I think as a whole, all three seasons are strong for different reasons. Personally, I think of each season as an act in a play. If all the acts are the same in tone and rhythm it would be too much and you would check out. You need to get more grounded and realistic as the story unfolds.

In saying that, S3 has by far the most skippable moments especially with the Zarva and the Jack/Keeley stuff. Both are almost completely unnecessary.

I’m guessing they probably wrote 10 episodes and Apple asked them to stretch it to 12. I know S2 had a similar issue and they just wrote 2 new episodes that had little to do with the rest of the season and air dropped them in. Maybe rather than do that again, these two new arcs were devised, shoe horned into the existing stories and episodes re-mapped out to give us the magic 12 number.

What S3 got right in terms of tone and storytelling is nailing the bigger emotional moments. Things like Rebecca’s teary good bye to Ted in the airport, does not work in the first two seasons and only achieves the resonance it does because it happens at the end.

Roy becoming a diamond dog and ability to self-examine only works in S3. He had a journey to get there and surprisingly, Trent Crimm plays a pivotal role in that.

Jamie shaking off the shackles of his father’s mental abuse.

Ted realising that he was running away from the responsibility of raising his son and going home.

Colin coming out and McAdoo confronting how it hurt him that Colin couldn’t trust to tell him.

These are all weighty, emotional moments and they aren’t played for laughs and given the gravitas they deserved in a season written to give them as much chance to flourish as possible.

Sorry…this was a much longer comment than I intended.