Many blamed Nic Pizzolatto for the widely criticized second season of True Detective last year, but HBO exec Michael Lombardo is saddling himself with all of the blame, saying he rushed the show's creator to produce a second season more quickly than he needed, which resulted in the episodes that weren't liked by critics or fans.

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""The first season was extraordinary television. The second season--and you may disagree with me--but a lot of people think it was an inferior version of the first season. What are the lessons you take away?" he said in an interview with The Frame. "I'll tell you something. Our biggest failures--and I don't know if I would consider True Detective 2--but when we tell somebody to hit an air date as opposed to allowing the writing to find its own natural resting place, when it's ready, when it's baked--we've failed."

Lombardo went on to explain that he fully blames himself for rushing Pizzolatto on the second season, something he says now that in hindsight, he realizes was a mistake.

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"And I think in this particular case, the first season of True Detective was something that Nic Pizzolatto had been thinking about, gestating, for a long period of time," he continued. "He's a soulful writer. I think what we did was go, 'Great.' And I take the blame. I became too much of a network executive at that point. We had huge success. 'Gee, I'd love to repeat that next year.'

"Well, you know what? I set him up. To deliver, in a very short time frame, something that became very challenging to deliver. That's not what that show is. He had to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Find his muse. And so I think that's what I learned from it. Don't do that anymore."

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True detective, Hbo, Television