FOX's 'K-ville' misses its mark

I knew it as soon as Anthony Anderson uttered the words, “How’s your momma and dem?”

FOX’s new cop series, “K-Ville,” is the latest attempt by Hollywood to capture the intricate soul of New Orleans and edit it for television. Like most productions before it, “K-Ville” drowns in a lake of clichés. (Please excuse the flood reference.)

The show premiered at 8 p.m. Monday night, with a second episode airing Tuesday.

Audiences were introduced to main character Marlin Boulet (Anderson), a New Orleans police officer still dealing with demons brought on by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Boulet’s partner Charlie (Derek Webster) abandoned him after the storm, and the memory is seriously messing with Boulet’s head. (Not to mention, Charlie appears – unnecessarily – at various points in the pilot, groveling and begging for his job back.)

Boulet’s new partner, Trevor Cobb (Cole Hauser), is greeted hastily as an outsider. Cobb is meant to be a mysterious character, but unfortunately, the show’s writers let his criminal past out of the bag before audiences could even begin to be intrigued.

Monday night’s plot was too complicated and easily forgettable... Something about a disgruntled New Orleans blueblood buying up plots of land in the 9th Ward so “those responsible” for her brother’s murder would never resettle the area. And some Army-special-ops-turned-casino-security-guards were involved as well. I forget.

For me, the plot ceases to matter when the details are so off-the-mark. Sure, it was interesting to see Hollywood-style explosions and cars flying through the air Blues Brothers-style amongst historic New Orleans architecture. FOX, as a network, is pretty good about its action sequences.

But the show seemed, well, scripted. It was so bad that I could almost envision the cast sitting around a table going over its lines in pre-production. And it doesn’t help that every time I look at Anderson, I get visions of “Kangaroo Jack.” (I admit, I’ve never seen him as a gangster in USA’s “The Shield.”) He’s a fine enough actor, but I have trouble taking him seriously.

The writers seemed obsessed with weaving in local “isms” – like “neutral grounds” and “gumbo parties” (which is a new term for me, and I’ve lived here all my life). And then there were the egregious references to the hardest-to-say streets, like Carondelet and Rocheblave. (Nevermind that those streets probably don’t intersect and therefore cannot host a high-speed chase.) The aforementioned blueblood antagonists made their residence in what looked like St. James Parish’s Oak Alley Plantation, but step outside their yard, and you’re back in the Quarter. I, for one, was confused.

And then, after all the forced acting and forced references to local culture, came the preachiness.

Boulet scolds a neighborhood kid for trying to dig up and steal a cypress tree sapling from the officer’s front yard. The cypress tree, Boulet says, is (his) favorite tree; it used to grow throughout this great city before the salty water flooded the area. (If you don’t understand how that information could be preachy, just imagine if Ray Nagin had slipped it into his “Chocolate City” speech.)

That being said, I am in no way offended by the slightly negative portrayal of the NOPD. Boulet’s a cop who drinks on duty. Cobb is a convicted armed robber who escaped four months of prison time after Katrina flooded his jail cell. No one seems to care. That could actually be the closest thing to reality the show contains.

“K-Ville” has its heart in the right place as a dramatic show that could bring some much-needed publicity to post-Katrina New Orleans. The city still needs all the help it can get. It’s just too bad the show gets caught up in its setting to the detriment of acting, pacing, plot and character development.

The first five minutes of the show – which draw heavily on flashbacks set on an elevated portion of the interstate after Katrina – was the hour’s most compelling. I’m not sure any amount of make-believe drama could top the reality of what happened in New Orleans two years ago.

I’m afraid Katrina, the impetus for the show, will actually be its downfall.

It’s really a shame the show won’t make it past the first six episodes. According to accounts on Internet message boards, the cast and crew of “K-Ville” are extremely professional and welcoming to local extras on the set.

We need their business.