Chaos swamps intriguing premise in Fox's new 'K-Ville'
Few things could be harder right now than being a cop in the Big Easy -- except maybe for making a cop show in the Big Easy.
The Fox series "K-Ville" debuts at 8 p.m. Monday on WFLD Channel 32 as the first new major network drama of the fall, and it's kind of a mess. In a way, that's appropriate, both conceptually and logistically. "K-Ville" is not only set in New Orleans, but it's largely shot there as well, so a little chaotic turbulence is to be expected. The question is, how much is too much?
Many New Orleans residents are asking themselves the same basic question, whether it's worth the trouble and effort to re-establish themselves in the city, but police officer Marlin Boulet isn't one of them, even though Hurricane Katrina cost him his wife and child.
They return briefly in the pilot, but only to pick up some long-lost things. His wife says she loves New Orleans, but she can't live there anymore. Boulet insists if she loves it, "Then fight for it."
"Don't make us suffer with you," is all she can answer.
Don't think this makes Boulet some altruistic knight errant. He seems to believe that, because the city can't possibly afford to fire any of the police officers who remained, that gives him license to swill bourbon on duty, torture suspects and generally act the part of a rogue cop. And, with Anthony Anderson in the role, he affects an air of cynicism to mask how much he cares.
"Why would a guy want to be a cop down here?" he wonders aloud. "He'd have to be half a nut job."
"Look at yourself in the mirror sometime Boulet," replies his commanding officer, Capt. James Embry, gruffly but tenderly played by John Carroll Lynch.
"K-Ville" opens up with a flashback to when the hurricane hit two years ago. That separated those committed to the city from those not right quick, as Boulet and his partner wound up on opposite sides of that divide. A tense sequence, shot with a handheld camera, finds the partner abandoning the city -- and Boulet -- to the anarchy. At the same time, a guy we'll later identify as Cole Hauser's officer Trevor Cobb narrowly avoids drowning in the floodwaters. But how did he get in such a jam, how did he escape and why doesn't he want to tell anyone about it, even after he winds up partnered with Boulet?
All right, this is a fairly intriguing premise established by writer-creator Jonathan Lisco, who previously worked on the new FX series "Damages," as well as the high-concept, short-lived WB drama "Jack & Bobby" and, before that, "NYPD Blue." The problem, however, is that not all the chaos is intentional.
There's some show-offy writing (at one point the CO scolds his officers by saying, "There's more loose ends than in a whorehouse here"), and also some just plain sloppy filmmaking. When the hurricane scene with the handheld camera comes off as shaky that's one thing, but when Boulet and Cobb get caught in the crossfire in a drive-by shooting and take off after the suspects, the car chase seems disjointed and incomprehensible.
The whodunit is also fairly formulaic, and when Cobb makes his big revelation at the end it comes off a little pat. I know Lisco wants to set his show on its feet and get it walking on its own, but Cobb could have survived a little more mystery and still kept viewers engaged.
Yet it's Anderson, in any case, who gives "K-Ville" its heart and its prevailing consciousness. He's pained, angered, righteous, yet can't resist letting the bon temps roulez from time to time. Anderson has previously done comedies like the justifiably short-lived "All About the Andersons," as well as playing cop sidekicks in "The Shield" and, most recently, "The Departed." Here he steps out front and really commands attention as one of New Orleans' finest. If the future of the city rests in the hands of people like his Marlin Boulet, there may be hope for the Big Easy after all.
In the air
Remotely interesting: WTTW Channel 11 airs the locally produced documentary "Saved From the Wrecking Ball: The Farnsworth House" at 8 p.m. today. Made by Chicago's Tower Productions, it looks at efforts to preserve Mies van der Rohe's modernist landmark in Plano, Ill.
Turner Classic Movies' "Private Screenings" looks at the life and work of director Norman Jewison at 7 p.m. today.
Alex Cantos is the new digital sales manager at WBBM Channel 2. He comes to town after working at Miami's McClatchy Interactive.
End of the dial: John Williams chats with "Moneyball" author Michael Lewis about his football book, "The Blind Side," at 2:05 p.m. today on WGN 720-AM.
-- Ted Cox