What makes it different from others?

Boring, long, and too preachy.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Love "The Wire". As good as TV gets. So, you are hopeful for the Simon take on another American city in decline. (The Wire is about Baltimore). New Orleans, a great American city, as filled with character and local color as any of the great East Coast cities, ravaged by hurricane Katrina in 2005. With black urban poor, elitist liberals, working cops, racists, ravaging Real Estate developers, and a history of jazz music and the Mardi Gras, this was a natural for David Simon's sweet spot. Simon went back to his prior works and brought in some great actors. This is the strong point of the show, the characters themselves are great, diverse, rich, each with a back story and personality that gets brought to life thoroughly. I can't even pick a single actor that shines, they are almost all bright spots. There are numerous cameos by real people, musicians, chefs, and others, who maybe slow things up slightly with their awkward speaking parts, but that is simple to overlook because the cast carries them all. But the problems with this show are the story lines themselves. Although, one could say this is what 'Real Life' is like, there are a few melodramas and soap opera like improbabilities that occur in order to make things interesting and give us some kind of plot. The big stories are about 1. the tradition of the Mardi Gras Indians, and we get in the head of one of the chiefs to understand why this custom has carried on and what value he places on it. A dignified and honorable man who is enobled by his adherence to this custom, the chief represents the real heart of New Orleans. And linked to him is a jazz musician son faced with squaring away his roots with his ambitions. 2. a female bar owner who has relationships with a number of other characters, and who suffers some of the soap opera like tragedies that give the story impetus. She represents the reality of living in a violent racist urban millieu day to day and rolling with the punches to overcome. 3. A womanizing Trombone player who embodies the 'big easy' way of life, but through his story grows up, maybe. 4. A pot smoking neer-do-well DJ who ultimately must also grow up. He represents the idealized romantic view of New Orleans culture. 5. A well respected Chef struggling to make it as a business woman. Her arc is the prodigal son, who wanders away, but can not escape her connection to the ruined city. 6. A social justice lawyer, who suffers a betrayal by her elitist husband, and is driven to fight the system of oppression that is given free reign by the scope of the disaster. 7. An honest cop who also attempts to fight the system. 8. Some Real Estate developers ought to make money regardless of the impact on average people and the neighborhoods. 9. Two street musicians who begin as lovers and travel separate paths, both seeking peace and growth though personal travails. These stories all meander together. Sometimes in sensible ways, some time with easy soap opera plot twists. Some characters suffer, some grow. All are joined together by the music and culture of New Orleans. Simeon thinks big and follows the formula of 'The Wire' in letting each character's tale have weight and scoping all of them within the Social System of the modern Urban American environment. There are good things and bad things through out the story. Simon, while having an inherent jewish fetish for romanticising urban black America, is never dishonest about the brutal and violent side of the shiny coin he is fascinated with. He imbues the story with so much music, and makes the New Orleans music scene such an important part of each characters life, that viewers not enamored of music will find it off putting. In the same way, and what is now a decade later somewhat dated, there is a consistent attack on republicanism, Bush, Nagin, and everything non-liberal. Ultimately, why can cops act illegally? Because of Bush. Why will black people get screwed? because of Bush. and on and on and on. Since the story ends with the election of Obama in 2008, the question of whether D's are better is mostly left unresolved, except that social justice lawyer finally gets a system that will consider her not an enemy. All of this is somewhat typical of leftist Hollywood and it does detract from the story. So what we get here ultimately are extended character studies of various folks in David Simon's version of New Orleans. The plots and stories themselves are so uneven, some resolved, some not, that one gets annoyed at the show. If you like Jazz music and great acting, you'll like this show. If you are expecting a normal plot that moves towards something like a story line and a conclusion, you won't find it. Slow moving, sometimes too much schlock, this slow moving drama is not for most people, despite it's lofty intntions.

That wasn't an attempt at being snide, in case you were wondering. I'm not from America so I have no idea what this series is to people who are from the States but not from New Orleans, but for me it was as fascinating look into a place and people I didn't know anything about going in. And while there can be said a lot of good about the narrative trope of having an outsider who works as a link to the audience by asking all the questions that they want the answers to, I personally enjoy once in a while being thrown in at the deep and watching characters going about their daily lives and routines and if there's something I don't understand I will have to infer the meaning or else just live with the mystery. Of course it isn't all colourful costumes and plastic beards. Most of the characters and themes like the story arch of the chef or the violinist could be told with any place as a background, but since it takes place here, we learn about New Orleans food and music through them. The stories of police brutality and corruption could also, sadly, have happened anywhere, but the hurricane made everything worse and more chaotic. In the end, this is a slice of life, where we follow a group of people in their home town, until we leave them, partly changed, partly the same, without any special conclusion or wrap-up. Some doors are closed other are opened and we could easily have followed them for four more years. New Orleans might be a special place, but the people in it are just people; human, fragile and endearing even with all their flaws.

I have just finished the 2nd season but overall I do like the show. I felt the suicide of John Goodman's character was a bit forced. His daughter going off on a bit of a wild streak was a bit typical and I felt unnecessary. I don't really see the point of always having to have the young and naive girl who gets into trouble. I felt the character Sonny was just random and pointless. Chances are in New Orleans you will not meet someone from the Netherlands who is a struggling musician who obviously has undertones of yellow fever. The show should be about the locals and the main demographic that constitutes New Orleans which is not a Netherlands transplant. His random infatuation with the Vietnamese shrimper's daughter was out of nowhere and her returned interest was random. Most people would be uncomfortable when a random ex-dope fiend/ musician/fisherman is giving them a stare. She does not know how good of musician he is, at most possibly knows he is a helper on an oyster-boat and a dope fiend. The Vietnamese community is still shown as a foreign and reclusive element barely featured in the show but somehow the one shrimper's daughter is so enamored and interested in Sonny. Really?! Everyone is like that except for one girl?! The only element as mentioned earlier is the shrimper's daughter who randomly seems to have been hit by cupid's arrow for a dope fiend musician. LaDonna's character and the Chief were very inspirational and well played. Should have been less Sofia Bernette and less Netherlands ex-junkie and more of an inside look at the Vietnamese community and their stories. I mean the show is supposed to be about New Orleans. I don't know maybe they inserted Sofia's character and Sonny for demographic audience or something. NOLA has plenty of music, culture, history and struggles which all by the way is unique to that city! I love the show don't get me wrong but they could of done a better job representing NOLA. (Sidenote) just got through the episode after Sonny gets acquainted with the shrimper and then meets the daughter. I still get a very karate kid feel to it. Works for him one day then all of sudden he is cool and okay to date the guy's daughter. He was made to look like a jerk but he's really just like any other protective father. By the way I can't finish the series. I stopped I mean it has great potential but it's becoming filled with too much nonsense drama and too many musical performances. Don't get me wrong the performers are great but it ruins the mood of the show. Like they are trying to crack down on city corruption like in "The Wire" but then they try to also do its culture within the music and food. A lot of the episodes are also fettered with unnecessary drama. I feel there needs to be more of a connection between the culture and city with the government. It was obviously apparent in Season 1 but now its like three mini shows in one. "Kitchen Confidential" with some of "The Wire" and then like NOLA version of ACL with live performances. They need to connect everything together not just to have them coincidentally being in the same scene.

David Simon's new show, a heartfelt ode to post-Katrina New Orleans and the spirit of its inhabitants, is the best thing I have seen all year. It's The Wire with music instead of drugs. Many found this very concept boring – no blood, no guns, no romantic gangsters. Too bad for them. Treme is about everyday people trying to get by, a group of flawed but beautiful characters so real that it's bordering on the uncomfortable. It's not Eastenders after the levees broke though – nothing is soppy or melodramatic about these people's lives: romance is doomed or pathetic; tragedy is latent and ordinary.Wendell "Bunk" Pierce and Clarke "Freemon" Peters reprise slightly altered versions of their Wire persona, but this time as local musicians. Pierce still plays the gregarious man who's real good at what he does (used to be PO-lice, here it's playing the trombone) but likes earthy pleasures a bit too much (women & booze, again). And Peters remains this charismatic, wise and brave old-timer (Morgan Freeman watch out!), as the Chief of a tribe of Mardi-Gras Indians. They are both great, but Clarke Peters once again steals the show: after transforming doll-house furniture building into a dignified past-time in The Wire, he pushes it further in Treme by making sewing pearls look like the manliest thing on earth.The rest of the ensemble cast is on the same note, absolutely excellent. John Goodman is impressive playing the ungrateful role of the self- absorbed academic, who, despite having his beautiful house and life spared by the hurricane, lets his romantic love for the city draw him into a bleak depression. Khandi Alexander (yes, that sexy coroner from CSI Miami) redeems herself from all these years playing in that pathetic excuse of a show with her subtle portrayal of a bar owner looking for her missing brother in the aftermath of the hurricane. There is also the irksome but necessary figure of local white DJ Davis McAlary (played by the excitable Steve Zahn) who serves as a symbol for gentrification and the controversial issue of white appropriation of black music, also obliquely addressing the recurring criticism of David Simon as "that middle-class white dude pretending to talk and care about the black underclass".Treme's pace is languorous, not dictated by the need to drive story lines or pile up cliffhangers. It's all about creating an atmosphere, getting a feel for the place. It is not, however, a sentimental postcard or a soppy mood piece: Simon's ambition is intact, layering the show with so many metaphorical story arcs (e.g. the great jazz debate between tradition and new jazz fleshed out by the feuding Lambreaux father and son) and socio-political observations, still pointing out the unfairness and contradictions of US society. In contrast to The Wire where institutions, like Roman gods, would crush the lives of the mere citizens, in Treme, no ones seems to care about institutions that are in even worse shape than the city anyway – symbolised by all that rotting, damp paperwork.A quick word about the soundtrack: live music sounds like live music, and it's rare enough to mention – with sloppy notes, amp feedback, misunderstanding between performers, ego battles, failures to keep up, faulty equipment, etc. Whether you particularly like New Orleans jazz, southern rap, funk, second-line brass bands, Indian chants or not – the enthusiasm and freshness of the music will keep you interested (and there's a chance that you'll improve your iTunes library in the process).In the long run, Treme could be considered superior to The Wire, as a masterful celebration of character, culture and community, a humanist look at life and death – and music. Let's hope Simon keeps it up with the next season.ggendron.wordpress.com