If you were moved by the Spike Lee documentary, When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, then you need to tune into HBO tonight.  HBO will air the Spike Lee follow-up documentary, If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise, in 2 parts.  Part I will air tonight Monday, August 23rd, and Part II on Tuesday, August 24th.  It will also be broadcast in its entirety on August 29th, which will be the 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the breaching of the levees.

The final hour of the 4-hour work will be devoted to the BP Gulf Coast oil spill, during which Spike promises to show what he alleges is the “corruption and corner-cutting that surrounded the deadly explosion and subsequent clean-up effort.”

I sure do miss watching episodes of The Wire on HBO.  I’d been wondering if David Simon, creator of The Wire, was working on anything new since The Wire went off the air, and I found out that he, along with Eric Overmyer (writer and producer of Law & Order), has a new series coming to HBO starting next month called Treme.  The series premieres on April 11, 2010.

Oh, here’s a special treat: If you’re a fan of The Wire like me, you’ll be happy to see Wendell Pierce (Bunk Moreland) and Clarke Peters (Lester Freamon) each week in Treme. No, Bunk and Lester haven’t relocated to New Orleans (woulda been a cool idea to have Bunk and Lester tag teaming on crime in NOLA), but Wendell and Clarke are now regulars in this new series. And if you’ve seen the Spike Lee documentary, When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, you already know that Wendell Pierce is a native of New Orleans. So Treme is like going back home for Wendell.

Cast
Steve Zahn
Rob Brown
Melissa Leo
Khandi Alexander
Kim Dickens
Clarke Peters
Wendell Pierce
John Goodman
Michiel Huisman
Lucia Micarelli

Synopsis: Antoine Bastiste (Wendell Pierce) is a smooth-talking trombonist who is struggling to make ends meet; his ex-wife, LaDonna Batiste-Williams (Khandi Alexander) a bar owner concerned over the disappearance of her younger brother David; Toni Bernette (Melissa Leo), an overburdened underpaid civil rights attorney; Toni’s husband Creighton (John Goodman), a university professor and local history expert who’s becoming an increasingly outspoken critic of the institutional response to the disaster; Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn), a rebellious radio disc jockey and musician; Janette Desautel (Kim Dickens), Davis’ occasional partner and a popular chef hoping to regain momentum for her newly re-opened restaurant; Albert Lambreaux (Clarke Peters), a displaced Mardi Gras Indian Chief who returns to find his home and his tribe, The Guardians of the Flame, scattered; and Albert’s son Delmond (Rob Brown), an exile in New York playing modern jazz and looking beyond New Orleans for his future.

Just a reminder……..McNulty, Omar, Bubbles, Marlo and the rest of the gang from The Wire are back this Sunday night on HBO. Check your local listings for times, and remember to set your TiVo’s!

Here’s the premise of the premiere episode:

Season 5, Episode 51: More With Less

“The bigger the lie, the more they believe.” – Bunk Moreland

In the fifth-season premiere, McNulty and the detail continue to stake out Marlo’s crew, recently promoted Sgt. Carver is welcomed by a cauldron of discontent from officers coping with unpaid overtime; Though he wants to keep his campaign promise to lower crime, Mayor Carcetti is strapped by his commitment to schools, and faces some tough choices; Col. Daniels is forced to reallocate his resources, retaining Freamon and Sydnor for the Clay Davis probe; Meanwhile, city editor Augustus “Gus” Haynes and the staff of The Baltimore Sun are reeling from corporate cutbacks, losing key personnel from both the metro and international divisions; Still, with the help of reporters Alma Gutierrez, Jeff Price and Scott Templeton, Haynes is able to break a front-page story that links a politician to a co-op drug dealer; Proposition Joe, Marlo, Fatface Rick and other new day co-op members meet in a hotel conference room to discuss divvying up drug frontiers across East Baltimore’s county line.

Discussions will be held in the Infinite Ink Forum on Monday in regards to the latest episodes.