Anticipating Treme aka "Tremé" - David Simon and his buddies do post-Katrina N.O.

don't think anyone even bumped for the penultimate

i haven't seen 'justified' yet and im kind of wondering if i'll ever get round to this. no1 seems to really rep hard for it.

I think it's great.

i'm enjoying it, but i'm so invested in the subject matter that i don't think i can be objective about its watchability

It's beautifully done for the most part. Despite all the complaints about people being Simon's mouthpieces, it's also very understated as well.

yeah, by the end I decided it was great, despite some its flaws, which really were the same as The Wire's. I thought the last two episodes were really great, and I hope it doesn't come back, because TV shows shouldn't always have to be entire series. 1 decent season that explores these characters, their music, their city, their storm, etc. The end.

already been renewed. got to tackle the schools and the return of crime etc

yeah, just read the interview.

happy if there's more David Morse. I love that guy.

should just use the 2nd season commission for a do over

http://www.ihasaids.com/upload/data/1276610097.gif

Surprised by the strong finish! This show moved so slowly, but I never shook the level of interest - where like a few people here also said - not a show I was dying to watch every week, but once I sat down to watch I was usually pretty hooked because of the generally high quality of the acting. I'll come back for next season, but I'm not sure if I'll bother week-to-week again or just wait for it to finish or for the DVD box set to come out. OTOH it might be even duller if I watch it in one go?

In particular I was impressed by the unusual device (for this show) of the long Katrina flashback during Daymo's funeral, felt ripped out of an Altman film - really effective and unexpected, since the show has avoided using flashbacks entirely.

Also I still have a certain amount of respect that the show wasn't as relentlessly negative as The Wire, which I loved on that show, but here there's a strong undercurrent of hope even when all the characters are put through hell. The show beginning and ending with a second line funeral, the Chief's family splitting up again and Janette's last great day in NO before flying out to NY were all done pretty well in servicing this theme.

Also: really glad they didn't go ahead with the violinist being brutally murdered as suspected by many people.

Reading that Simon interview, I have to wonder what the people complaining in the Lost thread accusing Lindelof and Cuse of condescending to unhappy fans would say about THIS guy, wow

Man, some of that is Simon at his most insufferable, i've never seen him this ridiculously defensive - and wrong, since the last episode sure as hell does not justify all the dull stretches or bad ideas in this season. And damn he's got some crazy NY jealousy going on.

Gonna skip that interview, then.

The show is a reflection of Janette's complaint in the penultimate ep - lots of moments, "not a life." Hardly a disaster or anything, and indeed lots of great moments, but I have a hard time seeing this reach the greatness levels once anticipated without some serious tweaking next season.

the interview is p.interesting I thought, worth a read even if it does suffer from some of the stuff nhex points out; might go and watch the last two eps having read it

Midway through last ep now; 2nd-to-last def. worth watching.

I really enjoyed the last few episodes. I didn't really feel like the SPOILER suicide was dramatically earned, but that was my only real quibble with the season at large. I think it's important that the second season go in a different direction, though. I'd like to see some new themes, fewer cameos. But I thought the cameos made sense for season 1, and none of them really felt forced. The celebrity chefs were uniformly terrible actors but it certainly made sense that they were in the episodes.

Agreed that Simon is working way too hard to defend the show - he's often a very combative interview in print. (On TV he seems completely mild and unassuming, oddly. Milch is the same no matter what the venue.) I accept his basic argument though, which is that the show is being judged and found wanting by the wrong standards.

The consensus seems to be (in the media as well as here I think) 'no drama, egregious cameos, characters as mouthpieces' but for me this show is totally gripping despite all those things being true. It's really refreshing to have a show in which the stakes aren't somebody going to jail, or somebody being shot, but someone successfully breaking up with their boyfriend, or managing to get some roofers to get something done, or dealing with a suddenly withdrawn spouse - which is much closer to the dramas of our lives as we experience them. I was really moved by the finale, fantastic stuff. It may be that like John from Cincinnati it departs too much from TV norms to survive much longer, but I'm really happy that I get treated to a whole second season. (The crime moving back into the city might give people more of what they expect from Simon and keep people around, hopefully.)

Love how cable TV's renaissance is starting to resemble '70s Hollywood, with the auteurs busting out indulgent, difficult flop follow-ups to their classics. Five Easy Pieces followed by King Of Marvin Gardens.

Ah hah ha, yeah, so true. Though I think Chase is just living off residuals and doesn't have much happening at the moment, right?

Chase is currently casting for his feature film last I heard, and also has a deal to do a mini-series with HBO after that.

haha i watched king of marvin gardens recently. almost unwatchable.

last episode was very good. wish the flashback wasn't as obviously cued. would be kind of awesome if you had to figure out gradually that we were back a year, just before katrina.

sad about the goodman character. melissa leo's reactions ripped my heart out. but i kind of figured that goodman was a one-season cameo sort of deal. he's got bigger stuff to do than series TV.

i thought there was some very smart stuff in that david simon interview, e.g.

"For me, I don't think people can tell the difference when they speak of plot between the notion of whether something is a plot that's progressing or whether they're having dramatic moments that are typical of television standard - which is to say, cop show, medical show, legal show, "West Wing," whatever, where the stakes are high. That's what people are saying."

i think people indeed are confusing "plot" with certain types of dramatic incident.

not that there aren't other terms on which to criticize the show.

every scene where there are extras or minor characters "reacting" to the major characters (dancing to music, john goodman's classroom, etc.) is just fucking cringeworthy. actually only agnieska holland (sp?) seems to be able to handle those scenes well. and there are a lot of them.

also this was very interesting, i thought:

One of the things that I found interesting about Batiste is that in the flashback, we see that before the storm, he was living what seemed to be a much less marginal life.

Yes. He was in mid-city, he had a car, he had his record collection. And he was probably content with that, and then he had to take a huge step backwards. And there's also no implication that he was living with Desiree at the time. She and the baby were someplace else. So he was a lot more fancy-free as a bachelor.

it's the only time you can really measure how much baptiste has lost in the storm. (including all his rare records. god damn. he should ask that japanese guy to replace them.)

yikes, nobody is watching this anymore huh?

just watched the finale today. still kinda sinking in, but i'm more indifferent to both the show's strengths and weaknesses than really passionate about either. the knowledge that there will be a 2nd season makes me optimistic about what directions they could take it in, though.

can't believe how much whining there is on this thread about the series, I'm two away from the finale, it's excellent. buskers are annoying though, hope Sonny dies and she goes off on tour. actually she was more tolerable with Zahn during the Fat Tuesday stuff.

Somehow I still like this show a lot...

i liked it. i think someone said upthread it's like one of those shows i never felt like i had to see the next ep but when i start watching it i'm down

i didn't even know there was a s02 on it's way! finished the 1st season last week. thought it was ok.

Finally got this — the album Baptiste saved before the floods in the flashback. It's awesome. Hard to find, but I highly recommend it.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AM9vPFvML._SL500_AA300_.jpg

so I liked this but a few weeks after watching it a couple of things bug me, most of them having to do with Sonny, who I admit is useless and annoying.

1) he hooked up with a transsexual, correct? what was the point of this, exactly? I feel like this is setting up an HIV story line with him and if so it seems incredibly contrived.
2) dude who followed Sonny back from Texas (the bouncer) for no reason at all and then turns out to be the Good Roofer. This was annoying and contrived too.

Well, fuck, anyone have any idea how I can watch this? Stupid DVR randomly deleted the three of the last four episodes I had yet to watch. According to HBO's schedule they aren't replaying it anytime soon, its not available OnDemand, and there are only one minute "excerpts" on Hulu. Not even a planned DVD release yet. So fucking pissed off.

Damn it, not even on fucking iTunes.

torrent it?

i haven't even watched the last couple episodes yet even though i loved it. it made me so happy that i didn't feel any kind of hurry to get it over with.

I am so bad at torrenting, I've never had luck with that. I always end up with either unplayable files or viruses. I'm just annoyed that I can somehow stream pretty much every show on network television ever, but HBO holds this shit back.

Its annoying that this is 2010 and there isn't a way for me to watch this, even if I'm willing to pay for it. Other than resorting to dodgy illegal downloads that will kill my computer.

USENET

new season starts in 2 days apparently? lol wow at the utter lack of anticipation.

*anticipates*

Its annoying that this is 2010 and there isn't a way for me to watch this, even if I'm willing to pay for it. Other than resorting to dodgy illegal downloads that will kill my computer.

― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, October 14, 2010 8:52 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

First season on Netflix Tuesday.

psyched

(to finish season 1 then wait for a few months to rent season 2)

Think I'm gonna wait for the season to be over this time before starting it... see you guys later this year sometime, hopefully

Great one:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/wendell-pierce,54718/

man what an endearing interview subject.

all-time wkiw

Should I be kicking myself that I gave up halfway through season 1?