For Rust Cohle, the existentialist detective played by Matthew McConaughey on HBO’s potboiler True Detective, “time is a flat circle.” But for users of HBO GO Sunday night, it was more like a spinning wheel of death.
At approximately 9 p.m. ET Sunday night, many HBO GO subscribers attempted to log in to the website, which features streaming content from the network, to view the season finale to the addictive series True Detective and—hopefully—discover the identity of “The Yellow King.” Instead, many were left trapped in their own tech version of Carcosa, staring at a seemingly endless loading sign. So, fans of creator Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Fukunaga’s eight-episode miniseries were robbed of two hours today—one for Daylight Savings Time, the other waiting for their favorite show at the moment to load.
HBO GO sent a message from their official Twitter account urging users to be patient:
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The series has become a bona fide phenomenon, attracting some 10.9 million weekly viewers, so it’s understandable that there would be some tech difficulties on a night like tonight. According to the media research and analysis firm SNL Kagan, HBO has a total of approximately 28.7 million subscribers—though the network doesn’t release these statistics—which means that about 38 percent of overall HBO subscribers consume True Detective.
Due to the outage, many took to Twitter to vent their frustrations (with hilarious results):