3 out of 5

Created by: David Simon and George Pelecanos

We’re spoiled for TV.  We’ve been spoiled by TV.  Peak TV – our current ‘Golden Age’ of creator-driven dramas – has made us, logically, watch shows much differently than we would have a hand full of years ago.  They don’t necessarily have to pitch us from page one, and so in that sense, there’s more leeway to develop, but the same leeway can be a license for excess – excess that translates to the antithesis of story or character development.  Which is a little counter-intuitive, given what seems like the high turnover rate of television; that there’s so much of it nowadays that not grabbing your audience right away seems like a gamble, but shows have earned the auteurish right to say “by the creators of…” and have it mean something.  So to know that a new HBO show is coming to us from the guys of The Wire means we’re going to watch The Deuce, and probably withhold our ultimate judgements with faith that it’ll get around to punching us in the guts in that way that hurts so dang good.

The Deuce might get there.  Eventually.  But were this not ‘by the creators of…,’ would I still be watching it?  This year, we had what felt like the tonally similar Snowfall on FX; with Deuce chronicling the change on the 70s NY streets from the skin-hustle trade into the parlors and then onto porn, Snowfall intends to cover the rise of crack cocaine in the same era, primarily in LA.  Where the Wire’s pedigree shows is in its balanced character juggling, as Snowfall suffered a bit from too-clear subplotting, but in both cases, if I wasn’t aware of each show’s m.o., I’m not sure I could tell you what the point was.  Snowfall was interesting, but hardly felt like the sprawling document it wanted to be, and The Deuce has personality in spades, and captures the sleaze and degradation of the industry, and James Franco oddly playing twin brothers, but, again, I’m not really getting the sense (yet) of a larger picture.  Just some dudes talkin’ street and some ladies who deal with sex as a job and the people / culture that were /was all too happy to indulge and abuse that.

But we’re spoiled for TV.  We’ve been impressed several times over by now, on HBO and elsewhere.  This kind of big name cast and production, Wire-credits aside, has competition for our attention.  Of course, I have faith in these guys, I’m just not enraptured for next week’s episode, and I frankly don’t feel wrapped up in any character’s particular plight.  It doesn’t help that I’m not a big Maggie Gyllenhaal fan – and her general detachment while acting may be right for prostitute-turned-filmmaker “Candy,” but it’s still not right for ingratiating her to me – and that I can’t really understand the necessity for the stunt casting of Franco in the two roles, unless there’s something metatextual about the two sides of the issues chewed up and spit out by The Deuce’s – i.e. Times Square’s – denizens, but I do dig the Simon / Pelecanos style of just sitting back and observing.  It’s a foul business overall, but they don’t have to coach us through that; they just let us watch – dirty voyeurs that we are – as sexual politics and gay rights and police corruption and NY’s melting pot of culture all stew together.

Damn, yeah, it’ll be a good show.  As we steer into the end of the first season and some pieces start to align – hookers are off the street, Deep Throat premiers in a theater – that feeling the show’d been fumbling with of shoving us up the butt of the zeitgeist of the porn revolution finally starts to emerge.  Possibly I would not have gotten there without The Wire’s credibility.  But, hey, I’m glad I did, and I’m betting I’ll be gladder as things continue next season.