K-Ville in the New York Times

The NYT had a good write up about K-Ville, Cop Show Comes Calling in Battered New Orleans. I don't particularly like NYT because, for many articles, you have to log in. This headline caught my eye though.

I have three hopes for K-Ville.

1) I hope it doesn't get cancelled. I heard that The Sarah Conner Chronicles will be moving to Monday nights and will displace K-Ville. Uhoh, not good.

2) I hope the shows keeps showing more and more of the precinct and the other officers. I like the story line with ex-partner Charlie, too.

3) I hope, keeping #1 in mind, that the series is very successful over the long term. I don't know if you remember Frank's Place but I hope K-Ville is much more successful. I think having a series every week that keeps New Orleans in people's minds could be very beneficial.

The article says that some people are bothered that in New Orleans, people don't refer to the city as K-Ville. That's true but I have read it quite a bit. I read it from people natives and non-natives. I think the title is a non-issue. I mean it's a TV show for christ's sake. It beats reality TV and Dr Phil.

Best Quote: Employment and other economic benefits are at the heart of that welcome. Ms. Day said that 80 percent of the crew on the show is local. “It takes eight days to film an episode,” she said. “Over that eight days a little more than a million dollars is pumped into the local economy.”

Wikipedia has a write up about K-Ville. Short but good. I'm sure info will be added to it over time.

Cole Hauser on Playing a Cop

Cole Hauser plays Trevor Cobb, new partner to Anthony Anderson's Marlin Boulet. Trevor escaped from a flooded prison and joined the army before joining the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and becoming a cop. Cole is working hard to play an authentic NOPD officer.

According to this article at CanMag.com, Cole has been spending time with the real NOPD as research.

"They do things differently in New Orleans, different than around the country as far as the cops I've been around, whether it be New York or Los Angeles," said Hauser. "It's just a different style. As far as playing characters that are cops in New Orleans, it's the best kind of cop you can play. The fact is that in doing things different and being around and just the actual place that we're at in the French Quarter and dealing with Louisiana and Ninth Ward, New Orleans East and seeing the things that these guys go through."

Some of the actors have been allowed to travel with the police, even with SWAT, and get to see how the officers work and what it is like to arrest someone. In addition to getting a close-up introduction to the criminal element in New Orleans, the actors are getting to know the freakshow that is night-time New Orleans (and I say that affectionately).

Even in good times, New Orleans presents a different kind of perp. "It's the people they're dealing with. You have to understand like the French Quarter, everybody thinks New Orleans is the French Quarter. You go down there, everybody is drinking, you're talking about a city that is partying 24/7 and the people that they're dealing with, the perps that they're dealing with, most people are either on drugs in that quarter or drinking out of their mind. So the people that they're dealing with are just, pardon the expression, but out of their minds drunk."

I'm glad these guys are in New Orleans making this show. The NOPD has had some bad publicity, some of it very much deserved, but the cops in New Orleans are mostly good people with a really hard and dangerous job. I'm hoping K-Ville with shed a little light on the real NOPD just as much as I hope that K-Ville will shed some light on the real NOLA. It would be nice if the show spent more time in the precinct and with the various officers.

What is K-Ville? Why is New Orleans called K-Ville?

Two questions that I have been asked and have been seeing in forums.

K-Ville is a new series coming in September starring Blake Shields, Cole Hauser, Maximiliano Hernandez, Anthony Anderson, John Carroll Lynch & Tawny Cypress.

K-Ville is also a new name for New Orleans. Note that people who live in New Orleans, do not call it K-Ville.

Why is New Orleans called K-Ville? It means Katrinaville. I don't know who first coined the term but it was first used not long after Katrina hit.

Technically, I guess it could mean any place inundated by Katrina and that would include a large portion of the gulf coast. I typically hear it referring specifically to New Orleans, though.

A good description that I read some time back is in this article in the Guardian Unlimited, Hell and high water.

Katrina-ville is not just a trailer park. It is also a state of mind. It is a Checkhovian nightmare of bureacracy, corruption and insurance rip-offs that has plagued the region devastated by the storm and slowed reconstruction to a disgraceful crawl. It is of politicians unable to rise to the challenge. It is why New Orleans has still not unveiled a rebuilding plan. It is why $2bn of reconstruction funds have been wasted or stolen. It is the corruption that allowed 1,100 prison inmates to claim $10m in rental relief or saw renovations for an Alabama shelter eventually cost $416,000 per evacuee (more than the cost of a new home each).