K-Ville
FOX. Mondays at 9
Cast: Anthony Anderson, Cole Hauser, Tawny Cypress, Blake Shields, and John Carroll Lynch
I’ve got a serious problem with K-Ville. The big problem I have with K-Ville is the way it seemingly, well, exploits the events of Hurricane Katrina. Now, I know a lot of the show is about how the city was affected and is rebuilding but is still a place in need of a lot of aid, effort, and work. But honestly, the show feels so much more like a guilt trip than a love letter to a city that certainly needs one. It seems to use Katrina almost as a loophole. “What, the characters aren’t likeable at all? Show us in a poorly shot flashback their own traumatic experience.” “What, we haven’t expressed what a dire situation the city is in? Throw in a random and completely pointless shot of a broken down house or some graffiti about FEMA.” Not to sound like a complete and utter jackass, but we get that New Orleans is still a city in dire need of assistance. But that doesn’t give you creative license to make a crappy show.
And that’s the thing, even if the show wasn’t a guilt trip, it’s still pretty bad television. I mean, first of all, the tone is completely schizophrenic. One second, its light-hearted buddy cop show. Then, in the blink of an eye, depressing show about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But then, just as fast, oh look, it’s a shoot first, ask questions later cop show. Pick a tone, stay with it. Don’t give the viewers tonal seizures. And another thing, in your ads, at least make it seem like the genre it most is, the depressing show about the aftermath of Katrina. Instead, we’ve got a buddy comedy shoot-'em-up action ad. That’s just incorrect, and a lot of people are gonna be confused when they turn this on. Secondly, the writing and plot are just plain awful. The first episode deals with (SPOILER ALERT) some convoluted plan to stop the ninth ward from being rebuilt, because the mean white woman has something against the hoodlums who used to populate the area. I mean, even something more like profiteering would have been better. The way it is, it plays very racistly, claiming that the rich white folks are secretly plotting against the downtrodden black residents of the ninth ward. I almost expected the bad guys to say something along the lines of “If it weren’t for you darn cops, and your dog too” (That’d be a Scooby Doo reference, for anyone who was deprived of television as a child). I was just on the FOX message boards about the show, and apparently, it’s rife with inaccuracies too. So the dialogue and things that we’re aggravating in the first place don’t even work factually. Two strikes. Strike number three comes from the performances. Anthony Anderson, stick to comedies. You can’t handle being a tough guy (I know you were supposedly awesomely amazing as a toughie on The Shield, but you wouldn’t know it watching this). Cole Hauser, learn to speak in something other than a southern drawl monotone. Not every line has to be delivered the exact same way. Other people, do something that makes you seem like something more than animated cardboard cutouts placed around these two. Three strikes, you’re out K-Ville.
Rating: Not Worth Your Time
1 comments:
I believe that this show has a chance to be something really good. The first episode of any show is usually weak but many times gets better. This show had to lay some groundwork for the events that they are trying to deal with and to touch on some of the behind scene deals such as rebuilding the 9th ward. The scene emotions and changing from comedy to drama to emergency shoot outs only go further to exemplify the range of emotions and sentiments that they are dealing with everyday in real life. One minute they are rebuilding and getting on with life and the next they are shown the disaster again when they turn a corner.
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