characters live. Each has their own arc, odd and bizarre, intersecting as they do.
This works best in the first season, as the weirdness slowly amps up - the first episode is mostly hospital drama, but from the end of that episode it slowly starts changing. The second season, where it's constantly there, doesn't work because it's leaning on that too much, with people getting too accepting in places. It's the weaker half, at times serving to ramp up the weakness without being committed to resolving as much that's going on. Again, to use the obvious comparison, Twin Peaks had open endings, but wasn't as afraid to end stories as others start.
That's not to say that this is a bad show. I enjoyed Riget immensely, even if some arcs suited me better than others. It's the first season that's truly the masterpiece though, with the second season at times buckling under the need to replicate it or missing the tone a bit.