Wednesday 7 April 2010

New Treme Trailer (From Creators of The Wire)

A few months ago I featured the teaser trailer for Treme, the new show based in New Orleans, from the creators of The Wire.

Since then, they've released this trailer, which gives us a much better idea of what to expect from the show:



You'll notice in the trailer, we get John Goodman bookending the footage, talking about what's great about New Orleans: the music, the food, the people.

It seems like this show will do for that city, what The Wire did for Baltimore. Although, the trailer at least, makes it seem more like a love letter than The Wire's warts and all depiction of The City That Bleeds. Nevertheless, given David Simon's history of creating realistic depictions of people, places and events, I don't think the show will match this tone as it progresses.

The characters are what we'd expect from the talent involved. Wendell Pierce (aka Bunk) is a talented but drunken musician , Steve Zahn is loveable mess of a DJ, Clarke Peters (aka Lester) is a stubborn man, determined to live in what remains of his house.

Finally, it's clear that the gap between the federal government's aid and what the people actually need will be a clear theme in the first season. A stand-out line for me was:

"Still got a lot of water?"
"Oh not much... less than a foot."

That and the 'foreign' interviewer implication that New Orleans is no longer a great city, no longer a city worth saving seems to be the lens through which this story will be told.

Treme debuts on HBO in America this Sunday 11th April . No word yet on any UK networks buying the show.

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