Thoughts About Town

Yesterday's Times-Picayune had an article about an upcoming Fox show called K-ville (caution: the online article is obnoxiously formatted onto 10 pages). I hadn't heard of the show, but I guess they have been advertising.

It mostly sounds like it's supposed to be a cop show. The interesting artistic bit is that they're setting it in New Orleans, and the director is trying to use that to make the city itself a real character in the show. The article discusses how the producers are trying to make an entertaining television program while not being tastelessly exploitive of the city's tragedy. The angle they seem to be going for is "hope."

One thing I like about it being a cop show is that it's a new perspective on the city's recovery. The crime seems to me to be the biggest problem lingering from the storm. New Orleans has always had a lot of crime, but it's gotten worse since Katrina. The city just passed 100 reported homicides in 2007. Keep in mind that the city's population is currently estimated to be about 65% of what it was before the storm. That means that this year's murder rate is likely to be about 15% higher than it was in 2004.

So talking about crime is a good perspective to view the city from. I'm mildly excited for the show. I don't like cop shows in general; this one in particular would really suck if it's just another cop show. But if they portray the cop show aspect and the city correctly, it might be really awesome:

Sarafian was scouting locations in the city one day when he was approached by an elderly citizen who was curious about the crew.

The director explained the show's premise to the man, who thought about it for a second then said, "I hope you don't screw it up, because that could be good."