• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, September 8, 2017

A great deal of hard work evidently went into the production of “The Deuce” in order to depict New York City in 1971.

The problem is that all that effort does nothing to mask the fact that watching the actual show is a dismal, dreary, ugly experience.

Basically, “The Deuce” is a TV drama about prostitutes and pimps in and around Times Square and 42nd Street in the early ’70s – not a group of people I would choose to spend time with, but hey, that’s just me.

You've heard of “That ’70s Show”? Maybe they should have titled this one “That Hooker Show.”

Sure, there are other kinds of people in “The Deuce” too -- a bartender and his inveterate gambler twin brother (both played by James Franco), some cops and college students, and assorted mobsters who talk and act like they were on their way to “Goodfellas” and mistakenly took a wrong turn to end up here.

The most effective work done in the undertaking of this production is in the cars, clothes, locations and settings.

Give the production team an A for making their New York look authentically down in the dumps just like it really was -- or so I have gathered from a host of movies and TV shows that have come before this.

What can I say? In the 1970s, I was a just a kid from Philadelphia visiting the Times Square area for a Broadway show once or twice a year with my mom and dad.

If there were pimps and prostitutes plying their trade near the theaters we went to, no one ever pointed them out to me.

While watching the premiere episode of “The Deuce,” which premieres this coming Sunday night on HBO, I wondered if the New York being depicted here was based on the real thing or someone’s impression of what the real thing may have been like.

For example, a group of mobsters is seen seated around a barroom table telling war stories. Since they did the same thing in “Goodfellas,” it begs the question: Did real mobsters do this, or just the mobsters in movies and TV shows?

Then there are the racial and ethnic stereotypes that abound in “The Deuce.” The black pimps strut and preen in the manner of Huggy Bear from “Starsky and Hutch” and Rooster from “Baretta.”

Unlike their counterparts from ’70s TV, however, the pimps in “The Deuce” are loathsome characters, “turning out” teenagers at Port Authority Bus Terminal and later beating up the women who work for them. or cutting them with knives.

Maybe these portrayals are accurate. But that doesn't mean you will enjoy watching them.

Then there are the Italians -- the ones such as the twins played by Franco who are not in the mafia. They play like TV and movie stereotypes too.

At one point, one of the twins -- the one named “Vinnie” (of course) -- suddenly affects a “Saturday Night Fever” accent that he previously didn’t have. When he (or maybe his brother) walks down the street, you half expect to hear “Stayin’ Alive” playing in the background.

The premiere episode of “The Deuce” is just shy of 90 minutes long, but watching it felt like an eternity. One reason was that the episode offered no relief from the sadness and emptiness that surrounds every character.

Just about all of them are beset with serious personal problems -- marital, financial, sexual, you name it. In the first episode at least, none are likable enough to have you rooting for them to somehow build a better life for themselves.

So why watch? That's a question you might want to ask yourself if you’re planning on sampling this show on Sunday.

“The Deuce” (a reference to an old nickname for 42nd Street) is from David Simon, producer of “The Wire,” “Treme” and other shows for HBO.

It is HBO’s second attempt in the last few years to mount a 1970s drama. The other one was “Vinyl,” a series about the record business in which Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese were among the creators.

That show had much of the same feel as “The Deuce” and it lasted exactly one season. “The Deuce” seems destined for the same fate.

“The Deuce” premieres Sunday (September 10) at 9 p.m. Eastern on HBO.