Shining a spotlight on a city’s troubles

Would “K-Ville” be indulgent in capitalizing on post-Katrina tragedy? Initially, that fear didn’t seem legitimate. At the outset, the Fox police drama (Mondays, 9 p.m.), filmed in New Orleans, had a sobriety of purpose that always outstripped its cop-show mechanics. At times, it felt like an exercise in charity more than a shot at small-screen glory.

It remains perhaps the only show on network TV that operates from an assumption of discontent, even rage. In the show’s first few episodes, the frustration and sweat of coping with fallout from the storm was palpable. And righteous too, particularly in scenes between Marlin Boulet (Anthony Anderson) and his former partner, Charlie Pratt (Derek Webster), who deserted the police force during Katrina -- “He left me in the water,” Boulet said. “He left the city in the water.”

That hostility spills over into the show’s plotlines, which aren’t ripped from the headlines so much as ripped from a white paper done by a government study group. Last week’s murder victim was embezzling money from a fund to help those returning after the storm. In early October, one episode’s victim was a former district attorney in cahoots with a gang leader, both set to profit from a greenspace initiative.

And Boulet himself is a victim of the storm, his family splintering at the seams. His wife feels he’s too consumed by his job, and when she gets his attention, she can only bemoan the hand the city has dealt them.

The moments when Anderson is given room to breathe are the only ones in which “K-Ville” becomes something more than a public service announcement. He’s a lyrical actor, equally at ease with indignation and joy. His terrifying 2005 turn on “The Shield” was an “aha!” moment -- on par with Adam Sandler’s as something more than an emotional naif in “Punch-Drunk Love” -- and “K-Ville” uses his broad range. “I kept kosher once to impress a girl,” he joked in a recent episode, “till she caught me cheating with a pulled pork po’boy.”

Outside of Anderson, “K-Ville” has more or less receded to a standard-issue cop show -- slightly ridiculous shootouts and fights, slightly more ridiculous plot twists. Boulet’s partner, Trevor Cobb (Cole Hauser), is a former criminal who, in a fit of regret and reinvention, hornswoggled his way onto the police force. Considering his back story, though, Cobb is one-note -- he recalls a sterner, more stoic Mike Kellerman (Reed Diamond) from “Homicide: Life on the Street.” And worse, there’s a similar dash of Zen on the Charlie Crews of NBC’s “Life,” who plays it with dry wit, not inner grumbling. For the most part, secondary cops fail to leave an impression, save Capt. James Embry (John Carroll Lynch), who sounds as if he’s been working undercover in a bayou for decades. (Since location is so central to “K-Ville,” producers clearly take at least a little joy in playing to type -- last week, one tough had a rich, gnarled accent and a “Swanee River” ring tone. And Boulet is a connoisseur of local cuisine.)

“New Orleans ain’t the only thing in my life that matters,” Boulet assured his wife last week. “If leaving is what it takes for me to do right by you and my little girl then I’m willing to discuss it.”

He is, of course, lying -- they’ll have to flush him out.

Or cancel him. As a new series with questionable ratings, “K-Ville” is unlikely to survive the writers strike. But perhaps there’s another solution for the show. As Katrina and New Orleans recede from the nation’s front pages, apart from what will undoubtedly be hand-wringing newspaper editorials each August, maybe the mayor’s office should pick up the tab for production. Keep jobs in the local economy. Keep the problems of the devastated on prime-time TV. Maybe even sneak a little bounce music onto the soundtrack to reflect the city beyond second-line bands. The New Orleans of “K-Ville” is not perfect, but it is honest. The city has found -- in Anderson, if not his show -- a pained and stubborn new voice. It’ll be a shame when it gets shut down.