15 Comments

I can't commit to watching four hours of one new show most weeks and definitely not this week, so I really hope Peacock realizes that their viewership numbers will trickle in from people like me. I generally don't enjoy binging TV at all unless its something heavily serialized and fairly simplistic in its storytelling. This show definitely is not that. And Apple+ launching Shrinking with two eps to begin is going to put me behind on that one too.

Quit trying to sorta emulate Netflix. Their model sucks.

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My desire to get in on the fun everyone is having with Poker Face is butting up against my desire to not join yet another streaming service SO DAMN HARD.

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My only complaint about “Poker Face”, and this is probably exasperated by dropping four episodes at once, is that the killers jump to MURDER!!! really quick. I get that it’s a trope, but the motivations were a little less convincing with each episode.

Episode 4, especially, made little sense. The victim had such golden retriever energy that he probably would have given away the song rights if he was asked nicely. It’s a nitpick, and I otherwise adore the show, and felt that the premiere was the first great episode of 2023. But if you’re gonna spend around 20 minutes on the guest stars, the setups could be a bit stronger.

The song was great, though.

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I feel like the 4 episodes at once release schedule hurt my enjoyment. I think it will work better with time between episodes.

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What does it say about me that one of my favorite parts of Poker Face was that the typeface on the credits at the start of the show were I think a duplicate of the Columbo typeface. (Is it font? I get the terms mixed up.) Also as you point out for such a screw up, the Adrien Brody character was surprisingly deft at grammatically structuring his conversation to avoid giving himself away. So will she have a dog and whistle "This Old Man" soon? Great show that I will string out for a while.

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author

Johnson told me it’s nit exactly the old Universal mystery tv font, but was inspired heavily by it.

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Thanks for the reminder that it was the mystery movie wheel and not one of the other wheeled shows The Bold Ones (featured a wonderful Hal Holbrook as The Senator segment). As a fan of the Kemelman Rabbi mysteries was sad that Lannigan's rabbi never caught fire.

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I havent seen much anywhere on how similar this show is to Tim Baltz old show Shrink. He went on a twitter rant when it was picked up but I havent read anyone mention it

https://twitter.com/tim_baltz/status/1448450115442671617?t=NifqW8WD7IKRJJvnIzi4Dw&s=19

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I have only watched Episode 1 of Poker Face so I just read your paragraph on that. I am completely with you on how puzzling this release schedule is. I would have preferred just doing 1 at a time. Now I am already behind and the show just started!

As for the episode I really enjoyed it. I thought it was intense but not clunky the way a lot of premise pilots can be. I never saw Russian Doll so this is my first time watching Natasha Lyonne, and I love her already!

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I finished Episode 3 and 4 so I came back to read your thoughts. The Benson theme in S4!! Loved that so much. Episode 3 was my favorite of the first 4. The jokes just really worked. The part where the killer got annoyed because the car was electric. So good!

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I think the Poker Face review link is broken.

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Thank you, it should be fixed now.

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Speaking of PI-like shows, do you remember which shows you listed for the article (as the slideshow has disappeared)?

https://uproxx.com/sepinwall/magnum-pi-veronica-mars-more-tvs-best-private-detectives-ever/

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I do not! However, I recently did a new version of that kind of list for the January print issue of Rolling Stone, accompanying the Poker Face feature. So if you're genuinely curious, I imagine it's on newsstands (and/or at Barnes & Nobles outlets) near you.

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Glad to know I wasn’t alone about the “zombie” references. Mostly because the games/show have made it so clear that they are nothing like zombies.

They aren’t out to eat brains, they attack with speed, they have a clear fungal infection spreading agenda somewhat based in science, etc.

George A. Romero is rolling in his grave right now at the idea of these being called zombies just as he objected to the people infected by the Rage virus in 28 DAYS LATER being called zombies while he was still alive.

I get not calling each variation of The Infected by their exact name since you didn’t play the source material, and it was certainly annoying that location played a part in what traditional zombies were called on ‘The Walking Dead’, but at least consider using “Infected”.

Thank you for reading and for your potential reconsideration. Regardless of your stance, I’ll continue reading your fantastic recaps of ‘The Last of Us’. Cheers.

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