What’s this show called … Treme?

I was very eager to catch Treme on HBO when it premiered last year. While I couldn’t get into Homicide: Life on the Street after-the-fact, and Generation Kill was far too confusing for me to follow, David Simon did create one of the greatest shows to ever appear on TV. For the sake of The Wire alone he has earned the highest credentials in the world with me, and I’d watch just about anything he’d choose to share with a viewing audience.

Not only that, but talk about some great casting: Detectives Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce) and Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters) were in the original cast, and I’ve been a fan of Steve Zahn’s and John Goodman’s for a long time. I had high hopes.

Unfortunately things didn’t work out for me and Treme. It’s not that I found it to be bad … it just dragged along. The tricky thing is that the show’s about human plight, but the enemy that the citizens of Treme are waging war against has, for the most part, already come and gone. Katrina left severe destruction in its wake, and the people of New Orleans were left to rebuild alone.

It’s a wonderful, moving, and inspiring story, one that shouldn’t be forgotten (as it largely has been). I pushed on with the show through a handful of episodes last season for two reasons: 1) It’s well written and acted, even if it is slow, and 2) I worried that I’d be displaying an indifference to the plight of New Orleans if I gave up on the series. But after weeks of failing to be intrigued I just had to stop.

A year later I decided to check back in with the people of Treme to see if anything had changed. The show was just as rich as I remembered … but it was also just as dry. And while I do understand the significance of music to the past, present, and future — not to mention the general rebuilding and revitalization — of New Orleans, the musical atmosphere that the show creates and drapes itself in tends to be somewhat narrow and exclusionary. It’s hard to appreciate the beauty of the music being created when you don’t like it.

I also found that the actors I had originally tuned in for had largely disappeared. John Goodman’s Creighton Bernette committed suicide; Wendell Pierce’s Antoine Batiste was almost nonexistent in this week’s episode; Steve Zahn’s Davis McAlary does little for the reputation that Zahn built both as a comedic actor — in movies like Daddy Day Care — and as a dramatic one — he was awesome in Rescue Dawn. Only Clarke Peters’ Albert Lambreaux looks like he has a story to tell … and a good one, at that. But he’s only one in a large cast.

Meanwhile, other familiar faces have cropped up on the show since I last tuned in. George Washington himself (Albert Lambreaux) is a cop fed up with the system; Kevin Hill’s Jon Seda is a man looking to profit off of a city’s misery; James Ransone (Ziggy Sobotka) is some guy named Nick. They might all have fascinating stories … but no one was bothering to get to it!

I think it’s an unfortunate reality of a show like this. There is conflict aplenty here, and there is a battle waging for survival. But when the adversary is invisible … when its attack is over and what’s left is picking up the pieces, it’s hard to maintain a level of engagement. At least I found it to be.

And I don’t think I’m unfairly expecting The Wire from Treme … but I am kind of expecting The Wire from David Simon, if you catch the subtle difference. His is a difficult reputation to live up to; I hope fans of Treme feel he is. Meanwhile, I’ll wait for his next undertaking … you can believe I’ll be there to check it out.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on May 24, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT