Goodman lays out the dif between The Wire and Treme:
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Simon and Overmyer dip those moments and their characters into the trouble areas of New Orleans - "underfunded, undereducated, impoverished, with little tax base and a dysfunctional infrastructure" - to get beyond the postcard mentality. "We love the music, the dance, the food," Simon says. "But the city and its people?"
If "Treme" is about anything, it's the latter. And this other notion, too, according to Simon: "What happens in New Orleans matters. An ascendant society rebuilds its great cities."
In some ways, that's the starkest delineation between "The Wire" and "Treme." If five seasons of institutional failure on "The Wire" was a bleak indictment of Baltimore (and the country), it takes only one episode of "Treme" to sense the hope.
Treme was quite good. Definitely a portrait of a city and its people, without a lot of hand holding w/r/t local phenomena (e.g. "second lines" and "Indian Chiefs", neither of which I was familiar with). Plus a hell of a cast and great music (and lot of it - I'm curious if that level will be maintained for the whole run). The only downside is you can't eat the food when they get on to that topic, but with Kim Dickens representing that world, I'm happy.
Not sure where it's all going yet, if it's actually going anywhere, but since it's about surviving and rebuilding, the journey's probably the thing, not the destination.
One of my friends on the HBO Wire boards used to say that one thing to remember about The Wire is "Happy endings are for massage parlors."
NBC made Simon allergic to hand-holding and backstory...I think his writing philosophy is "keep up or get out of the way."
I'm for more of the Mardi Gras Indians and more of Kim Dickens' nearly-naked backside. Much, much, much less of Steve Zahn, please.
I'm not a yat, always a tourist, but I grew up near enough to New Orleans to have spent a large chunk of my youth there. My sister and brother each lived there for a long time (over a decade in her case, just under in his), and Treme seemed just about right to me.
HBO has already given Treme a second season.
HBO has already given Treme a second season.
Um, wow! That must have been some good cable ratings or something.
Heh... he didn't even have to go "begging-ass bitch" this time.
That's what DS said on the HBO boards when he was waiting to get the Wire renewed one time, that he'd love to take more of our questions(although, honestly, I think fandom scares him) but he had to go "begging-ass bitch" on HBO.
Sometimes fandom scares me too, but "Once you in it, you in it."
He's been called a lot of shit in his life and career, but I think it was hard on him, being called Stringer Bell's murderer.
I am (watching) Spartacus!
Wow, the gore, the porn, the intrigue, the gay porn. And the thing I'm most taken with is the language. I'm also impressed with the redness of Lucy Lawless's hair.
I don't know about spratacus, I can't get motivated. I have 5 episodes on the tivo.
