Treme (HBO TV Series)

Treme is one of those trademark series from HBO that is the video equivalent of well constructed literature.  It lures you in with a sense of place (New Orleans), and then keeps you on the hook with an array of interesting and complex characters.  It’s a simple premise:  8 months after the collapse of the dykes during Hurricane Katrina, a variety of New Orleans residents are attempting to put their lives back together.  That’s it.  But trust me, the lack of central plot is of little concern, because the individual story threads of these characters more than compensate for a story arc.  Most HBO fans are already familiar with this structure.

One thing worth mentioning is that for anyone who is a fan of deep south jazz and New Orleans culture will especially enjoy Treme.  The painstaking attention to detail regarding music and local color is remarkable.  By coincidence, I happened to be in the middle of Ken Burns’ documentary “Jazz” when this came out, and was watching the two simultaneously.  If you’ve never had the urge to travel to Louisana before, this series will surely give you the bug.   A kind of tragicomic series, Treme has all the regular trademarks that HBO fans expect, but raises the bar quite a bit in terms of deeply written characters.