Tuesday, June 14, 2011

It could never have been as good as 'The Wire'

I can promise you that there will never be "Tremé- 100 Greatest Quotes" as there was for the Wire.

Part of the issue of course is that Simon was born in DC, raised in Maryland & worked Baltimore for decades and had such a fine feel for the city.
By contrast, Tremé comes off too much of a cliche too often. Our main characters are:
  • two street musicians
  • wanna be musician & girlfriend who owns a restaurant
  • Indian chief & son who is a trumpet player in New York
  • trombonist & ex-wife who owns a bar
  • Tulane professor & pro bono lawyer wife

Yes, i understand why having an ophthalmologist from Lakeview whose house had to be gutted or a clinical psychologist living in Lakeshore west whose house had minimal damage would not have been a compelling story, but are 80% of Tremé residents really musicians or restaurant/bar owners?

And why not give more jobs to locals? Of the 10 major characters (six of whom are supposed to be New Orleans natives), only Bunk is a native, and while it's nice to see another Franklin grad do well, when three of the major actors from Simon's previous two shows the impression is that Bunk was hired because he was part of Simon's posse & not because he was a New Orleans native. I mean couldn't they at least find a local 10 year old girl to play the daughter instead of a young actress from New York? At least the Dutch & Alabama characters are actually from Holland and Huntsville.

Given that season 4 of the wire covered schools, perhaps next season, they'll introduce a teacher from Jean Gordon or JFK wondering if their school will re-open - hey, that would be a good New Orleans story. A teacher returning to be part of the charter school movement improvement.

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