One of the
odder developments in television - and this is a medium that
has found fame for volunteer castaways and the workplace
stylings of Donald Trump, among other freakish things - is
the popularity of
Texas HoldEm
poker shows.
Yes, Texas HoldEm poker shows. You sit and watch other people play cards. You don't participate in any way, other than watching. Which, in truth, is pretty much what you're doing when you're watching a football game.
Still. Poker? It seems so bizarre.
But if there's any doubt that it's a popular trend, here comes ESPN with Tilt, a drama series about Texas HoldEm poker and the people who play it. That the network made Playmakers, a dramatic series that took a dark look inside the NFL, wasn't a surprise. That it would make a dramatic series about poker is something else, and speaks to the popularity of the game. Apparently the network - which televises the real-life World Series of Poker - believes there's enough interest to justify a show chronicling the away-from-the-table lives of card players.
And who knows? Maybe ESPN is right.
Not because the show is so great. Weighed down by overacting and clichés, it isn't. But the interest in the game is definitely there, because the real-life poker shows have tapped into the secret that NASCAR discovered. For years, NASCAR marketed itself as car vs. car - Ford vs. Chevy, Chevy vs. Dodge, whatever. Unless you spent large chunks of your weekend changing oil or switching out spark plugs, who cared?
At some point the people behind the sport decided to market personalities instead. So races became Dale Earnhardt vs. Jeff Gordon or Mark Martin vs. Dale Earnhardt Jr., and the fan base exploded.
The popular notion is that the use of tiny lipstick cameras, which allow viewers to see the cards players are holding, is what made the World Poker Tour an influential hit on the Travel Channel. While that helped, nothing drives the show's popularity as much as building its episodes around the personalities of the people playing. Doyle Brunson vs. Chris Ferguson or Jennifer Harmon vs. Annie Duke is a lot more compelling than full house vs. straight. Watching someone shuffle isn't all that interesting. Watching someone you feel like you know sweat out a bluff is.
Tilt taps into personalities, too, but not the relatively clean-cut ones you'll find competing on the Travel Channel. Instead, we find the likes of Don "the Matador" Everest, (Michael Madsen) an aging, grizzled player whose aggressive, possibly dirty reputation - he has also written a bestselling book about the game - intimidates everyone in the city. He's also given to ridiculous bon mots such as, "A set of deuces is kind of like a mackerel in the moonlight. One minute it's real shiny, the next it stinks."
Noted.
The Matador has fleeced plenty of people; three (Eddie Cibrian, Kristin Lehman and Todd Williams) have banded together to get revenge. Tilt follows their complicated setup to take the Matador down. There's also a small-town sheriff (Chris Bauer) who's sure the Matador is playing a dirty game, one that ruined his brother. Then there's the upcoming World Poker Championships, which the Matador needs to win to prove he's not over the hill.
It's difficult to make a show about the inner workings of Las Vegas. How do you reflect a place that's already an overheated parody of a city in any meaningful way? Las Vegas, NBC's drama, tries by not taking itself too seriously, an effective approach if you're aiming to make a guilty pleasure.
Tilt, on the other hand, goes for heavy drama but is sunk by clichés. The poker is intriguing. The pros win when they have to, but some strategic losing goes on as well. And the show assumes a certain amount of knowledge of the game, wasting little time explaining terms and hands.
But every character is practically a caricature, Madsen's included. Cibrian and Williams have a particularly juicy exchange, after (again) challenging each other, even as they're working together to bring down the Matador.
Williams' character, Clark, stares Cibrian's Eddie down and says, "When this is all done I can't wait to go head to head with you like Creed and Rocky at the end of III."
"Ding, ding," Eddie replies.
Whew. Rocky III references. You don't hear those every day. With good reason.
The game everyone plays here, day and night - apparently no one sleeps - is, of course, Texas HoldEm. As one character puts it, "That's all anybody wants to play since they put it on TV."
That's just one of several references to the popularity of the game. Bart "Lowball" Rogers (Don McManus), the owner of the Colorado Casino, says, "People act like poker's a new game. It ain't. Same game it's always been. The zeros are just different."
But the zeros are only different - more of them, he means - because of the popularity brought on by the TV coverage. Good thing for Lowball and the actor who plays him. Tilt couldn't have existed without it.
Yes, Texas HoldEm poker shows. You sit and watch other people play cards. You don't participate in any way, other than watching. Which, in truth, is pretty much what you're doing when you're watching a football game.
Still. Poker? It seems so bizarre.
But if there's any doubt that it's a popular trend, here comes ESPN with Tilt, a drama series about Texas HoldEm poker and the people who play it. That the network made Playmakers, a dramatic series that took a dark look inside the NFL, wasn't a surprise. That it would make a dramatic series about poker is something else, and speaks to the popularity of the game. Apparently the network - which televises the real-life World Series of Poker - believes there's enough interest to justify a show chronicling the away-from-the-table lives of card players.
And who knows? Maybe ESPN is right.
Not because the show is so great. Weighed down by overacting and clichés, it isn't. But the interest in the game is definitely there, because the real-life poker shows have tapped into the secret that NASCAR discovered. For years, NASCAR marketed itself as car vs. car - Ford vs. Chevy, Chevy vs. Dodge, whatever. Unless you spent large chunks of your weekend changing oil or switching out spark plugs, who cared?
At some point the people behind the sport decided to market personalities instead. So races became Dale Earnhardt vs. Jeff Gordon or Mark Martin vs. Dale Earnhardt Jr., and the fan base exploded.
The popular notion is that the use of tiny lipstick cameras, which allow viewers to see the cards players are holding, is what made the World Poker Tour an influential hit on the Travel Channel. While that helped, nothing drives the show's popularity as much as building its episodes around the personalities of the people playing. Doyle Brunson vs. Chris Ferguson or Jennifer Harmon vs. Annie Duke is a lot more compelling than full house vs. straight. Watching someone shuffle isn't all that interesting. Watching someone you feel like you know sweat out a bluff is.
Tilt taps into personalities, too, but not the relatively clean-cut ones you'll find competing on the Travel Channel. Instead, we find the likes of Don "the Matador" Everest, (Michael Madsen) an aging, grizzled player whose aggressive, possibly dirty reputation - he has also written a bestselling book about the game - intimidates everyone in the city. He's also given to ridiculous bon mots such as, "A set of deuces is kind of like a mackerel in the moonlight. One minute it's real shiny, the next it stinks."
Noted.
The Matador has fleeced plenty of people; three (Eddie Cibrian, Kristin Lehman and Todd Williams) have banded together to get revenge. Tilt follows their complicated setup to take the Matador down. There's also a small-town sheriff (Chris Bauer) who's sure the Matador is playing a dirty game, one that ruined his brother. Then there's the upcoming World Poker Championships, which the Matador needs to win to prove he's not over the hill.
It's difficult to make a show about the inner workings of Las Vegas. How do you reflect a place that's already an overheated parody of a city in any meaningful way? Las Vegas, NBC's drama, tries by not taking itself too seriously, an effective approach if you're aiming to make a guilty pleasure.
Tilt, on the other hand, goes for heavy drama but is sunk by clichés. The poker is intriguing. The pros win when they have to, but some strategic losing goes on as well. And the show assumes a certain amount of knowledge of the game, wasting little time explaining terms and hands.
But every character is practically a caricature, Madsen's included. Cibrian and Williams have a particularly juicy exchange, after (again) challenging each other, even as they're working together to bring down the Matador.
Williams' character, Clark, stares Cibrian's Eddie down and says, "When this is all done I can't wait to go head to head with you like Creed and Rocky at the end of III."
"Ding, ding," Eddie replies.
Whew. Rocky III references. You don't hear those every day. With good reason.
The game everyone plays here, day and night - apparently no one sleeps - is, of course, Texas HoldEm. As one character puts it, "That's all anybody wants to play since they put it on TV."
That's just one of several references to the popularity of the game. Bart "Lowball" Rogers (Don McManus), the owner of the Colorado Casino, says, "People act like poker's a new game. It ain't. Same game it's always been. The zeros are just different."
But the zeros are only different - more of them, he means - because of the popularity brought on by the TV coverage. Good thing for Lowball and the actor who plays him. Tilt couldn't have existed without it.