An Open Letter to the Producers of 'K-Ville'
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Chris Rose
Dear "K-Ville" Guys,
Allow me to introduce myself. I'm a big fan of your work. Really. That said, we gotta talk.
Let's cut right to the chase -- and not a car chase, please.
We liked your noble attempt at a post-Katrina New Orleans cop show. I say "we" because I wrote a story about it on Tuesday, the day after your prime-time premiere on Fox, and the responses I got from scores of readers ran about 9-to-1 in support of the actors, their characters and the down-but-not-out message you presented.
It was the formulaic plot that left the senses unfulfilled. And we like our senses filled around here.
You've got a helluva lot of money wrapped up in this show and we've invested a lot of blood into this living-in-New Orleans thing, so it's in our mutual best interest for "K-Ville" to succeed.
I don't know a thing about ratings, but when it comes to searing human drama about the life-and-death struggles of a group of people driven to preserve their hometown no matter how profound the collateral damage to their personal and professional lives, then trust me on this one:
I'm your guy.
And as my colleague Dave Walker expertly articulated last week, what you've got here are two different TV shows. And one of them really sucks.
I'm referring to the cop drama. Car chases and Uzi-toting mercenaries are so, well . . . so '80s.
Two years after The Thing, this town is many things. "Retro" is not one of them.
There aren't many ways for new shows to distinguish themselves from the cacophony of prime-time crime dramas that litter the airwaves. But you have a very real chance here.
So, please, dig deeper. If you must give us violence -- and we realize you must -- then give us the real thing, the real story, the real streets, not this watered-down James Bond bunk.
Ditch the wild-scheme plotlines. Don't be afraid to delve into the discomfiting reality that is life in the off-camera "K-Ville." Do race. Do politics. Press buttons. Pose difficult questions that provoke even more difficult answers.
Make us uncomfortable. Make America uncomfortable. Make us think.
Katrina is not just a local issue, as much as many folks around the country would prefer it to be. It's an upheaval of massive national implications, up there with the Depression, the Dust Bowl and the diaspora that followed the Civil War.
In short, it's American history. And you guys have gotten a hold of this long before the History Channel, so take the opportunity to make it shine.
You can make a network prime-time TV series that is groundbreaking, entertaining and meaningful. You can be the next "M*A*S*H." But only if you stop trying to be the next "Miami Vice."
Push buttons. We can take it. The nightmares of race and politics are not exclusive to New Orleans; we're just more transparent about it. We're the fishbowl. So go ahead. Make an example of us as the aggregate sum of all of America's social ills. Everyone else is.
And a little more humor wouldn't hurt. Tragedy fuels comedy -- it's always been that way -- and our darkness can be full of absurd laughter. Some days, it's the only thing that keeps us going. (Maybe you can get Bill O'Reilly to write some jokes; he's the funniest guy on the Fox payroll.)
Then again, what you should probably do is hire some of my readers to co-write the series with you. You want Reality TV? We've got plenty of reality to go around in this town.
Too much, in fact. But we can save some of it for the inevitable series spin-off. And you can name that anything you want, as long as it's not "Gone With the Wind." Or the water.
. . . . . . .
Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune.com; or at (504) 352-2535 or (504) 826-3309.
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