SPOILERS (Mild)

Actress Elizabeth Perkins in an IMDB interview said the director would get so involved in the atmosphere of the show that he had to be often reminded there was a plot and things had to move along!

That pretty much sums up the entire problem with "Sharp Objects". The show meandered and stood in one place so many times it resembled a Still Life painting of a crumbling southern town with a crumbling old mansion and a lone car (Camille's) making it's way though a deserted street.

Was it well acted? Yes. Was it beautifully shot? Yes. Was it compelling enough to be 8 hours? No. It was a pretty standard who done it with the requisite surprise at the end. And I do not mean the scenes during the credits which were so fast and MTV style edited they were pointless. Camille's discovery before the credits made it clear who the killer really was. That they had help was no surprise either. Why was no surprise, too, though it wasn't addressed it was targeted a couple eps prior: the murdered girls simply did not fit in. They were different. They weren't "good girls".

Over all if a Speilberg had been controlling the direction the show would have hit all the emotional points and been a four hour mini-series!