What with Fox launching its Fall season earlier than everyone else, already K-Ville's time has come. The Carusometer must be sated. It dials are whirring, its sunglasses are flickering. It's even bought a new suit - black, of course.
It's time for a third-episode verdict.
K-Ville suffered from one of the most clich?ɬ©-packed first episodes imaginable. Not utterly awful, but the kind of show that you've seen a dozen times before. Its real plus was the backdrop of New Orleans. Rather than being just a backdrop, it has become the central focus of the show's plots. All three episodes so far have revolved around the rather unique circumstances the city is currently facing that make possible certain kinds of crime that would be impossible elsewhere.
In a sense, you have to admire Fox for having the guts to tackle the issues. But they're submerged under so many cookie-cutter ideas that any points that the show makes are essentially worthless: it's like having Big Bird protest about political repression in Burma/Myanmar. Can you really trust a show that thinks 9mm rounds can't pass through plaster at short range or has a shoot-out every 10 minutes to tell you about the situation for illegal workers in New Orleans?
The focus on New Orleans also means that there's little focus on the characters. Although Cole Hauser's ex-army ranger did get a fair old look-in last week and the police captain got something of a background this episode, this is pretty much character via CV rather than proper character development. And the other characters are pretty much cyphers, and implausible ones at that.
So again, I have to say it's trying its best, but it's just not got what it takes. One of the better cop shows Fox has produced (compare and contrast with Standoff, for example), but still not great. Maybe worth watching if you have an interest in New Orleans, but that's about it.
So The Medium is Not Enough declares K-Ville to be a 3 or Minor Caruso on The Carusometer quality scale. A Minor Caruso corresponds to a show “in which David Caruso might guest star as a New Orleans detective. He will insist on cooking chitlins, playing jazz and sticking needles into a voodoo doll of Dana Delaney 'to get into character', even though he will end up delivering every line sounding Pakistani, refusing to go anywhere near water in case it spoils his suit and taking refuge inside a seven-tonne SUV whenever a light breeze starts up.”
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