Treme Sunday, 8 p.m., HBO Canada
It's fitting that Eric Overmyer would experience something like a hangover after immersing himself in New Orleans for the past four years.
The co-creator of HBO's critically acclaimed series Treme is trying to move on. But it's not easy to leave the Big Easy. The drama is entering its final leg on Sunday, the start of a truncated, five-episode fourth season that will end the ensemble drama.
It's not that he isn't keeping busy. The veteran writer and producer is in the midst of producing a pilot for Amazon based on author Michael Connelly's detective character, Harry Bosch. It's a Los Angeles-set crime show, a very different beast from one that examined the lives of chefs, musicians, politicians and other denizens of New Orleans' Treme neighbourhood after hurricane Katrina.
"We just had a party in New Orleans," Overmyer says. "We showed the first episode of the last season for whatever cast and crew was around or could make it to town. Many, many people I talked to said 'That was the best job I ever had.' That's kind of how I feel too because of the music factor and shooting in New Orleans. There's nothing like shooting live music. It's such a joy. I think we all had a bit of a hangover after that."
Treme was never a huge ratings grabber. But the fans it attracted have been a dedicated and passionate bunch. When the series first aired back in 2010, it set the action three months after 2005's hurricane Katrina had wreaked havoc on the city, zeroing in not only on those affected by the storm but those struggling to maintain New Orleans' unique culture as well. There were musicians, chefs, restaurant owners, honest cops, dishonest cops, Mardi Gras Indians, drug addicts, professors, politicians, bankers, opportunistic developers and DJs. Reaction to the show and its characters was always emotional in New Orleans, not surprising since the city was still weathering the aftermath of one of the costliest and deadliest natural disasters in American history. So viewers tended to take the storylines to heart, including character deaths. Steve Earle's humane street musician Harley Wyatt met his end in a spectacularly violent manner in Season 2. But before that, the demise of John Goodman's blogger and English professor Creighton Bernette at the end of Season 1 touched an even rawer nerve.
"I've never had such a personal reaction to a television show as I have from people in New Orleans," Overmyer says. "People are emotionally connected to New Orleans and that's because of the storm, the circumstances of the storm and the emotional material we were dealing with. For instance, (Creighton Bernette's) suicide touched a lot of people because there was a huge wave of suicides in the year or two years after the storm. People couldn't cope with the changes and the loss."
But while post-Katrina became a focal point of the series, Overmyer said the idea to make a New Orleansset show was hatched long before the 2005 storm devastated the city.
Overmyer and Treme co-creator David Simon met when both were working on the gritty, Baltimore-set police procedural, Homicide: Life on the Street in the 1990s. Simon went on to create the critically worshipped urban drama The Wire with Overmyer acting as a consulting producer.
"The initial impulse was before the storm," Overmyer said. "I've had a house in New Orleans since 1989 and David has been visiting there since the early 1990s, in fact he used to stay at my house in the early days. We just started talking about New Orleans and how much we liked it and how nobody had ever really done a television show or movie properly there in our opinion and wouldn't it be great to do a show there."
Overmyer began working with Simon on The Wire the year before Katrina hit. When the storm did come, the two realized that it would have to factor into the plot.
Overmyer does not hide his disappointment that HBO opted for a five-episode fourth season, rather than a full run. Wrapping up all the storylines in an ensemble show with only half a season was not easy, Overmyer admits. "We did the best we could within five ... but overall I think it worked out pretty good. And what's left unresolved, we were happy with leaving unresolved."
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