They think you're the mark

"If you can't tell who the mark is in the first five minutes, then you're the mark." Some variation of that phrase is usually uttered in most movies or TV shows about gambling because most people think gambling is about losing. Or, well, most people actually think gambling is about winning, but most people end up losing because they're the walking example of that adage. Similarly, most people don't know how casinos actually function and, well, most people don't know what good writing actually is and, well, we can keep going in this vein for a long time before we run out of obvious examples. All of them lead to a situation where you could argue that Poker Face is actually a good show and you'd be wrong because it isn't and it took me getting all of 45 minutes into the first episode to tell you why. Tricia is currently finishing the last ~15 minutes of said episode while I'm writing this opening paragraph because she's willing to give it that much more consideration before deciding whether it's worth it.

First off, production design. It's shoddy, obvious, and stupid. If you're setting up a situation where you don't want to try to keep dancing around being set in the most obvious of locales (Las Vegas), then you probably want to at least set yourself up so that your replacement for Vegas seems like it's a realistic situation. The show seems to be set in "Frost County", because the big guy who owns the casino where most of the action happens is Sterling Frost. The county is named after him. The police answer to him. The casino that he owns is named after him. His son, Sterling Frost, Jr. (Adrien Brody, the only performance worth watching in the limited time that I could sit through; we'll get back to that) is named after him. Ego will often take you a long way. If that's the case, why would your ego think that it's necessary to name said casino "Frost Casino" like you never made it past the opening pitch of the series to some idiot producer, rather than something both more self-serving (just "Frost" might have worked, since everyone knows what it is, like "MGM Grand") and even vaguely more intelligent for the viewer? Does said viewer need to be reminded more than once that this place- where most of the essential action takes place -is the casino or do you think they can figure that out on their own? Similarly, no actual casino in the world has a blazing neon sign that announces its high rollers room as the HIGH ROLLERS ROOM. That is, unless the target audience for your show has both a) never actually been in a casino and is b) stupid. Just FYI: Most people with that much money don't want to be bothered by nosy spectators watching them lose that money, so the big neon sign to attract people would generally be seen as a poor choice.

Second, plot. The basic story of the first episode is that your lead character, Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) can tell when anyone is lying, so Sterling, Jr., the casino's manager, is going to use Charlie to help him beat a high roller in a game of poker, since she'll always be able to tell him and his inside guy when said high roller (Mr. Kane) is bluffing. There's a lot more going on in the episode involving a murder, but that's the basic premise around which everything else revolves. And that would be fine for a pilot that introduces Charlie, her ability, and how that will be used to set up the "murder of the week" situation that the entire series is supposed to work with except that said basic premise is bullshit because that's not how poker works. If Charlie always knows that someone's lying and, therefore, bluffing, OK. But what if they don't need to bluff/lie? If they think their three kings beats everyone else at the table and they bet on it, they're not lying. And if you think your two pair beats everyone, you're still losing to their three cowboys. So how does Charlie give you an edge in that situation? How could you even imagine that she would give you an edge unless you'd never played poker in your life and really had no idea how the game worked? They were also setting up cameras to see all angles of the room. If that's the case, then they should be able to see the mark's hand and play into it whether they have Charlie there or not, so what's the point of involving her? Are there really that many people out there who've both never played and never been in a casino that are willing to ride along with this situation because Lyonne and Brody's acting somehow make it worth watching?

Third, acting. Yes, Brody, like usual, is excellent, shifting from mildly perturbed to casually menacing to quietly plaintive and back again with aplomb. Lyonne, OTOH, brings a lot more fire and light to a lot of what happens, which seems to be her whole purpose in the general proceedings. The person who keeps turning over that page that people might not want turned seems to be her Sisyphean rock (e.g. she has to keep doing it, even if it's not really what she wants.) That's fine from a character motivation/goal standpoint, but it's also a situation that can get tiresome for the viewer right quick. She already fills her role with some level of exasperation. How long until that starts being the role of the audience, as well? The reason that some people find sitcoms to be more annoying than humorous (waves tiny flag) is that they're prescribed situations. You have to be willing to be set up to be knocked down and that's just not really entertaining to me because those characters are bowling pins, rather than bowling balls. They don't roll forward. They just stand there to get knocked down and set up to be knocked down again, over and over. They don't make progress. That's what this is and it's usually pretty tedious by the third or fourth time around. But in this case, it's not even the typical Colombo-style "murder-of-the-week" because Charlie's magical ability lets the writers do a shortcut. They don't even have to set up clues and do all that deductive reasoning nonsense. They can just set up one bowling pin to lie and the other pin will know that they're lying so we can just cut right to the chase, almost literally.

But, clearly, I am the exception to the rule because not only has said series been critically hailed (99% on Rotten Tomatoes! 99%! With an 8.6 average!), but intelligent people like Gail Simone are declaring it to be one of the best shows on TV, at the moment. I have Peacock because it's the only way I can be sure to see all of Liverpool's Premier League matches, so I definitely didn't go out of my way to pick it up in order to see Poker Face and I can tell you right now that no one else should, either.