Friday, January 28, 2011

TV review – “Treme – Season 1” (2010) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

It took an ep or two for this to kick in for me, but once it did, I enjoyed it: it’s a soap – sorry, serial drama - set in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. So the drama is on the heavy side, but it’s still serial drama – with a very heavy slant on music. Indeed, if your impression of New Orleans life was they were a people only interested in music, sex, dancing, hand outs, corruption and culture - as I was – that will be confirmed by this series. The stories aren’t that interesting (a woman looks for her missing brother, the relationship between buskers, a musician can’t keep it in his pants, a man tries to inspire people to move back into houses) – but it has terrific atmosphere an authenticity. Lots of references to New Orleans icons: Lafitte, Battle of New Orleans, The Big Easy, King Creole. Terrific acting done by people who seem to have a lot going on even if it probably isn’t (eg Kim Dicnes as a chef, the black trombone player, the woman looking for her brother). The best moment was the suicide of John Goodman – I totally didn’t see that happening. A few more moments like this an the series might have been more memorable.

No comments: