Firstly, let me say that I *am* a book reader who was originally prepared to hate the show when I watched the first season back in 2022. Instead, I found myself in love with this adaptation and hooked from the first episode. So I don't consider myself a "book purist", I'm more than prepared to accept certain deviations from the source material, especially if I feel like they serve to make the overall story clearer or better suited to a visual medium. And even though I did not *love* every single change they made in s1 and especially in s2 I thought most of these changes served a specific function in the universe they created for the show and I was interested to see where they would lead.
I guess in retrospect I can see the "cracks" that already showed in earlier seasons (the general misogyny, the way issues of race got seemingly sidelined in s2, the treatment of Loumand, the way vampire abilities were seemingly thrown in whenever they thought it would be cool rather than actually having a concrete plan for them, the retconning of what were blatantly writing mistakes and chalking them up to Louis' misrepresenting events etc.) but back then I chose to trust the writers, so even with changes that left me puzzled or that I overall disliked I still felt like I wanted to wait and see what they would do with them before casting judgement.
But now for TVL/s3 I find myself completely disillusioned. I no longer trust that the writers know what they're doing and I'm left wondering what their overall "goal" for this season was because surely they must know that it utterly fails as an adaptation of the book? Even a loose one that includes a lot of their own creations.
It really feels like they got too excited about the whole rockstar thing and forgot that they also had to include other events from the book? Why are there so, SO many songs this season? We got four songs each for the last two episodes. And I'm not even one of those people who hate the music, I like quite a few of the songs (yes, even Long Face, I don't have a very sophisticated taste in music) but this show is not a musical and the songs are not good enough replacements for actually emotionally impactful scenes. I'm watching this show for the dialogue (and the masterful acting), a lot of my favourite scenes are essentially just a couple of people sitting/standing around and talking to each other! The Loumand fight in 2x05 is my all-time favourite scene and the one I can still recite from memory even years later and that scene is literally just them standing in a kitchen yelling at each other.
I also hate how instead of getting a season where Daniel interviews Lestat we instead get ONE interview between them and the rest of it is Lestat recording his own story by himself for some nebulous reason. I hate how they're blaming Lestat's mental state for how chaotic and disjointed everything feels and the atrocious pacing. I think if we had actually got Daniel interviewing him we could have fixed a lot of it. Have Lestat start off in a more rambly manner and then have Daniel pick through his evasions and try to get to the point of it all. So many scenes might actually hit a little more if we as the audience actually got the time to process them instead of immediately going to the next plot point so the writers can check off another item on their list.
It's also insane how the season feels so fast-paced in the moment but whenever I look back on what actually happened so far it's like we've barely moved the plot along. And you might argue that the book also isn't really plot-driven but since we're barely getting any of the actual contents from it we might as well focus on whatever plot they're cooking up.
And I also remember way back when Rolin Jones said we couldn't focus on the past that much because the other characters (Armand, Louis, Daniel) also needed to have screentime this season? Then how come we barely get to see them at all? Not to mention that they had years to come up with good plots for them but instead we get served whatever BS we got that is only saved by Assad Zaman's, Jacob Anderson's and Delainey Hayles' brilliant acting.
So much time is wasted on Lestat's band! They barely matter in the book and I wouldn't mind if the show had expanded their roles (like they previously did with Louis' family, Santiago, Madeleine etc.) if it didn't feel like their screentime was so blatantly eating into time we could have spent with the actual main cast of the show. That and the budget that got wasted with all those unnecessary scenes featuring Lestat's present day shenanigans. Too many concerts with too many extras, too much hetslop, too much *pissing*, too many scenes that are just there to give us edgy rockstar shit. It's like the writers got too carried away giving us the rockstar fantasy and no one was there to reign them in and remind them that they had to actually adapt the book.
Coupled with the misogyny, racism & homophobia that's been rampant this season it just does not feel very satisfying. And to top it all off, the writing feels significantly worse this season. All the new characters feel like Hollywood stereotypes rather than real people and everyone must constantly deliver zany Marvel-tier quips. Every so often the ghost of the show I used to love makes itself apparent in some of the lines but it never lasts that long.
Even Lestat himself somehow comes across as worse than he did during Louis' narration in previous seasons. He's just so cynical and jaded in his own retelling of events and he's still so weirdly resentful toward Louis despite the recordings (apparently) being set much further in the future than just the end of s3. Sure, we were never going to get Lestat being mesmerised by Walmart like in the book but I would have loved to see more of book!Lestat reflected in his show version.
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