Similarly, where Columbo had cameos by William Shatner and Johnny Cash, Poker Face brims with game-for-a-chuckle guest stars. In each episode, Charlie blunders upon a new murder – and proceeds to unmask the culprit before the final credits. Starring the charismatically husky Natasha Lyonne as Charlie, a hard-drinking cocktail waitress with the semi-mystical ability to detect lies, it’s a larkishly enjoyable feat of cultural mixology.Īrriving in the UK nearly six months after its American debut as a boxset on Sky Max, the series executes the “killer of the week” formula to near-perfection. With his first television project, Poker Face (Sky Max), he works his roguish magic on that most geriatric of genres: the Seventies “mystery of the week” thriller.īut while the creaky, crabby spirit of The Rockford Files, Kojak and, especially, Peter Falk’s Columbo infuse Poker Face, the 10-episode series is no awkward cover version.
Having steamrollered Star Wars with the divisive The Last Jedi and friskily reinvented the whodunnit via his Knives Out movies, writer-director Rian Johnson has become one of popular entertainment’s pre-eminent mischief makers.
