The Culture of "K-Ville"

From AlterNet:

While "K-Ville" is groundbreaking for its timeliness, its set-up feels dated. Writer and executive producer Jonathan Lisco ("NYPD Blue," "The District") has put together a traditional buddy cop series, but fancier, with slick, 90-mile-per-hour car chases through the French Quarter and creative camera work.

At this early stage, most of the "K-Ville" characters feel like props, which is not uncommon for a pilot trying to introduce a lot upfront. Yet as any viewer who has followed coverage of New Orleans knows, the real stories are in the day-to-day details, and it remains unclear whether "K-Ville" will have the patience to let individual rebuilding stories unfold -- or the willingness to let New Orleans' rich cultural history and characters assume their deserved roles.

The Hollywood plotline in the first episode involves mercenary hit men and old city wealth -- a far cry from the street-level crime, much of it drug-related, that corrodes the city. That the pilot also contains some of the most confrontational language about race and class you're likely to see on television this fall makes the flawed series more compelling than expected.

More here.

Yeah, I saw the pilot and it sucked. But I just couldn't stop watching, either. A lot of it had to do with wanting to see how they portrayed New Orleans, as well as seeing all the great location footage. But, in addition to all that, and as the above linked piece of criticism observes, there was just enough going on to make me ask that gold standard question for movies and TV shows: what's going to happen next?

I'm afraid that, in spite of what could someday become some rough gems within K-Ville, its negatives will ultimately outweigh its positives. I was in no hurry to go out of my way to see the second episode.

The acting in the pilot was generally atrocious. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying the lead cop guy is necessarily a bad actor. There were actually a few moments of real honesty coming from him, which makes me think he definitely has talent. But I also saw him continually falling into some classic acting traps: it was as though the producers kept telling him that he's on the edge, near the breaking point, half crazy, all that Rambo shit. So he tried to play some sort of abstract emotional state, yelling and looking around all cockeyed, rather than grounding himself in the circumstances and working the relationships in order to actually find some honest desperation, fear, and sadness. He may very well settle into his part, but the show is going to have to grow up fast if he's going to have any opportunities to do so.

Unfortunately, as far as that goes, the writing is insanely trite. It's as though these people have only read about the Big Easy, and never actually spent any real time there. Lead guy cop talks about having a "gumbo party." As commenters in the New Orleans Times-Picayune asked immediately after the first episode aired, "what the hell is a 'gumbo party'?" Worse than that, however, is the fact that the pilot could have been a slightly revised episode of TJ Hooker. It really is all cliche. That's a total drag because there is just so much going on here right now in real life that all these single-dimension characters and plot lines are totally unnecessary. They should just pull stories from the Picayune; no embellishment is needed.

Nonetheless, the fact that producers took great pains to deal with major Katrina spawned themes, albeit absurdly, is definitely a plus. Race, poverty, capitalist exploitation, police brutality, all these concepts played a major role in the first episode. And that may very well be the biggest reason I didn't turn it off.

Okay, I'll make a bigger effort to watch the third episode on Monday. Couldn't hurt. It's only an hour, after all.

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