I’m still pretty much a dumbass and I’m doing just fine
Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2023
#5 : Poker Face
It’s hard to think of many more exciting prospects than Knives Out’s Rian Johnson doing a murder-mystery series that’s a homage to case-of-the-week detective shows like Columbo – and which stars the wondrous Natasha Lyonne. Judging by this daftly enjoyable show, there’s a very good reason for that. From its masterly feature-length opener to ludicrously watchable episodes about murderous retirement-home pensioners, it was a riot packed with stellar guest star performances from the likes of Adrien Brody, Rhea Perlman and Chloë Sevigny. Bring on season two.
Skipping over #4 for the time being (it's in progress, but I'm taking my sweet time over it) brings us to this. I know everyone went mad for Russian Doll but I watched one episode and never went back to it - was seemed fine but no more than that and I found Natasha Lyonne's character annoying. So, whilst I realise I'm being completely unreasonable, I probably wouldn't have bothered with this.
The structure of most episodes is quite unconventional - the murder happens at the beginning of the episode and makes it perfectly clear who is being murdered by whom and why. And then we back up a bit and explain how Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) came to find herself related to the "murder of the week" and how she comes to resolve it and then she moves on - it's like a cross between "Murder She Wrote" and "The Littlest Hobo" (with amusingly Columbo-style retro titles).
It's well written with many a good turn of phrase but I actually didn't like the "howdunnit?" structure - I felt it removed too much of the tension. Charlie also put herself into far too much danger at times, but you knew perfectly well she wasn't going to get killed because that would have given the season a somewhat premature end. Some of the later episodes manage to do a better job of maintaining some tension (episode 9 in particular) and they are all the better for it (in my humble opinion). And then, all of a sudden, episode 10 gives us several major (and unexpected) plot swivels - it's all very well done. But I can't help but feel that plenty of people would have given up around episode 4...
However, the "on the move" structure did mean that we could have an enjoyable variety of different locations and a particularly fine set of guest stars - yes, we had all the big names The Guardian mentioned but others involved include John Ratzenberger (Cliff from Cheers), Simon Helberg (Howard from Big Bang Theory), K Callan (Superman's mum from Lois & Clark), Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother Where Art Thou?), Cherry Jones (President Allison Taylor from 24), Nick Nolte, Tim Ross (Tuvok from Star Trek : Voyager), Luiz Guzman (LOADS of things, but most recently Gomez Addams in Wednesday), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (obviously best known as "Hourly Dong" in Glass Onion), David Castañeda (Diego in The Umbrella Academy) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy). All in all, a great selection of faces that you recognise without necessarily knowing where from and definitely upping the "Murder She Wrote" feel.
But something like this always comes down to the central performance and Natasha does a fine job - she's engaging and strong enough to carry the series. I do still find her somewhat annoying though, but maybe that's just me. It's also well shot - there's a lot of well very composed frames with some nice lighting and there's often a knowing nod to the 70s & 80s TV shows in there.
Yes, it's got a pretty silly central concept but it's consistent within that concept and works well as a result, and I definitely felt it improved as the season went on. I have my doubts that it was the fifth best thing on TV last year, but it's very entertaining and features a great central performance - if you fancy it then it's on Apple TV.
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