Move Over True Detective Season 1—Pagan Peak Is the Only Replacement You Need

If you, like a lot of us, end up lamenting every new season of True Detective for not living up to that first mind-bending outing back in 2014, here’s a curveball: there’s a crime series out there that nails the same weird-vibes-plus-folklore formula, and you’ve probably never even heard of it. It’s called Pagan Peak (or Der Pass if you want to get fancy), and while HBO is already plotting True Detective Season 5 for 2027, you could be watching three full seasons of a show that actually scratches the original itch — no waiting required.

Pagan Peak: The 'Missing Link' Crime Show

Let’s cut through the confusion: Pagan Peak isn’t some shameless foreign knockoff riding on True Detective’s coattails. It hit Sky Deutschland back in 2019 and instantly drew comparisons for a reason. The story follows two detectives — German Ellie Stocker (Julia Jentsch) and Austrian Gedeon Winter (Nicholas Ofczarek) — as they get partnered up to investigate ritualistic murders along the snowy, isolated German-Austrian border. Both cops bring plenty of baggage, and both seem irked by having to share anything, much less a cross-border nightmare with so much ancient superstition involved.

Here’s where it gets uncanny: the very first murder they tackle is staged like a tourist board’s fever dream gone wrong. The victim is propped up on a mountainside, holding a rope of horsehair, and the whole thing screams religious symbolism. If this is all ringing bells from True Detective — I mean, antlers, ritual poses, cryptic symbols; you know the drill — just wait, because the story gets twistier.

So Did 'Pagan Peak' Just Copy 'True Detective'?

Not exactly. This is the part that always gets glossed over: Pagan Peak is actually a remake of The Bridge, a Danish-Swedish series that predates True Detective by about a year. The Bridge (way up there on IMDb’s all-time TV list at #150, for what that’s worth) set the template: two countries, two mismatched cops, and a whole lot of jaw-dropping crime scenes soaked in regional myth and ritual.
That means Pagan Peak is more like a distant cousin than a direct copy, and if anything, all these series feed off the same primal fear: that our worst monsters are ancient, local, and still walking our woods and fields.

'True Detective' Parallels: They're Not Subtle

• Opening Murders: Both Season 1s (yes, Pagan Peak only ran 8 episodes for its debut season too) start with a murder that’s both gruesome and theatrical. But while Cohle and Hart get a woman in a prayer pose with antlers, Stocker and Winter stare down a male corpse and a message: 'The Red Season is Coming.' Because why settle for a murder when you can tease an entire pagan apocalypse?
• The Folklore Factor: True Detective has its King in Yellow and warped bayou voodoo; Pagan Peak takes a turn toward Alpine terror, including masks right out of a Krampus parade. Yes, it gets that local and that bizarre.
• Twisty Timelines: True Detective’s big trick was hopping between 1995 and 2002. Pagan Peak borrows the same playbook, bouncing between the present and earlier years as the detectives try (and usually fail) not to make total hash of the investigation.

Why You Should Watch (Even If 'True Detective' Burned You)

Trust me, if you’ve spent years hoping each new True Detective run gets back to that sinister Season 1 magic, Pagan Peak is about as close as you’ll get. The show doesn’t just chase after copycat ritual killings — it actually leans hard into regional myths in a way that makes sense.
And don’t worry; it’s not only Season 1 that delivers. Both follow-up seasons dial up the folklore, religion, and occult weirdness instead of chickening out and playing things safe. It’s kind of what a certain Louisiana-based series could stand to learn.

Almost forgot — the warning 'The Red Season is Coming' will pretty much haunt you the same way True Detective’s 'King in Yellow' did.

'The Red Season is Coming.'

So, if you’re tired of waiting for HBO to recapture bottled lightning (or just curious how ritualistic murder mysteries work when you swap Cajun swamps for Alpine isolation), Pagan Peak is absolutely worth tracking down. Three seasons, 24 episodes, and enough European weirdness to hold you till 2027. You’re welcome.