K-Ville Pilot Review

Fox's new cop drama K-Ville seems to be more of the same. The main difference between K-Ville and other cop dramas is the setting. K-Ville has the seen-it-all family man cop, the partner with a shameful secret, and the violent beat that they are committed to cleaning up. The difference is their beat is the still recovering post-Katrina New Orleans.
The show's premise revolves around officers Marlin Boulet and Trevor Cobb policing the 2 years post-Katrina New Orleans. They don't have a lot of resources at hand and have to deal with such charming nuances of working in New Orleans as no street signs, stolen by criminals to keep the cops from easily making their way around town. With reconstruction going on all over the city and the evidence of the storm still all around this setting provides a lot of opportunities for quality drama and social commentary. The pilot didn't quite meet that potential. It touched on some of the scars and the difficulties inherent in the situation, but there wasn't much meat presented.
The reason I wanted to watch this show in the first place was Anthony Anderson. Anderson plays Marlin Boulet. After his performance as Antwon Mitchell on FX's The Shield seeing him in dramatic roles is a draw for me. Anderson doesn't disappoint. He's dangerous when he needs to be and warm when he needs to be and above all he's believable. This is more than can be said for Cole Hauser who plays Boulet's partner Trevor Cobb. Hauser isn't bad, but he doesn't really have much to work with and is pretty flat in most of his scenes.
The pilot's plot is an old story in a new setting: someone is trying to scare people away from the rebuilding project in a particular part of the city to further their own ends. It honestly wasn't that interesting and would have made a much better 90 minute buddy cop movie than it did a pilot. Still, the scenes of life in the rebuilding New Orleans and Boulet's history made the episode worth the watch. One of the things about the episode that I suspect was supposed to be compelling is a revelation about the history of Boulet's new partner Cobb. The character seemed almost incidental for so much of the episode that when the revelation was made I didn't care. It was neither necessary nor particularly interesting. If the pilot is any indication, then K-Ville is going to be another case of the week cop drama which will touch on the Katrina tragedy and the difficulties faced by those who faced the storm and those who returned to the city afterwards without digging too deep.
K-Ville wasn't bad, but the pilot wasn't really anything special. Anderson is worth watching and he makes Boulet a compelling lead, but nothing else about the show really stood out. Hopefully future episodes will move away from the case of the week format and the show will focus more on the drama of the setting rather than just using the setting to stage the same old stories. All in all K-Ville is a show with potential the pilot doesn't even get close to.