Bleak is in on television -- from zombie apocalypses to Red Weddings to meth-dealing high school teachers -- but HBO's "True Detective" is taking its audience on an odyssey to even grimmer places.

The murder-mystery show, which has been getting good ratings and buzz, is disturbing, but not necessarily because of its lurid imagery, violence, and explicit sex and nudity. What's intriguing is that a show that's such a big hit features so prominently a dark philosophy which suggests that humanity is an error of evolution...