TV is the New Reading

Wasting away again down in

Katrinaville; FOX drama ‘K-Ville’

disappointing on many levels

Here’s what I would like to write about an on-location series based in New Orleans:

Magnificent! The pain, heartbreak and determination of the citizens of this once and future citadel was evident in every frame. Its cultural significance and heritage two years after the Hurricane Katrina disaster is a testament to the human spirit and a challenge to our nation to step up with whatever help we can.

However ...

In FOX’s new cop drama “K-Ville,” there’s a spirit of gritty, exhausted, pessimistic realism permeating every scene. There’s a sense of hopelessness, that nothing will actually get better. That forces great and small are aligned against success in the rebuilding efforts and they are forces that are likely to prevail.

Throw in a complete disregard for the law by both civilians and police alike and this doesn’t seem like the best possible showcase for the Crescent City.

Cast as Sisyphus in this uphill rebuilding effort is Anthony Anderson (“The Shield”), playing New Orleans supercop Marlin Boulet. Even though he’s completely out of hand – he tortures suspects, drinks on duty, endangers himself and others by driving maniacally on surface streets and lashes out at his partner and anyone who in any way dares to suggest New Orleans is beyond saving – he’s got this extraordinary mind and can find any information he needs with a few keystrokes, be it a real-estate cabal or his partner’s criminal past.

Oh, we know about that already? This show seems to know it’s on FOX, a network with a history of canceling new shows left and right. “K-Ville” crammed what used to be about a season’s worth of storytelling into its pilot episode.

In the opening sequence, it’s a flashback to the disaster! Boulet’s partner is overwhelmed by the devastation and runs away! Boo! Cut to the present day and Boulet ... tackles a neighbor kid who’s ... stealing a shrubbery ... from in front of his house. Hmm. Except for a mild flashback to “Devil in a Blue Dress,” I can’t figure out what the significance of that was.

Oh well, moving onward, Boulet’s neighbors have the audacity to feel overwhelmed by the repairs needed to their home and put it up for sale! Boulet takes that “For Sale” sign and throws it on the scrapheap! Where it belongs! Boulet’s beautiful jazz singer friend who’s about to sing for a fundraising benefit to help rebuild the Ninth Ward is gunned down! In the middle of her performance! There’s a high-speed chase that ends with a vehicle being flipped over! The big-deal casino seems to be involved somehow!

Whew! I was exhausted by the first commercial break.

It’s all personal

Boulet’s relationship with his estranged wife isn’t much better. She brought their daughter to retrieve some stuff Boulet wouldn’t send along to their new home in Atlanta. After listing a string of everything that’s wrong with life in the Ninth Ward (including toxic fumes, which frankly would be enough for me), she says: “It’s not the same place.”

His response: “It will be if we fight for it.”

See, I get how a guy who has built a home and a family and a life in a place feels attached to it and isn’t going to give it up without a fight. But how much of a fight? If the goal is to live and be well, how is rebuilding on toxic sludge not a losing battle?

Well, he’s defiantly going to do it, and he’s going to confront the evil real-estate cabal that’s buying up all the proppity in the Ninth Ward, even if they do turn a firehose loose on his house and frighten his daughter – I loved that scene, because it suggested the fire hydrants in the Ninth Ward are indeed hooked up to something.

Leading the cabal? Well, we already know that because Boulet’s arrested her by the end of the pilot episode! It’s the daughter of the casino owner! She’s avenging a gangland attack on her brother! By disrupting her own fundraising events, demoralizing everyone and wiping out a residential district!

First off, it feels like the hurricane was more devastating than this little blonde sociopath could ever hope to be, and that two years of swampy lack of direction is more demoralizing than shots fired at a fundraiser.

At least it would appear that the writers for Scooby Doo have found some work at last. The only thing missing from her non-Mirandized confession was “And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids!”

And don’t get me started on Boulet’s new partner, Cole Hauser as Trevor Cobb. Boulet having a fist-fight with him at about the half-hour mark suggests a personality too unstable to handle the pressures of being a cop for any length of time. And the fact that we discover Cobb’s an escaped convict by the end of the pilot episode suggests some pretty desperate writing. Save something for the second episode, fellas!

On second thought, better they told me now.

I’m not really planning to tune in to the second episode.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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