Where David Simon's The Wire showed a city in the midst of a slow-motion collapse, Treme finds post-Katrina New Orleans at the bottom, trying to get back up.
Treme is David Simon's first ongoing dramatic series since Wire ended in 2008, and from the first episode, it's got the potential to be another sweeping look at the struggles of a community that's been left behind by the rest of the world.
Wright, who wrote parts of the script and was involved in other aspects of the production, has invited me over before the series debut for a private screening. But though we started the show more than a half-hour ago, we haven't gotten very far -- five minutes in at best. Despite apologetically promising to let me watch, Wright keeps pausing the DVD to offer behind-the-scenes tidbits that suddenly evolve into fascinating non sequiturs and counterintuitive spiels about the war. I'm not complaining.
Generation Kill transforms Iraq from a theoretical problem into something you feel in your gut. Plus, an interview with the HBO series creators Dave Simon and Ed Burns.
After HBO snatched up the rights to Evan Wright's best-selling 2004 book about his experiences embedded with a squad of First Recon Marines during the early weeks of the Iraq War, he met with The Wire's David Simon and Ed Burns. The resulting seven-part miniseries, says Wright, is very similar to his own experiences.